Gender-based violence: N.S. committee hears
distressing testimony from mother of four
A Nova Scotia legislative committee heard disturbing testimony Tuesday from a mother of four who described how her spouse allegedly subjected them to harassment while the police and courts seemed unable to help.
Lucy Bowser’s raw account of her family’s struggles were part of a wider discussion about gender-based violence. Several other advocates and government officials offered their take on what needs to be done to counter a problem that the province declared an epidemic last September.
“We have been left for years feeling helpless and scared,” Bowser told the health committee. “This is a ticking time bomb.”
She said her youngest children, ages 16 and 14, allegedly endured threats of kidnapping and harassment of every form, which left them traumatized. Her daughter did not leave their home for two years, and her son encouraged her to sleep with a crowbar in her bed for protection, she said.
Bowser also recalled how her children were so fearful of what would happen that they would send her texts to make sure she was still alive.
“They live on the edge of an impending emergency,” she told the committee.
When she approached police for help, she said she faced resistance and a “cloud of doubt.” Getting a no-contact order from the courts was a difficult process filled with barriers, she added.
Bowser said that earlier this year, her spouse was criminally charged, but she did not offer details.
In the past seven months, police in Nova Scotia have reported the deaths of seven women were the result of intimate partner violence, a distressing spike that has led to increased scrutiny of how the province is responding.
Rachel Shepherd, executive director of Bryony House, said the emergency shelter for 36 women and children in the Halifax region is consistently full and always has a waiting list.
“In the past year, our team has responded to thousands of calls and texts on our distress line,” she said. “We sheltered hundreds of women and children — for some, as long as 12 months.”
Other advocates made it clear that getting predictable, long-term funding was an ongoing problem.
Ann de Ste Croix, executive director of the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia, described gender-based violence as a “public health crisis,” adding that as of last year, Nova Scotia recorded Canada’s third highest rate of femicide, which is defined as an intentional killing with a gender-related motivation.
“Too often, women and their families who seek safety are met with systemic gaps instead of support,” she said. “We’re seeing a growing number of women showing up at shelters with complex and intersecting needs, such a trauma, substance use and mental health challenges — yet few have access to the services required.”
Susan Leblanc, an Opposition NDP member, reminded the committee that the public inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting recommended that governments should contribute “epidemic-level” funding to programs aimed at combating intimate partner violence. That recommendation was in response to evidence that the man who killed 22 people in April 2020 began his rampage by brutally assaulting his common-law wife.
“We know we have an epidemic,” Leblanc said. “Are we actually working with epidemic-level funding?”
Meghan Hansford, manager of housing with Adsum for Women and Children, said that wasn’t the case.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” she said. “The programs that are operating right now are overwhelmed and exhausted. Every day it is hard to offer hope to those we are serving … We need epidemic-level funding.”
Two government officials told the committee that the province considers dealing with gender-based violence a high priority.
The Justice Department, for example, has established a gender-based violence division and has provided $7 million for domestic violence courts, counselling for victims and other programs. As well, the government’s spring budget set aside $100 million to deal with gender-based violence, which includes $17.9 million over four years for the Transition House Association.
17-year sentence for man who sexually abused 33 children
including an 18 month old in Saskatchewan
Former world junior hockey player tears up at ex-teammates’ sex assault trial
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains details that may be are graphic. Reader discretion is advised.
A former member of Canada’s world junior hockey team briefly broke down in tears Thursday at the sexual assault trial of five of his ex-teammates as he faced questions over texts he sent a week after the encounter at the heart of the case.
Brett Howden teared up as he described feeling scared and nervous after learning Hockey Canada had launched an investigation into the June 19, 2018, encounter and realizing he would have to explain the situation to his parents and his girlfriend, now his wife.
Howden was being questioned during a voir-dire — essentially a trial within a trial — over a text conversation he had with another then-teammate, Taylor Raddysh, on June 26, 2018.
In the exchange, Howden recounts some of the events of that night, including a moment when he said one of the accused, Dillon Dube, slapped the complainant on the buttocks.
The Crown is seeking to introduce some of those texts as evidence due to Howden’s lack of memory on certain details of the events and the statements he has made in the past.
Dube, Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton and Callan Foote have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault. McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.
The trial centres on an encounter that took place in a hotel in downtown London, Ont., where several members of the 2018 national world junior team were staying while in town for a Hockey Canada gala.
Prosecutors allege McLeod, Hart and Dube obtained oral sex from the woman without her consent, and Dube slapped her buttocks while she was engaged in a sexual act with someone else.
Foote is accused of doing the splits over her face and grazing his genitals on it without her consent. Formenton is alleged to have had vaginal sex with the complainant inside the bathroom without her consent.
The woman first encountered several of the players at a downtown bar and ended up leaving with McLeod and having sex in his hotel room, an encounter that is not part of the trial, court has heard.
Afterward, the woman testified, a number of men came into the room. She was naked, drunk and felt she had to go along with what they wanted, performing sexual acts while on “autopilot,” the woman said.
Defence lawyers have suggested the woman participated in and even instigated the sexual activity, repeatedly egging on the players and urging them to have sex with her.
Howden, who now plays in the NHL for the Vegas Golden Knights, has testified he went to McLeod’s room because he wanted food and was surprised to find a woman there.
The woman started “begging” the players to have sex with her, and two of them — Hart and McLeod — received oral sex, he said. Howden said he saw Formenton head toward the bathroom with the woman but didn’t see them go in.
He also mentioned Dube “spanking” the woman, but said he couldn’t remember if he’d seen it.
The Crown is seeking to introduce as evidence texts sent to Raddysh about that specific allegation.
“Dude, I’m so happy I left when all the s–t went down haha,” the message reads. “When I was leaving, Duber (Dube) was smacking this girl’s a– so hard, like it looked like it hurt so bad.”
Randall Hopley re-arrested hours after release from Mission, B.C prison
Notorious sex offender Randall Hopley has been re-arrested shortly after he obtained statutory release from prison.
Hopley was released on Thursday morning from Mission Institution and was directed to reside at a halfway house in Vancouver.
Police said he refused the directions of his parole officer and left the halfway house.
A Canada-wide warrant was issued, and Hopley was arrested by Vancouver police on Thursday afternoon.
He remains in custody, police said.
B.C. Premier Daivd Eby called the incident outrageous.
“The last time Mr. Hopley was released, he terrified a family and the entire province,” Eby said.
“I can’t fathom how he would be released again, and also deeply disappointed that notification was not provided by Corrections Canada to the public, especially in the immediate area of where Mr. Hopley was planned to be released, so people could prepare.”
Eby added that he wants to thank the Vancouver police for being on top of the situation but cases like these highlight how confidence in the justice system is being tested.
“This was a decision, as I understand, made by federal corrections,” he said.
“One of the key messages that came from the premier’s table that we will be communicating to the federal government is that the federal legal requirements around least restrictive means of holding somebody, whether its for bail or otherwise, that the emphasis should be on release is something that is really testing the public’s confidence in the justice system right now.”
In a statement to Global News, Corrections Canada said that before an offender is released into any community, it undertakes “comprehensive pre-release planning, including the completion of a community supervision plan that outlines the measures required for the protection of society.”
This is not the first time Hopley has left his halfway house.
Hopley was charged in 2024 after disappearing from his halfway house in November 2023.
He went missing for 10 days in 2023, and the convicted sex offender cut off his ankle monitoring device before he fled the facility.
He was sentenced to spend another 18 months in jail.
In 2024, Hopley pleaded guilty to failing to attend court, breaking a long-term supervision order by being in the presence of children under 16 and failing or refusing to comply with a long-term supervision order by failing to reside at a community residential facility on April 26, 2023.
Hopley is known for abducting a three-year-old boy from a southeastern B.C. home in 2011.
The 59-year-old made international headlines in September 2011 after he kidnapped the child from his Sparwood home, triggering an Amber Alert and a Canada-wide search.
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