Murder inquest jurors take rare step to join 1-year reunion

In what's being billed as a unique move, jurors who took part in a coroner's inquest in Renfrew County last year that centred on violence against women are expected to join a gathering this week to measure the provincial government's response.

"In my time here this is the first I've seen of it," said Prabhu Rajan, chief counsel for the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario since 2016.

"I think it really is a reflection of the impact the case had on the jurors and on the community."

Last summer in Pembroke, a weeks-long inquest examined the 2015 murders of three women in and around the county: Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam.

All three women were murdered on the same day by the same man, despite red flags about his potential to inflict further harm.

Over 14 days of evidence, the jurors heard about everything from underfunded services for victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) to missed opportunities by Ontario's probation and parole service following the man's prior convictions involving two of the women he eventually murdered.

The jury — three men and two women recruited from Renfrew, Griffith, Petawawa, Chalk River and Pembroke — suggested the provincial and federal governments, and other groups, adopt 86 recommendations including numerous preventative measures. 

The last recommendation called on all the groups officially taking part in the inquest — the Office of the Chief Coroner, the Ontario government, the advocacy group End Violence Against Women Renfrew County, and Warmerdam's son Malcolm — to reconvene in a year's time "to discuss the progress in implementing these recommendations."

The jurors were invited to come back too. Rajan said last week he believed four would go to Pembroke in person for Wednesday morning's private meeting (the contents of the meeting can be discussed publicly).

"They felt their community was very much impacted by these three femicides and they wanted to make sure the folks that receive recommendations kept moving," Rajan said. 

Waiting for part 2 of Ontario's response

The Ontario government shouldered the vast majority of the recommendations. The province's initial response, filed in February, didn't address 29 of the 75 recommendations aimed its way, including:

• Formally declaring IPV a provincial epidemic — a step some local governments, including Renfrew County, have taken.
• A plan for housing IPV survivors fleeing abusers. 
• Funding for safe rooms inside survivor homes. 
• A 24/7 hotline for men at risk of committing IPV. 
• Consider allowing police services to disclose information about a person's history of IPV to new or future partners, following in the footsteps of similar laws in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. 
• Creating a record of past IPV abuses and charges that's accessible to all police services. 
• Reviewing the practice of mandatory charging, where police are required to charge someone with assault if they feel they have reasonable grounds to do so.
• Studying judge's decisions in IPV-related cases.

At the time, the province said the unaddressed recommendations demanded more analysis and collaboration. It expected to address those in a second response by the end of June. 

As of Thursday, the Office of the Chief Coroner said it had not received that response.

In an emailed statement on Friday from the Office of the Solicitor General, the province said it would provide part two of its response "soon." 

Kirsten Mercer, the lawyer who represented EVA Renfrew County during the inquest, hoped to get it sooner. 

"It's disappointing we're going to receive probably another large volume of material from the government without really having lots of time to digest it," she said. "But frankly, I'd rather them get it right." 

Until Friday, it was unclear whether Ontario would attend this week's meetup. CBC News first reached out to the province on June 15 to ask whether it would participate. The Office of the Solicitor General confirmed Friday it would send representatives. 

The federal government received seven of the 86 recommendations, including a call to establish a royal commission to look at making the criminal justice system "more victim-centric." 

Ottawa hasn't provided its response because, as Rajan explained, it didn't immediately receive a copy of the recommendations due to an administrative error at the Office of the Chief Coroner. 

In an emailed statement, the Department of Justice said it is committed to responding by a deadline of Aug. 14.

Public 'counterpart' event being held

Pamela Cross, the advocacy director at Luke's Place — an Oshawa non-profit that supports women fleeing violence — said the province has also been invited to a "public counterpart" event Luke's Place is hosting in Petawawa on Wednesday afternoon.

Each group responding to the jury's recommendations will be given time to talk about what they've done over the past year. 

Representatives from the Office of the Chief Coroner, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the federal government have said they're going, while "we've heard nothing from the province," Cross said. 

"This government, since it came to office, has not been particularly responsive to the issue of gender-based violence," she added. 

Ontario's chief firearms officer — whom the jury called on to tighten the rules around firearm possession and acquisition licences, after the inquest heard the perpetrator used a gun even though he was prohibited from having firearms — declined Luke's Place's invitation, Cross said. 

"We have heard from some of the jurors they will be coming to our event," she said. "They're guaranteed anonymity and privacy."

Malcolm Warmerdam, who previously spoke to CBC News as Warmerdam's daughter, especially hoped a representative from Ontario's probation and parole service would go to Pembroke. 

The inquest heard the perpetrator repeatedly breached his parole conditions, and the service missed opportunities to more closely monitor him while he was out on probation following prior convictions for intimate partner violence against two of his victims. 

In its statement, the Office of the Solicitor General said the murderer "who committed these heinous crimes should never have been released in the first place and he was given too many second chances by the justice system." 

Warmerdam said Ontario's delayed response was not "[setting] this process up for success."

The province pointed to its announcement earlier this year of funding for police officers to pursue people who aren't following their bail conditions.

"We know there is more to do, and the Renfrew jury recommendations will help inform our future investments in comprehensive anti-crime programs and policy changes," according to the statement. 

Mercer said the passage of time is measured in women's lives.

"We have to treat this with the urgency it requires."