In Ontario, we have walked in your shoes.

In 1995, already low social assistance rates in Ontario were reduced by 21.6%. Five years later, cost of living increases had raised the cut to 30%. In 1996, two-thirds of shelters in Ontario reported that women were making the decision to remain with or return to abusers because of the welfare cuts. A year later, shelters were reporting that women who did leave abusive situations eating less, visiting food banks, calling the shelter for food and going without medicine so their children could eat.

Legal Aid was also cut-in family law, where most women go, certificates for legal aid were cut by 75%. Since then, many women have been unable to find lawyers that will take legal aid certificates, especially in Northern and rural communities, in spite of violence being a priority for Legal Aid funding. Many women go unrepresented into court in family law disputes that could endanger their safety and that of their children.

At the same time as social supports have been falling apart in Ontario, women's shelters, women's centres and women's advocacy services were also cut. Second stage shelter program funding was eliminated. By 1998, crisis calls to shelters had dramatically increased, but almost two-thirds of shelters could not provide the same service as before the cuts. Women have to stay longer in emergency shelters because there is little subsidized housing available and on welfare rates, women can't afford market rents. Abused women and their children often have to live in the worst housing in town.

In Ontario almost 85% of shelters say that local supports and services for women and children have declined since 1995 and waiting lists are now at crisis levels. Shelters haven't been able to pick up the slack for these lost supports.

Women and children find it harder to find space in an emergency shelter. Those women who do, find it harder to move out on their own after their stay. Women who make it to independent living face ongoing crises because they can't afford to live. Breakdown of systems like legal aid, child care, housing and welfare mean that women face increasing barriers. For women of colour, Immigrant women, Aboriginal women and women with Disabilities the impact is much worse as communities polarize and women are driven further to the margins.

Sadly, our worst fears about the impacts of all these cuts have come true. Last week we learned that murders of women by their male partners have increased in Canada, with virtually all of the increase in Ontario. It is no surprise that when the conditions and supports women need to escape violence are removed, there will be dire consequences.

Clearly, we have more to do here in Ontario and we will continue that struggle here. We support your fight back against the same erosion of women's rights in B.C.

Women from across Ontario have joined together over the past seven years to build a united voice against the dismantling of our services and supports. We join with women in British Columbia in sisterhood and solidarity against any cuts that violate security and equality rights for women!! We know you will win!!

Eileen Morrow, Coordinator
Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH)