June 15, 2026

We are writing on behalf of the Leadership Table for Waterloo Region’s Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Strategy.

This collaborative initiative is anchored by frontline, community-based GBV agencies, including sexual assault support services, shelters, counselling and outreach programs, legal advocacy, and culturally specific services. We work in partnership with institutional stakeholders such as education, municipal and regional governments, and police. Together, we are building a coordinated response to prevent and address gender-based violence in Waterloo Region.

Today, we join the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres in supporting the #JusticeOnTrial campaign.

We do so as a community that has been profoundly affected by recent events.

Over the past year, Waterloo Region has found itself at the centre of important provincial conversations about sexual violence, accountability, transparency, and public confidence in the justice system.

The Jeffrey Sloka case was one of the largest sexual assault prosecutions in our region’s history. Survivors waited years for the matter to proceed through the courts. When the verdict was delivered, many survivors, advocates, and community members were left grappling with difficult questions about justice, accountability, and trust.

At the same time, Lydia’s Law – a proposal championed by survivors from our community – sought to improve transparency around how sexual assault cases move through Ontario’s justice system. Its defeat added to a growing conversation about survivors and the public not receiving the information and accountability they deserve.

These conversations are not new. For decades, survivors, advocates, researchers, and community organizations have raised concerns about barriers to reporting, delays, case attrition, rape myths, gender bias, and the experiences of survivors within the justice system.

Despite ongoing efforts to improve responses to sexual violence, many survivors continue to question whether the system is meeting their needs.

As leaders working across Waterloo Region, we know these concerns deserve serious attention. Survivors deserve a justice system that is transparent, accountable, trauma-informed, and responsive to the realities of sexual violence.

We also know that Black, racialized, Indigenous, disabled, Two-Spirit, gender-diverse, and low-income survivors often face additional barriers when seeking support, protection, and accountability. Their experiences remind us that access to justice is shaped by systemic inequality and discrimination.

Public confidence is strengthened when institutions are willing to examine challenges openly, listen to those most affected, and pursue meaningful improvement.

We also believe that the voices of survivors and community-based organizations doing gender-based violence work must remain central to these conversations.

The questions being raised through the #JusticeOnTrial campaign matter. They matter to survivors. They matter to communities. And they matter to the future of public confidence in Ontario’s justice system.

As a community that has lived these questions firsthand, we support continued dialogue, transparency, accountability, and action to strengthen survivors’ confidence in the systems intended to serve them.

Justice must not only be carried out but also inspire confidence in those it is meant to protect.

Respectfully,
The Leadership Table
Waterloo Region’s Gender-Based Violence Strategy

Sara Casselman
Executive Director, Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region
Co-Chair, Leadership Table, Waterloo Region’s GBV Strategy (sara@sascwr.org)

Jennifer Hutton
Chief Executive Officer, Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region
Co-Chair, Leadership Table, Waterloo Region’s GBV Strategy (Jennifer.Hutton@wcswr.org)

Full list of co-signatories:

African Women Alliance of Waterloo Region
Fadhilah Balogun, Executive Director

Centre for Mutual Wellbeing
Fauzia Mazhar, Executive Director

Family and Children’s Services of Waterloo Region
Sonia Dennis, Executive Director

John Howard Society of Waterloo-Wellington
Elayne Furoy, Executive Director

Porchlight Counselling & Addiction Services
Cameron Dearlove, Executive Director

Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region
Sara Casselman, Executive Director

Shelter Movers Greater Toronto & Southwestern Ontario
Courtney Waterfall, Chapter Director

SPECTRUM – Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Community Space
Suzie Taka, Executive Director

Wilmot & Wellesley Resource Centre
Trisha Robinson, Executive Director

Women & Peace Studies Organization – Canada
Wazhma Frogh, Founder

Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region
Jennifer Hutton, Chief Executive Officer

Woolwich Counselling Centre
Amanda Wood-Atkinson, Executive Director

YW Kitchener-Waterloo
Jennifer Breaton, Chief Executive Officer

YWCA Cambridge
Kim Decker, Chief Executive Officer