REGINA – The Saskatchewan NDP is criticizing the government for not moving fast enough on preventing domestic violence.
“They stated in their campaign that they were going to put money on this issue once the price of oil went up. That’s simply unacceptable,” NDP MLA Nicole Sarauer said. “We need to be addressing this now and as soon as possible.”
The opposition is calling for the implementation of a death review committee immediately to seek out ways domestic homicides can be prevented.
Originally, Justice Minister Gordon Wyant promised to have one created by October 2015.
However, Wyant says the government did commit $11 million in last year’s budget to domestic violence, and that work is being done to finalize a panel of experts.
“We’re almost complete in having the panel together. We hope to be able to announce the names of that panel within a week or two. And we expect they will start work on their review by the end of June,” Justice Minister Gordon Wyant said.
According to Stats Canada, Saskatchewan has the highest rate of domestic violence deaths per-capita among all the provinces.