Q&A: What was said to Premier Tim Houston ahead of intimate partner violence bill

One of the women who spoke to Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston ahead of his change of heart on the bill to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic in the province is recounting the moments on Thursday that led to the decision.

The bill, brought forward by the province’s NDP, got a sudden and unexpected all-party approval and was fast-tracked through the process within minutes.

Jennifer Murray, the Atlantic regional director of Unifor, told CBC’s Maritime Noon on Friday that it was a roller-coaster of a day. Murray said she and a few other advocates were invited to the legislature on Thursday by NDP Leader Claudia Chender because she was going to bring the bill forward. Murray overheard the premier telling reporters that he didn’t think the bill was necessary because the province was doing other things to address the problem.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What did you think when you heard the premier say he didn’t think the intimate partner violence bill was needed?

Of course, myself and the advocates that were with us from Unifor were highly disappointed in these comments, having not even read the bill yet.

And so we made sure that when he was walking by to exit the legislature, we took an opportunity to let him know that is absolutely unacceptable and there’s many reasons why.

We had one of our advocates that is a survivor express a little bit of her frustration.

And then after that, we again spoke to the media. We spoke to [Nova Scotia Liberal Leader] Zach Churchill, who told us that he and his party were in full support of the bill and we would work together to get this passed.

So we exited the legislature after all of that and as we were going our own ways, the premier came out and asked if he could speak with us. And so he was calling everybody back and expressing the fact that he’d now had a look at the bill and wondered if we’d be OK if he brought it forward and passed the bill in the legislature that very same day.

What would the plan have been if the bill didn’t pass?

After his media scrum, we walked away thinking this was not going to get passed and we had a lot of work to do to continue to advocate. We had said that we weren’t going to lose hope, that we were going to push the premier to do the right thing, that Nova Scotians deserve this legislation and that we were going to work towards encouraging him and continue the work to encourage him to pass this bill. And then when we were outside and the premier came out and actually called us over in the parking lot, that’s when he said he was interested in passing the bill that day.

How much time would you say it took the premier to change his mind?

I would say 20 minutes, maybe a half an hour at most.

What do you think changed his mind?

The message we delivered to the premier was there’s bold statements that were made that it is an epidemic and we are declaring it an epidemic. But words are words and we have to make sure we are putting actions behind the words.

Koren Beaman shared a little bit of her story and the fact she is a women’s advocate in her workplace, which is the Halifax Shipyard. [She said] women are coming [to work] who are living as victims of domestic violence and our shelters are at capacity. And [if] the only safe place for women to be is in their workplace for eight hours a day, then there needs to be some bold action taken here. And the first step is declaring it an epidemic.

And so, I don’t know if it was the fact that sometimes we need to put real-life stories and real-life situations to faces, and people in government need to hear those really tough stories. I don’t know if it was that. I would like to think that just giving it some thought, putting himself in the shoes of others, that changed his mind here.

There was something really special that happened here. There was no colour in the legislature [on Thursday], literally you saw the Nova Scotia government coming together and unanimously supporting and recognizing the crisis Nova Scotians are living together.

People are dying daily in domestic violence situations and we need to address it like the crisis it is. There were tears, there were tears of joy, there was a complete celebration, the unanimous passing. And it was at the snap of the fingers. This is what happens when government works together in the right direction to fix something.

When we left the legislature and we were at the top of the stairs looking down, many people from government were standing at the bottom of the stairs cheering and just so happy that this got passed. Many shared stories of their own experiences, whether it be through childhood or having lived through domestic violence and thanking Unifor and the NDP for bringing this forward.

At the end of it, many of the media folks there came over and told us they’ve never seen anything like this, something getting passed so quickly. And it just demonstrates the power that our collective strength and uniting as one has. And we were really happy with the outcome. 

This bill is connected to recommendations that came from the Mass Casualty Commission. Besides declaring domestic violence an epidemic, what does it do?

This is going to be a work in progress. In our opinion, this is something that is the first step. This is the action that needed to be taken. And yes, the recommendation came out of the Mass Casualty Commission report, but this is the first step. And there are going to be many steps that we’re going to be advocating for moving forward.

There are, perhaps, policy changes that are going to be needed, there are laws that definitely need to change. We need to address housing and the fact shelters cannot welcome people into that safe space anymore because there is no longer any room to do that. We need to address the need for transitional housing, a safe space for people to go that is affordable. We need to make sure those walls and those barriers are coming down. We’re going to be in the background advocating for all those changes.