Josée Barriault died murdered by his violent spouse on March 27, 2023.
We found his body in the snow, behind a shed, near the home of Patrick Archambault. The man would have committed suicide after the murder, according to the report of Coroner André Cantin, published in late June1.
During their six -month thunderstorm relationship, the 48 -year -old woman filed an unsuccessful police complaint. She also tried to find a room in a refuge for violence, with the help of a loved one.
Without success: there was no place available.
The coroner issued a series of recommendations in the wake of this feminicide1. Among these: increase budgets allocated to the construction of help and accommodation houses.
In other words: invest more in brick and mortar, to protect women victims of violence and their children.
But according to my information, it is rather a brake that has just been given. At least three projects have lost part of their funding in recent weeks, including one already under construction. Three others may undergo the same fate.
These resources, which total more than 70 places, are found in Montreal, Outaouais, Abitibi, Estrie, Laurentides and Chaudière-Appalaches. Regions where demand far exceeds the capacity.
“We do not build because of the inconsistencies between the Federal and the Provincial,” summed me up Mélanie Miranda, coordinator at the Alliance of accommodation houses of 2e Step for women and children victims of domestic violence.
Free translation: This is a new example of a rigid public service, disconnected from urgent needs in the field.
The case had caused a stir in the spring of 2024. The minister responsible for the housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, had stopped the construction projects for accommodation houses for women and children victims of domestic violence due to their galloping bill.
The elected official had deemed “excessive” the costs of $ 900,000 or $ 1 million “the door” of certain sites. The Quebec Housing Company (SHQ) has looked into the file. She then asked community organizations to lower their cost structure.
What was done, in many cases.
Several projects were densified, thanks to the addition of rooms, which made it possible to obtain economies of scale. Residences were thus reduced to about $ 700,000 “the door”.
But as is always the case in community housing, various orders of government share the invoice. To assemble all the pieces of the puzzle, within the time limits, often is a miracle.
Each project, organizations must submit new grant requests, with plans, quotes and numerous support forms. They often have to wait for responses from Quebec before being able to provide the documents requested by Ottawa, or Vice-Vice.
As if the bureaucracy snake bit its own tail …
After the requests for budget review made by the SHQ, several organizations had to repeat their modified plans with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Company (SCHL), in Ottawa. And this is where the chain landed from the bicycle: certain funding was removed by the federally, and others are threatened with being.
Reason invoked: SCHL cannot retain endless funds. His message: please return to the end of the queue …
This situation has very concrete impacts: at least a private project for its federal funding is already under construction, north of Montreal. While the “Pépines” are at work, the promoters find themselves with a shortfall of almost 3 million. An insoluble equation for the moment.
What will happen in the coming weeks for all projects at risk? The SHQ offers them a “personalized support” so that they can “get out of the ground” as soon as possible, says the cabinet of Minister Duranceau. Community groups are impatiently awaiting answers.
But what they already know is that the system cracks everywhere.
The organization SOS domestic violence refuses, good year, 10,000 demands for accommodation, one indicator among others. The real scale of needs is difficult to quantify, points out Louise Riendeau, head of political files to the grouping of women for women victims of domestic violence.
“How many places would be necessary?” This is the question of a hundred thousand dollars, she told me. No one can answer this right now. What we see is that there are several regions where resources are as much as possible and where there are a large number of refusals. »»
The only figure known with certainty is that there have been seven female in the context of domestic violence since the beginning of 2025 in Quebec.
It is more than one murder a month. Faced with this intolerable assessment, the rapid reinvestment and the relaxation of the granting rules of grants should not even be a question.
1. Read “feminicide in Sainte-Julienne: the training of the police to review, according to the coroner”
