Attorney General Caroline Mulroney says the government hasn’t yet decided whether it will provide Ontario’s rape crisis centres with an increase in funding, but she’ll let them know “shortly.”

“I know that this is difficult. We inherited a large deficit — we are looking very closely at all the programs that we fund across the province,” Mulroney told reporters at Queen’s Park.

The 30 per cent budget boost over three years was announced by the previous Liberal government to help the centres deal with surging demand.

“I recognize the important work they do,” Mulroney also said. However, she added, “the Liberals waited until the last moment to announce this funding.”

Mulroney has been in contact with centres across the province, “and I understand it’s not an easy ask for them to wait — but we are working closely, working towards being able to provide them with an answer shortly.”

She said the government has “maintained funding for their services since we took office, and we are looking very closely at how we can provide those services in a sustainable way.”

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Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner brought up the issue in the legislature on Thursday, noting Friday is human trafficking awareness day.

“We need to have a conversation about what this government’s priorities are,” he told the Star. “The fact that they can offer a tax cut for the richest 1 per cent but they are not going to release funding that was already promised to rape crisis centres is wrong, and it shows you how misguided their priorities are.”

If the government does not intend to release the additional money, “they should at least be honest with rape crisis centre staff to let them know.”

“How can staff plan, how can you help women experiencing sexual violence if you don’t even know if you are going to get funding? It’s unfair to staff and unfair to the women they serve.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath accused the government of “callously” holding back the money.

“This is not something the attorney general should be proud of,” she said.

Horwath said while the Liberal government ignored the centres for 15 long years while in office “and didn’t support those centres ... the way that they should have” — especially amid the surge in demand with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements — “this government is making it worse, not better.”

“People deserve to get the kind of counselling and supports they need in Ontario,” said Horwath.

While the Ford government talks about the need for support for survivors of human trafficking “what happens to those folks if they don’t have treatment, they don’t have supports, they don’t have the community-based agencies to help them?”

Some $14.8 million in funding was announced as part of a three-year, gender-based violence strategy a year ago, and since the June election the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres has been pressing the government for information on whether they will receive it.

During question period, Schreiner told Mulroney that her ministry “has frozen a promised funding increase that rape crisis centres desperately need right now.”

Mulroney said the government “has zero tolerance for sexual assault, for harassment and for any form of violence against women or against anyone in our communities.

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“Our government stands with victims of crime, and all Ontarians deserve to live free from violence. That’s why we’re committed to providing victims with the services and the supports that they need.”

Nicole Pietsch, co-ordinator of the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres, said survivors of sexual violence can wait as long as 18 months for services.

Yearly calls have gone from 30,000 a decade ago to more than 50,000.

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