The Ford government has announced they plan to support an NDP bill that would declare intimate partner violence an epidemic in Ontario.
The NDP had urged the province to support Bill 173, the Intimate Partner Violence Epidemic Act and it was expected to be debated Wednesday in the legislature.
The revelation received a rare standing ovation from all parties in the legislature.
“We need every tool available to put an end to intimate partner violence and gender-based violence,” said NDP MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam who co-sponsored the bill with NDP MPP Lisa Gretsky.
“It’s a very important first step for the government to actually call it what it is and to say to those all those people that, ‘We see you.’ and to shed light on it,” shared Gretzky. “People live in shame and fear when they are victims of intimate partner violence or gender-based violence, this is the government saying, ‘We see you, we acknowledge you and we want to help.’”
Gretzky said the declaration is key to ensuring the social services working to prevent gender-based violence gets the support they need.
“In order to continue to build the movement to push the government in the right direction in order to make sure that they are properly funding the supports and services that that the survivors need,” added Gretzky.
Advocates have been calling on the province to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic for years and follow in the footsteps of over 90 municipalities, including Toronto.
The jury at a coroner’s inquest into the 2015 deaths of Nathalie Warmerdam, Carol Culleton and Anastasia Kuzyk in Renfrew County made that recommendation to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic, along with 85 others aimed at preventing similar tragedies in 2022.
At the time of the recommendations, the Ontario government refused.
According to the federal government, police reported 1,125 gender-related homicides of women and girls in Canada between 2011 and 2021, 66 per cent of which were perpetrated by an intimate partner.
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