Province must do better on family violence: ministers
The ministers in charge of justice and the status of women say Alberta has not done a good job in handling cases of domestic violence, and must do better to ensure the system doesn’t fail more women like Colleen Sillito.
“This was a really, really tragic circumstance and I think that it certainly indicates for government to perhaps review some of its processes, especially in light of the statistics in Alberta,” said Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley after meeting Wednesday with Sillito’s family.
“We should be looking to ourselves to say what could we have done better to prevent this from happening. … The big take-away message from this is that this was a person who was in need of protection and unfortunately we didn’t do an enormously good job of that.”
Sillito, a mother of five, was shot to death Oct. 2 outside her Fort Saskatchewan home by her exboyfriend, Paul Joseph Jacob, who was under a court order not to have contact with her. Sillito, a photographer and yoga instructor, applied for a restraining order against Jacob in January.
Her family called for the province to launch a fatality inquiry into her death and met with Ganley and Sta- tus of Women Minister Shannon Phillips to talk about their concerns. “This is a very tough subject for them and a very tough subject or us,” Phillips said.
She said she encouraged the family to speak with the Family Violence Death Review Committee, established in 2013 by the Human Services Department to suggest how to improve programs and policies. Between 2008 and 2010, Alberta recorded 117 deaths from family violence.
“Alberta does lag the rest of the country in a number of different ways in respect to violence against women,” Phillips said.
Ganley said she told the family the chief medical officer continues to investigate Sillito’s death, and will make a recommendation to her whether or not to proceed with a public fatality inquiry.
The province is currently reviewing its fatality inquiry system. Under that system, a judge reviews preventable deaths and makes recommendations on ways to prevent similar deaths in the future. An internal Alberta Justice document obtained by CBC said the system is antiquated, dysfunctional and doesn’t prevent deaths, since the recommendations aren’t tracked or always implemented.