PV Ontario Bureau
More than a year has passed since NDP MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam moved Bill 55, the Intimate Partner Violence Epidemic Act. The bill, which is itself a reintroduction of a bill the NDP introduced in 2024 but which died when the provincial election was called, requires the government to recognize intimate partner violence (IPV) as an epidemic and create a committee to consider the 86 recommendations of the 2022 Chief Coroner’s Jury Inquest into the Renfrew County triple femicide in 2015.
Provincial governments in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador have already declared IPV an epidemic, as have over 100 municipalities in Ontario. But despite this surge in recognition, which is backed up by overwhelming scientific evidence, the Ontario government continues to resist making such a declaration.
Intimate Partner Violence is not an epidemic in the sense of communicable disease. Rather, it is a widespread and serious public health concern which has reached crisis levels, affecting millions of women and gender diverse people throughout Ontario. Declaring it an epidemic recognizes this crisis in a public way, but it also triggers specific systemic responses. These include:
- Coordinated emergency response from all levels of government
- Mandates for governments to dedicate sustained funding and public health resources toward prevention
- Concrete plans of action addressing the underlying causes and leading to systemic change
- Stronger protections for survivors, including improved and faster access to housing, healthcare, workplace leaves and legal aid.
Doug Ford’s Ontario government talks a lot about security and safety, and is now weaving those themes into his overall economic and political messaging. But the Conservatives’ policies – increased police funding and weaponry, more prisons and longer sentences, criminalization of poverty and homelessness – are not what Ontario needs. They are certainly not what is badly needed by millions of women and gender diverse people, who regularly experience Intimate Partner Violence or the threat of it.
It is long overdue for Ontario to declare IPV an epidemic and take concrete action for systemic change. Across the province, organizations for women’s and gender equality, public health advocates, labour unions and many others are continuing the pressure.
Meeting June 20-21, the Ontario Committee of the Communist Party of Canada issued a special statement calling on the provincial government to:
- Immediately pass Bill 55, declaring IPV an epidemic and creating a committee to consider the 86 recommendations of the 2022 Chief Coroner’s Jury Inquest
- Restore and expand funding and resources for crisis centres and transitional shelters and housing
- Fund sustained public education campaigns and school-based violence prevention programs
- Restore and increase funding for anti-oppression and equity-seeking programs and to accessible community legal clinics
- Ensure $10-a-day childcare is implemented and accessible and move towards a provincial system of universally accessible and quality public childcare, free of charge
[Photo: Unifor]
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