Remembrance is not enough: action needed to address gendered violence in Canada

Each year, on the National Day of Remembrance, Canadians recall the shocking events of Dec. 6, 1989, when a gunman murdered 14 young women and wounded 14 more at École Polytechnique de Montréal because they were women. While significant strides have been made in Canada to address gendered violence, the problem persists, as noted in the federal government’s own National Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence. Recent data paint a harrowing picture. The province of Ontario witnessed 30 femicides in 30 weeks between November 2022 and June 2023. Femicides increased 27 per cent in 2022, compared with 2019; girls are twice as vulnerable as boys to family violence. That’s just the tip of the iceberg as many femicides and incidents of gendered violence go unnoticed by the authorities or media, especially among Indigenous Peoples. The federal government is not adequately funding the work needed to tackle gender-based violence across the country. Nicole Letourneau is a University of Calgary professor and Research Excellence Chair in Parent and Child Health. Photograph courtesy of Nicole Letourneau After the “Montréal Massacre,” the federal government invested $3-million to address public policy, education, legislation, and applied research on violence against women and children, especially girls. In 1992, this investment resulted in the establishment of seven centres of excellence across Canada called the Alliance of Canadian Research Centres on Gender-Based Violence. Over the intervening 30 years, the Alliance centres have conducted more than 400 studies, many employing community-based research methods; raised more than $50-million for research; and trained nearly 2,000 scholars in gender-based violence who have seeded institutions across Canada and the globe. The centres link university researchers, policymakers, and community agencies delivering services to women and families affected by violence. Since their inception, the involvement of stakeholders at every level in addressing the problem of gendered violence has been key to the Alliance centres’ success. The centres’ combined research and advocacy have contributed significantly to address violence and adversity affecting girls and women in Canada, from Statistics Canada’s landmark 1993 Violence Against Women Survey, to the more recent National Gender-Based Violence Action Plan, and Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability. Alliance centre research has influenced training for shelter workers, counsellors in programs for children exposed to gendered violence, and facilitators for men’s behavioural change programs. They have designed programs to prevent gendered violence by working with fathers that have flourished across Canada and globe. Alliance centre leaders have also taken part in various commissions and death reviews focused on gendered violence, such as the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission after the horrific events of 2020, in which a gunman assaulted his intimate partner before posing as a police officer and murdering 22 people. Today, the centres lead the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Alliance against Violence and Adversity, and are training the next generation of scholars to work with community partners to address gendered violence. But their funding is now in jeopardy. They must not be allowed to fail. After the initial federal government investment, funding to support the centres’ infrastructure has been derived mostly from charitable foundations. But funding for three of the seven centres will cease in 2024, leaving all three Prairie provinces out in the cold. This poses a significant loss as the Prairies, where violence rates are highest in Canada, will then no longer be represented in the Alliance nor contribute to national dialogues. Ironically, these infrastructure funding challenges come at a time when Women and Gender Equality Canada is working to implement the national action plan via bilateral talks with provinces to address gendered violence across Canada. The Alliance centres have been on the periphery of these discussions and their continued infrastructure funding has not been prioritized. The Nova Scotia commission perhaps frames the need best, stating, “funding related to preventing and effectively intervening in gender-based violence has been inadequate for many years and endangers women’s lives,” and recommending “epidemic-level funding to address this underinvestment in safety.” Another recommendation states a gender-based violence commissioner be appointed whose mandate would include “assisting to co-ordinate a national research agenda and promoting knowledge sharing.” There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. The Alliance centres offer the perfect opportunity to fulfill these recommendations. It just needs robust government funding. Now is not the time to squander the Alliance centres’ successes and hard-fought gains in addressing gendered violence in Canada. Have we learned nothing from the past? Remembrance is important, but it is clearly not enough to address the issues of gendered violence today that remain. Nicole Letourneau is a professor and Research Excellence Chair in Parent and Child Health at the University of Calgary in the faculty of nursing, and Cumming School of Medicine. She is scientific director of RESOLVE Alberta, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Alliance against Violence and Adversity Training Platform. The Hill Times