Hoping for change this time, as Renfrew County triple femicide inquest looms

After decades of study on homicides resulting from domestic violence in Ontario, and after hundreds of recommendations to stop them have been filed, the people taking part in next week's inquest into the murders of three women around Renfrew County in 2015 remain optimistic that this time, the change they're looking for will come.

In addition to three previous coroner's inquests tied to intimate partnerviolence dating back to 1998, Ontariohas a committee whose sole focus is to reviewdomestic killingsof women, men and children every year, and report back to the chief coroner's office with recommendations to prevent future deaths.

But data onthe response to thecommittee'srecommendationsappearto be unavailable, even by request. And no changes recommended by either the committee orinquest juriesare legally binding.

Survivors' advocates participating inthis latest inquest say they couldresignthemselvesto defeat, but won't.

"They've made the decision to participate not because they think it's a perfect solution or because they think it will magically result in change, but because theycan't afford not to," said Kirsten Mercer, theToronto-basedlawyer and women's advocate who willrepresentEnd Violence Against Women Renfrew County at the inquest, which starts Monday.

The coalition of community organizations and stakeholders is one of three parties granted standing for the public examination of the murders of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam on Sept. 22, 2015, by Basil Borutski, who had known all three of them.

The other twoare Valerie WarmerdamNathalie'sdaughterand the Ontario government.

WATCH | Valerie Warmerdam speaks to reporters following Borutski's sentencing in 2017:

Valerie Warmerdam speaks after Borutski sentencing

7 years ago

Duration 1:11

Valerie Warmerdam speaks after Borutski sentencing

This inquest's focus is on intimate partner violence in a rural context,particularly the challenges posed by distance and isolation, spotty cell service, a lack of public transportation and law enforcement that's often far away. Rural culture is also more accepting of guns, and in small communities privacy is hard to come by and services for domestic violence victims aren't as plentiful or nearby as in cities.

The coalition hasset up a team ithopes willhelp push change forward when the latest raftof recommendations comes through (recommendations aren't a guarantee of coroner's inquestsbut are likely).

Committeeproposes changeevery year

Ontario's Domestic Violence Death Review Committee wasthe firstin Canada when it was established in the early 2000sfollowing recommendations from two big inquestsinto the 1996 murderof Arlene May and 2000 murder of Gillian Hadley, whose estranged partners killedthem before killingthemselves.

There has been a consistent failure by systems to respond as they should despite the amount of information that they already have.- Pamela Cross, lawyer and women's advocate

Since then, the committee hasmade more than 400 recommendations in annual reports stemming from reviews of more than 250 cases up to 2018, the last year its annual report was released. (Its2019-2020 report is not yet finished, according to the chief coroner's office.)

The recommendationsrun the gamut: justices of the peace being made to reviewdomestic homicide casesin which perpetrators had been released on bail;making firearm possessionapplicants include a medical waiver giving investigators access to mental health information; public service announcements warning peopleabout thedanger posed byactual or pending separation, when many domestic killings occur; and swift and certain enforcement action when offendersmakeexcuses and failto attend partner assault responseprograms.

You can keep recommending change until hell freezes over, but if nobody actually makes the change happen, what's the point?- Leighann Burns, family lawyer who works with domestic violence survivors

Many of the proposed changes arerelevant in the case of Borutski, whoflouted court orders to attend partner assault response programsfor the one year, nine months and 12 days he wasn't in jail leading up to the murders.

He killed the three women while on bail for choking one of them, after an Ontario Court justice and assistant Crown prosecutor had told court on the record that Borutski had little to no regard for court orders and wasn't getting help.

No legal obligationto follow through

But the domestic death review committee's recommendations are not binding, norarethe recommendationsmade incoroner's inquests.

Committee work and inquestsare intended to be "collaborative, fact-finding" processes, according to the chief coroner's office, and the office"cannot make findings of guilt or blame or imply responsibility on any person(s) or agency, organization, or other entity."

After inquests, the Office of the Chief Coroner handsrecommendations off to relevant organizations for implementation. Recipients are askedto respond within six months to say whether recommendations were implemented or not, and if not, to state their rationale.

AfterDomestic Violence Death Review Committee recommendations,organizations are similarly askedto report back within six months.

No one is obligated to make change happen, or even to respond.

Review committee datain shadows

One recurrent feature ofrecent death review committee reports is this line, repeatedover and over: "No new recommendations."

Putanother way, "We've filedrecommendations about this, and a year or years later, are seeingthesame thing."

The chief coroner's office didnot provide any examples of implemented death review committee recommendations, and didnot answer questions about why that informationis not available, despite a government websitestating that responses to committee recommendations are available upon request.

As for why the office would notprovide any statistics about the number of committee and inquest recommendations that areimplemented, itsaid "tracking is complicated, as recommendations may be narrowly focused or very far-reaching, be directed to one organization or jointly to many, leading to a wide range of complexity.... Further, as respondents of recommendations are not compelled to respond, a number of responses are not received."

Implemented inquest recommendations to do with domestic violence include "Crimestoppers takingdomestic violence-related calls;specialized courts;education for crown attorneys, police and judges; improved communication; additional crown attorneys and the creation of the death review committee," the office said.

'Doomed to fail'

Leighann Burns has been working with survivorsof intimate partner violence in the Ottawa region for more than 30 years, most recently as a family lawyer, and participated in the 1998 Arlene May inquest.

"It was not the change that we had hoped would come," she said of that process. And nearly 25 years later, she'snot holding her breath for much more.

"You can keep recommending change until hell freezes over, but if nobody actually makes the change happen, what's the point?" Burnssaid.

"... Unless you build in some mechanism to ensure accountability ... that you don't just keep making recommendations that go off into the ether and nobody does anything, all of it is doomed to fail. That's the missing piece that has been missing from all of itfrom the beginning. And it's not like it hasn't been asked for.

"It's the same reaction to the same problem over and over and over again."

(A September 1999 chief coroner's office reportafterthe May inquest statedthat of the 213 recommendations made, 156 had been/would be implemented, 13 had alternates implemented, 38 were under consideration, two weren't applicable and four responses couldn't be evaluated because they were too vague or otherwise undiscernible. It's unclear whether any further tracking took place after the 1999 report.)

Still optimistic

This time around, the coalition of organizations working to help domestic violence survivors in and aroundRenfrew County hopesrecommendations will stick.

Funded bygrants from the Canadian Women's Foundation, End Violence Against Women Renfrew Countywasable to hire lawyer and women's advocate Pamela Crossto conduct a series of meetingswith county residents earlier this spring andreport to the inqueston their concernsand wishes.

Cross who in 2018 resigned from Ontario's Provincial Roundtable on Violence Against Women alongside her co-chair for what they described as a lack of governmentresponse to their inquirieswill alsoattend the inquest, summarize the proceedings,analyze any recommendations and create strategies toward implementation.

"Violence against women, intimate partner violence, sexual violence in this country is rampant. It's only gotten worse over the last two and a half years. There has been a consistent failure by systems to respond as they should despite the amount of information that they already have," Cross said.

"We ...can and must hold the decision-makers accountable so that they can't keep not implementing these recommendations."

A lot of ... changes need to happen within the justice and policing system. Is there the wherewithal to make that happen? I don't know.- JoAnne Brooks, co-ordinator of End Violence Against Women Renfrew County

JoAnne Brooks, who leads End Violence Against Women Renfrew County, is pleasedto have Cross and Mercer working for the coalition, but doesn't know what the future holds.

"If there is not the wherewithal to enforce those recommendations, it feels that things are stalled," said Brooks, who is soon to retire asdirector ofthe Women's Sexual Assault Centre of Renfrew County.

"My hope,really, is that even if one thing can change, that will be for the betterment of women experiencing intimate partner violence.... But who knows if that will happen.A lot of ...changes need to happen within the justice andpolicing system. Is there the wherewithal to make that happen? I don't know."

WATCH | JoAnne Brooks in 2017 discusses the effect the murders had on the community:

Community impact of Borutski murders

7 years ago

Duration 0:30

JoAnne Brooks, executive director of the Women's Sexual Assault Centre of Renfrew County, helped read a community impact statement in court during a sentencing hearing for Basil Borutski.

A complicated issue

Part of the problem is that domestic violence is a complex issue, one whose fixingrequires deep analysisofnot only our institutions, but ourselves: how children are raised to navigaterelationships, getting themhelp if they need it, and getting parentsthe assistancetheyneed to better help their kids.

"If there was any one thing that could have changed the course of events in Renfrew County for these three women, it probably involved this perpetrator getting a whole different kind of support decades and decades and decades ago," said Mercer, the lawyer representing End Violence Against Women Renfrew County at the inquest.

"I don't know that there's any one thing that any justice system, partner or community agency, or any of his exes could have done to save Carol, Anastasia and Nathalie. But we do know that these problems were decades in the making, and so real solutions have to kind of be farther upstream for them to be impactful."

Sentenced to die in prison

In 2017,Borutskiwas sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parolefor 70 yearsfor the murders,long after he is expected to die. By then hewould be 127 years old.

But the Supreme Court of Canada recently declared unconstitutionalthe2011 Criminal Code provision that allowed judges to impose consecutive periods of parole ineligibilityfor multiple murderers,instead ofconcurrent periods.

The law had been applied insome of the country'smost notorious cases, including Borutski's.

The May 27 ruling means any person in Canada who received consecutive periods of parole ineligibility totalling 50 years or more can now applyto be allowed to seek parole after 25 years.

It's not clear whether Borutski who refused to participate in his trial, is now 64 and remainsin federal custodywill apply.