This week, Canadians witnessed two significant developments in the effort to address gender-based violence. The federal government announced proposed changes to the Criminal Code that move toward naming violence against women more accurately and more honestly. Legislative reform is important, but for us at Battered Women’s Support Services the most consequential news came from British Columbia.

On the same day as the federal announcement, British Columbia’s Attorney General confirmed that one of the Province’s top priorities in responding to the Stanton Report will be the creation and implementation of standardized screening, risk assessment and safety planning across both the criminal and family law systems. This commitment represents a long overdue recognition that the way institutions identify and respond to risk often determines whether a woman lives or dies.

Women in British Columbia have been killed after their risk was overlooked or downgraded. Others were killed even when formal tools were used but the results were not acted upon. These deaths were not unpredictable. They were preventable. When risk assessment is inconsistent, delayed or left to individual discretion, danger escalates unchecked. When systems fail to communicate, survivors fall through the gaps that institutions created.

This announcement from the Attorney General is a response to a femicide emergency that has become impossible to ignore. It is also one of BWSS’s Five Asks. We have repeatedly called for mandatory, standardized risk assessment across all systems. We know from decades of work that risk assessment is one of the few evidence-based tools that can reliably flag escalating danger. It gives police a clearer picture. It informs Crown decision making. It helps judges understand the level of threat women and children face. It guides safety planning and ensures that family court processes do not undermine survivor safety.

The commitment from the Province is a significant step, but its impact will depend entirely on implementation. Standardization means every case is screened. It means the same indicators of danger are recognized across police, Crown, courts and child protection. It means tools are updated to reflect what we know about coercive control, separation risk, strangulation, threats to children and systems abuse. It means that when high risk is identified, every actor involved understands what must happen next.

It is important to acknowledge how we arrived at this moment. Survivors have been naming their experiences for years. Families have spoken out after tragedies. Advocates across the province have insisted that risk assessment can no longer be optional. Researchers such as Dr Kim Stanton have laid out the systemic failures in detail. This announcement would not have happened without that sustained and often exhausting work.

The Province has taken a step that has the potential to save lives. It will only matter if it is carried out with urgency, consistency and courage. Every day without full implementation is a day when women remain at risk. Standardized risk assessment must become a foundation of public safety in British Columbia.

Over the coming days we will share more about what risk assessment is, why it matters, how it prevents femicide and what effective implementation looks like. We will outline how this commitment fits within BWSS’s Five Asks for a safer British Columbia. Most importantly, we will continue to centre the women who should still be here. Their lives guide our work. Their absence reminds us why this commitment must be fulfilled.

Our Five Asks:

1. Mandatory, standardized risk assessment across all systems including police, Crown, courts, MCFD and family law so that danger is identified and acted on consistently.
2. Municipal GBV Task Forces in every community to ensure local governments treat gender-based violence as a core public safety responsibility.
3. Stabilized core funding for frontline anti-violence services so survivors can access crisis response, legal advocacy, housing support and counselling without delays or gaps.
4. A long term provincial GBV prevention campaign to increase public understanding of coercive control, strangulation, stalking, digital violence and other indicators of risk.
5. A dedicated GBV lead within Public Safety and Attorney General offices with responsibility for coordinating system change, ensuring oversight and monitoring implementation across ministries.

British Columbia is experiencing a devastating rise in femicide and intimate partner violence. Women are being killed in their homes, communities, and relationships at a rate that is both predictable and preventable.

At BWSS, we hear every day from survivors navigating 60 barriers to leaving abusive partners, barriers rooted in housing, poverty, legal inaction, social isolation, policing failures, immigration precarity, and systemic misogyny.

Femicide is not inevitable.

It is the result of policy choices, underinvestment, and systems designed without survivors in mind.

Drawing from decades of frontline experience, survivor expertise, and the urgent findings across multiple inquiries and reviews, including the Renfrew County Inquest, the Mass Casualty Commission, and BC’s own independent systemic review by Dr. Kim Stanton, BWSS has identified five essential actions the Province of British Columbia can take right now to save lives.

These actions do not require new discoveries.

They require the political will to implement what survivors have been calling for, for generations.

1. Establish Municipal Gender-Based Violence Task Forces

Femicide does not occur in isolation. It occurs in communities, across municipalities, and through predictable system failures, policing, housing, mental health, income security, child welfare, and the courts.

A municipal GBV Task Force brings together:

• survivors and survivor-serving organizations
• mayors and councils
• police leadership
• housing providers
• health and mental health systems
• Indigenous governance
• immigrant and refugee organizations
• education
• local businesses and community safety officials
• This is the model used globally to prevent femicide.

It is recommended by every major inquiry, including:

Renfrew County Inquest
Mass Casualty Commission
Kim Stanton’s BC systemic review
UN Special Rapporteurs

Municipalities are where social safety breaks down and where safety can be rebuilt.

A BC-wide commitment to municipal GBV Task Forces would create coordinated, accountable, community-rooted solutions that directly prevent violence and save lives.

2. Emergency Increase Funding for Frontline Services by 15%

Frontline anti-violence services in BC are critically underfunded.

BWSS alone has experienced a 25% increase in service requests over the past year.

Without adequate stabilization funding:

survivors wait longer for crisis support
high-risk cases go unmonitored
safety planning becomes reactive instead of preventative
staff burnout and turnover increase
smaller and rural organizations cannot keep their doors open

A 15% stabilization increase would immediately strengthen the safety net survivors rely on:

• crisis lines
• safety planning
• legal advocacy
• counselling
• transition housing
• outreach
• Indigenous-led programs
• Immigrant/refugee/newcomer programs

This is not “extra.”

This is the minimum necessary to keep women and children alive.

3. Implement Province-Wide, Standardized IPV Risk Assessment

Risk assessment is one of the most powerful tools in preventing femicide.

But in BC:

police use inconsistent approaches
Crown counsel lacks mandatory standards
community workers use multiple tools
information-sharing is uneven
high-risk cases fall between systems

The result: preventable tragedies, missed warning signs, and survivors left unprotected.

A province-wide standard, implemented across policing, Justice, community organizations, and child welfare would:

• identify high-risk situations earlier
• improve coordinated safety planning
• close gaps between agencies
• prevent escalation
• save lives

This is a core Renfrew County Inquest recommendation.

It is a key pillar in every modern femicide-prevention framework.

4. Launch a Province-Wide Public Awareness and Prevention Campaign

BC has no coordinated provincial campaign addressing:

• coercive control
• risk and lethality
• economic abuse
• immigration-related abuse
• strangulation
• firearm risks
• safety planning – how to access help
• how to help a friend or neighbour
• Awareness saves lives.

Campaigns like this have been implemented in Scotland, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK with measurable impact.

BC needs a prevention campaign designed with:

• survivors
• Indigenous communities
• grassroots anti-violence organizations
• immigrant and refugee leaders
• LGBTQ2S+ communities
• Prevention is not optional, it is a core component of public and social safety.

5. Appoint a Provincial GBV Lead Within Public Safety/Attorney General

Right now, no one in the provincial government is responsible for ensuring:

• GBV recommendations are implemented
• risk assessment standards are enforced
• coordination happens across ministries
• municipal task forces are supported
• inquiries translate into action
• survivors are not relying on luck or geography for safety

Every major inquiry has called for one senior lead with authority, mandate, and accountability to drive action.

This role must be located within Public Safety/Attorney General, not siloed in social services or gender equity portfolios.

This is how we move from reaction to prevention.

Conclusion: These Five Actions Are Not Aspirational.

They Are Necessary.

And They Are Doable and Right Now.

Femicide is only the result of individual behaviour.

It is the result of systemic failures.

These five actions are evidence-based, survivor-informed, and ready for implementation.

BC can prevent femicide.

BC must prevent femicide.

And survivors cannot wait.

#DesignedWithSurvivors
#16Days

A look at the missed opportunities, the rising risks, and the five urgent actions B.C. needs today.

In January 2025, the Government of British Columbia declared gender-based violence (GBV) a national epidemic. That moment carried weight. It signaled overdue recognition of what survivors, Indigenous women and girls, gender-diverse people, frontline advocates, and community-based organizations have been saying for decades: that gender-based violence is not a private tragedy, it is a social and safety emergency.

It acknowledged something essential. The violence that devastates families, fractures communities, and takes lives is not inevitable. It is the result of structural failures of housing systems, court systems, child protection systems, police practices, social policies that fail to act, fail to intervene, or fail to protect.

But recognition, on its own, changes little.

Since that declaration, British Columbia has lost at least  37 women to violence many killed by men they knew. In some regions, police calls related to intimate partner violence have surged by over 25%. Transition houses remain at or over capacity. Courts continue to delay, defer, and deny justice. Victim services and anti-violence organizations are stretched beyond their limits. Survivors are still navigating 60 well-documented barriers to safety, barriers shaped by poverty, racism, housing precarity, colonialism, and inconsistent institutional responses.

Across Canada, over 100 municipalities, counties, and regional governments have declared GBV or IPV an epidemic since 2020. These declarations have helped raise awareness, but they have not, in most cases, delivered real change. They have not been followed by legislation or created accountability mechanisms, they have not secured stable core funding for frontline services and they have not mandated universal risk assessment. They have not prevented the next killing.

British Columbia cannot become the latest jurisdiction where symbolic recognition stands without structural response.

A Map for Action Already Exists

There is no shortage of evidence or expertise. In 2024, BC Attorney General Niki Sharma commissioned an independent systemic review of how the province’s legal system responds to GBV, led by lawyer and human rights expert Dr. Kim Stanton. The findings were damning: one in three police-reported cases never makes it to Crown counsel; charges are withdrawn or stayed at rates that leave survivors retraumatized and unprotected; risk assessment is uneven, child protection, law enforcement, and family court practices vary dramatically from one region to another, and responses are often siloed, underfunded, and unaccountable.

The core problem is not lack of will on the frontlines. It is a lack of coordinated, survivor-centred investment in social and safety infrastructure, a system designed to hold the line when others fail.

These findings echo those of the Mass Casualty Commission, which investigated the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia. That tragedy, which took place during COVID lockdowns while “epidemic” language dominated public discourse, was rooted in gender-based and intimate partner violence. The Commission’s final report called GBV an “epidemic” in Canada and issued 130 recommendations, including:

• The creation of a national GBV commissioner
• Stronger police accountability
• Reformed public alerting systems
• Cross-sector coordination of services, with clear government responsibility

Both Stanton’s BC report and the national Mass Casualty Commission point to the same truth: epidemic language alone will not shift systems. Only coordinated, legislated, and resourced action will.

Now Is the Time for Structural Response

As we approach the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and the 16 Days of Activism, British Columbia faces a choice. Will it remain a province of declarations or become a province of delivery?

The context is urgent because narly half of Canadians now say that inflation and housing costs are making day-to-day life unaffordable. Arguably, confidence in institutions is falling as rising hate, deepening economic precarity, and growing mental health crises are compounding risk factors for gender-based violence. The need for structural prevention and rapid intervention has never been greater.

Over five decades, frontline organizations and survivors have shown what works-intentional, coordinated, well-funded, and accountable systems of response. With that knowledge in hand, five immediate actions can be taken now to prevent the next femicide in British Columbia.

Five Immediate Actions to Prevent the Next Femicide in BC

1. Mandate Municipal GBV Task Forces
   Require every city in British Columbia to establish a gender-based violence task force that coordinates housing, policing, justice, and survivor services rooted in lived expertise and backed by authority.
2. Stabilize Frontline Services
   Deliver a 15% emergency funding increase to community-based programs, STV outreach, transition houses, Indigenous-led services, and victim supports, before capacity collapses.
3. Standardize Risk Assessment
   Make risk assessment tools mandatory across all key systems: police, Crown counsel, family court, child protection, housing, and health. Enforce their use with training, data integration, and oversight.
4. Launch a Province-Wide Prevention Campaign
   Use the communications power of government to shift public understanding, reach men, de-normalize coercive control, and challenge the misogyny, racism, and colonial legacies that drive violence.
5. Appoint a Provincial GBV Lead
   Create a dedicated leadership position within Public Safety or the Attorney General’s office to coordinate inter-ministerial action, track implementation, and hold the system accountable.

These are not aspirational goals, they are urgent, evidence-based actions aligned with national and provincial recommendations, decades of frontline experience, and what survivors themselves say they need.

One year after BC’s declaration, what’s required now is action. These five steps could save lives if implemented now. The time for symbolic language has passed and the time for structural response is here.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women Launch of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence
In British Columbia, 48% of women and girls have experienced intimate partner violence.
Reports have risen 17% to 25% in just the last year.

When nearly half the population faces harm, safety cannot be optional. It must be built by design, with survivors at the centre.

Because here at home, gender-based violence is not a private matter or personal tragedy — it is a public-safety emergency.

It is shaped by systems: housing, income security, policing, health, immigration, justice, and community supports. And when those systems fail, survivors pay the price.

But across this province, people are building safety together.

For 16 days, BWSS will share voices from across BC: survivors, Elders, Indigenous leaders, youth, frontline workers, legal advocates, and community organizers.

Voices that carry truth. Voices that demand action. Voices building a future where safety is not luck or bravery but infrastructure and justice.

🎥 Watch the Broadcast
Daily Videos: youtube.com/user/BWSSendingviolence

One message each day.
One province rising for safety.

• To end violence against women, girls, and gender-diverse people
• To honour the leadership, courage, and wisdom of survivors
• To demand systems built with and for survivors
• To define safety as a shared public responsibility and a public investment

We rise because safety is not a feeling… safety is infrastructure.

• Watch each day
• Share the voices
• Stand with survivors
• Call for system-level change across BC

• Duration: 60 seconds
• Format: landscape/horizontal
• Quality: 1080p or 4K if available
• Language: any (English subtitles if possible)
• Film at eye level, in a well-lit and quiet space
• Use a mic if available
• Review for clarity before sending

Please send your video or link by November 14, 2025 to
endingviolence@bwss.org.
We will feature these voices across the 16 Days as well as in a BC broadcast moment, joining global actions.

48% of women and girls. Reports up 17–25%.
We cannot say we didn’t know.
But together, we can say we rose.