If there is one meaningful and relatively simple thing the Ontario government can do this International Women’s Day, it’s to declare intimate-partner violence an epidemic in this province.
I’m saying this because the provincial government refused to do so just last summer.
Two years ago, Ontario’s chief coroner published the results of a juried inquest into Basil Borutski’s 2015 killing of Carol Culleton, Nathalie Warmerdam, and Anastasia Kuzyk in Renfrew County. It included recommendations to address the systemic conditions that made such a horrific triple-homicide possible — and work toward preventing future cases. Some actions were geared towards education, such as public-awareness programs and training for law-enforcement personnel. Others focused on prevention, from registries for repeat offenders to survivor-informed risk assessments around pleas, bail, and sentencing.
But the number one item on the 86-point list, in a section titled Oversight and Accountability, was “Formally declare intimate partner violence as an epidemic.”
Last June, the province confirmed it would reject this item, as IPV “would not be considered an epidemic as it is not an infectious or communicable disease.”
The United Nations would disagree with this. So would a lot of Ontarians. In the eight months since, almost 100 cities in the province have officially declared IPV an epidemic in their own jurisdictions: from Mattise Val-Côté in the north to Amherstberg in the south, and nearly every major city centre in between. Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Windsor, Thunder Bay. Many of the motions to do so were the result of unanimous council votes; the declarations themselves cite regionally specific factors such as increased calls to police for IPV incidents and higher domestic-violence rates in rural areas.
Intimate-partner violence and its effects are inextricably linked with public health, and not only because of the immediately apparent consequences of physical and sexual violence. Studies have shown for some time that survivors are at significantly increased risk of future poor health outcomes, from chronic disease to mental illness.
Whether classified as a pathogen or not, IPV has ripple effects that certainly spread like one. Children exposed to it are at higher risk of developmental and psychiatric issues later in life, and exposure to IPV is associated with a higher likelihood of intergenerational recurrence. It often seeps into a victim’s workplace. We also know that marginalized women are more likely to experience it — and some aspects of these lived realities make reporting violence or accessing services a difficult proposition, whether that’s because these women are disabled, newcomers, unhoused, underage, or trans.
Most concerningly, IPV has been on a fast upward trajectory over the past four years. At least 58 women in Ontario were killed in the last year alone with a man charged, convicted, or deemed responsible for her death; 30 of those deaths took place in a 30-week period in the first half of 2023. That total is 36 per cent higher than the average rate before the pandemic began.
Actionable policy — such as following up on the 85 other recommendations from the coroner’s inquest — will always speak louder than statements. The Family Law Act could use some amending, specifically with how it deals with histories of intimate-partner violence. The inquest suggests the act include “authority to order counselling for the perpetrator where IPV findings are made by the family court.” Justice-system personnel and people who work with survivors would benefit from cohesive frameworks of what intimate-partner violence looks like and how it affects families to ensure no one is misunderstood or left behind. Studying how trends in court decisions on IPV cases can affect recurrence or escalation of violence can help prevent future tragedies.
But as a first step: it’s past time to declare that a type of violence more than 40 per cent of women will experience in their life is an epidemic. Anyone whose life has been affected by intimate-partner violence can tell you that it is on the rise and that, with concerted effort, its causes are preventable. The province should acknowledge that reality by reversing its decision from last summer — because the first step to solving a problem is naming it.
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