Feds, Ontario must heed recommendations from inquiry into preventable murders of Ottawa Valley women

OTTAWA—Parliamentarians can expect to hear urgent requests this fall to finally do something about the shocking state of violence against women in Canada—a call for action fuelled by revelations of the repeated failures of authorities leading up to a triple femicide in Ontario. A coroner’s inquest jury looking into the preventable murders of three Ottawa Valley women recommended in June that the federal government add the term “femicide” to the Criminal Code and step up implementation of its National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. The inquest heard three weeks of appalling testimony about how police and the justice system were unable to prevent a known violent offender from killing the three at-risk women. The inquest also recommended extensive reforms by the Ontario government, including urging Premier Doug Ford to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic in the province. The inquest was an attempt to learn lessons from the murders of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk, and Nathalie Warmerdam on Sept. 22, 2015. They were all killed in an hour-long murderous rampage by Basil Borutski, a man with whom they previously had relationships. Borutski, who was convicted of three counts of murder in 2017 and is in jail, had exhibited a pattern of extreme violence against intimate partners for 40 years, with a first conviction of assault when he was 20 years old, according to testimony from Peter Jaffe, an expert in gender violence who prepared a report for the inquest. By 2012, Borutski had been in conflict with the law various times, including several domestic violence charges that were withdrawn, dismissed, or stayed, according to a Death Review Committee Report also presented at the inquiry. In December of that year, he was sentenced to 33 days in jail and two years’ probation for assaulting a police officer, two counts of uttering threats toward Warmerdam, mischief, and breach of a peace bond. In 2014, he was back in court on domestic violence charges and was convicted again of more offences, including attempting to choke Kuzyk and assault. He received 160 days in jail and two years’ probation. As a condition of parole, Borutski was supposed to attend counselling programs on the prevention of intimate partner violence. But he managed to put off ever doing so by running circles around his parole officers, who did not charge Borutski for this breach of his probation orders. The inquest showed that the justice system, the police, and probation officers basically failed the victims in every way imaginable. By the time Borutski was released in late 2014, officials were becoming aware that he was a high risk to reoffend. Kirsten Mercer, a lawyer representing a women’s group, unearthed an email concerning Borutski from an institutional rehabilitation officer to the probation service at that time. “It is my opinion that the victims are at risk from this individual,” the officer wrote. “It has been my experience with abusers such as this one … that he will not comply at all. You will have to breach, breach, breach, and breach him forever.” Considering the evidence, Mercer said of Borutski: "What sits with me … is the sense that there actually might have been reason that he should have been back in jail on the day of the murders.” A common theme emerging from the inquest concerns Canadians’ overall failure to deal with violence against women. In 2021 alone, 173 women and girls were violently killed in Canada, with the vast majority of the accused being male, research shows. Pamela Cross, a lawyer and women’s advocate, said this violence won’t stop until its underlying causes are recognized and addressed. “The perpetrator can be anyone, but the bottom line is that it is about power and control. For many, that behaviour is part of an accepted culture and identity in the family, in faith groups, in classrooms and locker rooms,” she said. “It’s part of our value system.” The sweeping 86 recommendations from the coroner’s inquest underscore the extensive, deeply rooted nature of the problem. They range from introducing tougher laws, better surveillance of offenders, and better communication between authorities and would-be victims to advancing education for justice officials and increasing financing for victims’ support services. Also, offenders in intimate partner violence cases should be required to forfeit their firearms licences, a longstanding but never implemented recommendation in Ontario arising from prior incidents. Despite assurances that the Ford government will consider acting on the inquest’s recommendations, expectations for major reforms seem, at best, lukewarm. And the wider picture, at a time when COVID restrictions have led to rising domestic violence, is not encouraging. There have been reports that the Borutski trial only served to raise the level of threats against women from abusive partners in the Ottawa Valley region. Les Whittington is a regular columnist for The Hill Times. The Hill Times