WomanACT welcomes the debate on Lydia’s Law at Queen’s Park and urges all members of the Legislature to support it.
Lydia’s Law would bring much-needed transparency and accountability to how Ontario’s justice system handles sexual assault cases. It would require the Attorney General to report publicly, every year, on progress implementing key recommendations from the Auditor General’s 2019 audit of Ontario’s criminal court system; create a standing mechanism to review that progress; review the adequacy of the Victim Quick Response Program; and ensure survivors are made aware of the various independent legal advice avenues available to them.
What gets measured gets managed, and right now, Ontario does not consistently publish why these cases fall apart.
Lydia’s Law builds on the Auditor General’s 2019 audit of Ontario’s criminal court system, which urged the Ministry of the Attorney General to report publicly on how the court system is performing and to record why criminal cases are stayed or withdrawn before trial. Because those recommendations concern the court system as a whole, the transparency Lydia’s Law would create reaches intimate partner violence cases, not only sexual assault. Survivors of gender-based violence: whether they have experienced sexual assault, intimate partner violence, or human trafficking, deserve a justice system that is transparent about its own performance and accountable for improving it.
“Survivors are asked to be extraordinarily resilient simply to be heard. Lydia’s Law would not ask that of them: it would ask the system to account for itself. After more than twenty years in this sector, I have seen again and again how the absence of data becomes the absence of accountability. This is a practical, common-sense bill, and survivors deserve to see it fully debated and brought to a vote.”
— Harmy Mendoza, Executive Director, WomanACT
Ontario’s survivors have waited long enough; WomanACT urges the Legislature to advance Lydia’s Law through the legislative process without further delay and enact the systemic reforms necessary to strengthen accountability, coordination, and survivor safety. Passing Lydia’s Law is an opportunity to move beyond acknowledgment toward implementation and demonstrate a clear commitment to meaningful, system-wide change.
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