Ontario’s 42 sexual assault centres are urging the Ford government to continue providing an additional $1 million in annual funding, saying the money is needed to meet demand and address growing wait lists for counselling.

The one-time, $1 million announcement last year was far less than the $14 million over three years they’d been promised by the previous Liberal government, and “operating with modest funding allotments has left sexual assault centres to cope with limited resources, and amidst steadily increasing demands for sexual assault services,” said Nicole Pietsch of the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres.

She attended a meeting last week with Attorney General Doug Downey and said it “seemed to go well overall.”

However, she added, “we still do not know whether or not the $1 million allocated to 42 community-based (sexual assault centres) will continue beyond March 2020 or not.”

At the legislature Tuesday, NDP Women’s Issues Critic Jill Andrew said “rape crisis centres across the province are struggling to provide basic services to survivors.”

For years, “the Liberals failed to provide enough funding to meet the needs of survivors, and now this Conservative government is making things worse … (with) cuts to front line services for next year,” she said.

“Rape and sexual assault crisis centres — they’re not asking for much,” added Andrew, herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

Downey said the government “is supporting victims across the province, and we support the families who are on the wrong end of crime. We’re giving them the support they need in so many ways. We recognize the important work that victims’ service organizations across the province that are committed to supporting the individuals in need at a time of need and over a long period of time.”

He also said the meeting with sexual assault centre representatives went well, but did not directly address the funding issue.

“We had a great conversation about how the system’s working and how the system can work better,” he said. “It’s about sometimes co-ordinating better and making sure that we’re understanding the needs of victims. When they need the help, we’re making sure that we are there for them.”

Downey’s ministry has been conducting a review of services for victims of crime, and he said “we take this issue seriously. These are some of the most vulnerable in our province. We need to be there, we need to be there in a meaningful way to deliver the services they need most, when they need it the most.”

A decade ago, Ontario sex assault centres received about 30,000 crisis calls annually — a number that now tops 50,000 given heightened awareness and the high-profile #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

“It is our position that no survivor of violence should face a wait for services or to meet with a counsellor,” Pietsch wrote in the prebudget submission. “… Stable, core funding for community-based sexual assault centres that meets the needs of survivors of sexual violence in a timely and effective way is a timely solution.”

The coalition is also asking that the government not close or merge any sex assault centres.

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The Hamilton Spectator reports that the local sexual assault centre has an “urgent need” for more funding, and without a renewal of the additional $35,000 it received last year a part-time counsellor will have to be let go.

In Muskoka, the sexual assault services centre has said it is managing three times the counselling with the same staff it had in the 1990s.