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The Downplay Effect: What B.C.’s Budget 2027 Consultation Tells Us About Intimate Partner Violence

Aug 20, 2026 | Battered Women's Support Services

Intimate partner violence doesn’t just escalate. It is downplayed first.

At Battered Women’s Support Services, the Downplay Effect describes what happens when coercive control, patterns of abuse and escalating danger are minimized before they are recognized as serious. Downplaying can happen between people, but it can also happen institutionally: when violence is fragmented into separate problems, responsibility becomes unclear, specialized knowledge disappears into broader categories, or recognition is not matched by the capacity required to respond.

We saw the consequences of this during the FIFA World Cup 2026. Months before the tournament, BWSS shared evidence about major sporting events and increased demand for intimate partner violence support and proposed a specialized surge response. The prevailing view was that intimate partner violence did not warrant a specialized response, so BWSS prepared anyway. During the tournament, we analyzed 734 specialized service contacts, a 37.2% increase over the same period the previous year, including coercive control, escalating violence, strangulation, death threats and high-risk intimate partner violence.

Read: What Women Taught Us During the FIFA World Cup 2026 →

For BWSS, this raises a question that will be a key focus in the coming year: when the Province of British Columbia says intimate partner violence is a priority, what does that mean in practice?

Intimate partner violence makes it into the Budget 2027 recommendations

British Columbia’s Budget 2027 public consultation ran from June 1 to June 19, 2026. The Legislature’s Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services heard 387 presentations and received 1,102 written submissions before producing 81 recommendations for the next provincial budget.

This report is not Budget 2027. It does not allocate money, and its recommendations are not commitments by government. It is the Finance Committee’s assessment of what it heard and what it believes the Province should prioritize as government develops Budget 2027.

And intimate partner violence made it through that process.

Recommendation 68 calls on government to:

“Require coordinated planning and accountability across housing, justice, health, and community-based violence response services to support an integrated and timely response for people experiencing intimate partner violence.”

That is important because intimate partner violence was not ignored. The Committee recognized that it crosses systems and requires coordinated public action.

And yet, we see downplaying.

We use that word deliberately, and with qualification. We are not suggesting that the Committee does not take intimate partner violence seriously. The downplaying occurs in the distance between what the report recognizes about intimate partner violence and what that recognition becomes when translated into recommendations and across the other major policy areas considered throughout the report.

The Downplay Effect

Coordination is not capacity

Recommendation 68 calls for coordinated planning and accountability. Coordination matters.

But coordination does not create capacity.

It does not create another specialized intimate partner violence advocate. It does not open a counselling appointment. It does not provide legal advocacy. It does not create safe housing. And it does not increase the number of specialized practitioners able to recognize coercive control, post-separation violence and escalating or potentially lethal risk.

The report recognizes community-based violence response services as part of an integrated intimate partner violence response, but does not recommend expanding specialized intimate partner violence capacity.

When a capacity problem becomes primarily a coordination problem, intimate partner violence is being downplayed.

The Downplay Effect

“Timely” without defining how long victims and survivors should wait

Recommendation 68 calls for a “timely response.”

But what is timely? How long should someone experiencing escalating violence wait for specialized counselling, legal support, housing, risk assessment or advocacy?

There is no intimate partner violence access standard or wait-time benchmark attached to the recommendation.

Calling a response timely without measuring whether victims and survivors can actually reach it risks downplaying what waiting means when someone is living with violence.

The Downplay Effect

Accountability without saying who is accountable

The Committee calls for “accountability,” another important advance.

But Recommendation 68 does not identify who ultimately owns the integrated response, what outcomes must be measured, who reports publicly, how failures are reviewed or what happens when systems fail.

Accountability cannot simply be a word. Someone has to be accountable.

The Downplay Effect

Concrete economic responses disappear

The Committee’s own deliberations go further than its final intimate partner violence recommendation. It considers a provincial emergency fund, employment supports and income stabilization programs to provide immediate financial assistance and longer-term economic stability for survivors.

Those measures matter because economic dependence can be part of coercive control and can determine whether leaving is practically possible.

Yet those concrete measures do not make it into Recommendation 68.

The problem becomes recognized; the intervention becomes less specific.

The Downplay Effect

Intimate partner violence gets broadened into gender-based violence

The Committee considers strengthening justice-system responses to intimate partner violence, but shifts to gender-based violence screening in family court proceedings. The distinction matters. Gender-based violence is the broader framework; intimate partner violence requires specific expertise in coercive control, post-separation violence and escalating and potentially lethal risk.

Those specific justice measures also disappear from Recommendation 68, which returns to coordination and accountability. The concern is not the use of gender-based violence, it is whether broadening the terminology also dilutes the specialized response intimate partner violence requires.

The Downplay Effect

Intimate partner violence is cross-cutting, but the report does not consistently treat it that way

This may be the most important Downplay Effect in the report.

Recommendation 68 itself acknowledges that intimate partner violence crosses housing, justice, health and community-based violence services.

But elsewhere, the report largely returns to traditional policy categories.

Housing becomes housing. Economic security becomes economic policy. Health becomes health. Emergency preparedness becomes emergency preparedness. Climate resilience becomes climate resilience. Infrastructure and resource development become economic development.

For victims and survivors, those divisions do not exist.

A woman can be navigating coercive control while trying to find housing, maintain employment, keep her children safe, deal with family court and manage financial dependence, all at the same time.

Fragmenting the consequences of intimate partner violence can itself downplay the violence because no single system sees the whole.

The Downplay Effect

Housing is an intimate partner violence issue

Recommendation 68 expressly recognizes housing as part of the intimate partner violence response.

A housing shortage is not simply a housing problem when someone cannot safely separate because she has nowhere affordable to go. Housing affordability is not separate from intimate partner violence when financial abuse has undermined someone’s economic independence.

Yet the report’s broader housing agenda does not consistently carry that analysis forward.

If housing is part of the intimate partner violence response, then housing policy is also intimate partner violence policy.

The Downplay Effect

Economic resilience without survivor economic resilience

The report spends considerable attention on economic uncertainty, affordability, employment and building a resilient B.C. economy. But its own intimate partner violence discussion establishes the connection between violence and economic security.

That insight should travel.

When economic conditions worsen, the consequences are not gender neutral. For someone experiencing intimate partner violence, lost employment, unaffordable housing or increased financial dependence can change the options available for safety.

A resilient economy must include the economic conditions that make freedom from violence possible.

The Downplay Effect

Climate and emergency preparedness without continuity of safety

The report gives significant attention to wildfire, disaster preparedness, climate adaptation and community resilience.

What it does not meaningfully examine is what happens to intimate partner violence during those disruptions.

Evacuation does not end coercive control. Displacement does not eliminate post-separation risk. Wildfire does not make stalking disappear. And when transportation, communications, housing and community services are disrupted, the systems victims and survivors rely upon for safety can be disrupted too.

This is BWSS’s analysis of a gap in the report, not a conclusion made by the Committee.

But it raises an important budget question:

If B.C. is investing in the infrastructure required to withstand emergencies, where is the infrastructure required to maintain women’s safety through them?

The Downplay Effect

Economic and resource development without an intimate partner violence lens

The report considers infrastructure, critical minerals, major projects and resource development as important parts of B.C.’s economic future.

Major economic development can affect housing, transportation, local services, population patterns and community infrastructure. Those impacts deserve analysis for what they may mean for women generally and for Indigenous women in particular, including in relation to the continuing work on MMIWG.

This connection is not adequately developed in the consultation report. That absence is precisely why it needs to be part of the next conversation.

The Downplay Effect

Funding the systems most victims and survivors never report to

One of the most revealing contrasts in the report appears around Recommendation 68.

The Committee is perfectly capable of making explicit funding recommendations. It recommends increased funding for policing, Crown counsel and courts, as well as funding for court data infrastructure.

For intimate partner violence, however, the operative language is “coordinated planning and accountability.”

That difference matters because the criminal legal system represents only part of how victims and survivors respond to intimate partner violence. Most intimate partner violence is not reported to police. Victims and survivors frequently turn instead to community-based organizations, informal networks, health services and other supports.

This is not an argument against adequately funding police, Crown counsel or courts. When victims and survivors engage those systems, those systems must respond effectively.

It is an argument about where the architecture of an intimate partner violence response is built.

If most intimate partner violence never reaches police, then an intimate partner violence strategy cannot be organized primarily around what happens after a police report. Specialized community-based organizations are often where women disclose violence, assess risk, safety plan, navigate housing and family law, and make decisions about whether—or whether not—to engage police.

Yet the Committee recommends explicit increases for institutional justice-system capacity while asking community-based violence response services to participate in better coordination, without an equivalent recommendation to expand their capacity.

Are we investing most explicitly in the systems violence may eventually reach, while underinvesting in the specialized services victims and survivors actually reach first?

The Downplay Effect

Counting gender-based violence dollars without asking whether they reach the frontline

This question becomes even more important when the Budget consultation is placed alongside Canada’s National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.

The existing Canada–B.C. agreement represents significant public investment intended to supplement and enhance gender-based violence services and supports.

But an announcement is not the same thing as frontline capacity.

BWSS has already raised this concern in our analysis of the next phase of the National Action Plan: success must ultimately be measured by whether specialized frontline organizations experience stronger operational capacity, a more stable specialized workforce and greater ability to respond to changing forms of intimate partner violence.

Read: BWSS on Canada’s National Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence →

So we need to know more than how much money has been announced.

How much reaches specialized frontline organizations? Does it create additional service capacity? Does it stabilize the specialized workforce? Does it reduce wait times? Does it improve geographic and culturally specific access? Can organizations respond when demand suddenly increases? And can victims and survivors access specialized intimate partner violence support when they need it?

If we count dollars without measuring the specialized capacity those dollars create, investment itself can become a form of downplaying.

The deeper Downplay Effect: recognition without transformation

This is ultimately not a story about intimate partner violence being ignored.

The Budget 2027 consultation report represents an important advance: intimate partner violence appears in the Executive Summary and becomes one of the Committee’s 81 recommendations.

The Downplay Effect appears in what happens next.

  • Being named is not the same as being resourced.
  • Coordination is not capacity.
  • Money announced is not necessarily money reaching the frontline.
  • “Timely” is not a service standard until time is measured.
  • Accountability is not accountability until somebody is responsible for results.

And recognizing intimate partner violence in one section of a report is not the same as recognizing how violence moves through housing, economic security, health, justice, employment, emergency preparedness and the other conditions of women’s lives.

From recognition to implementation

The National Action Plan offers an important framework for doing better. It recognizes that ending gender-based violence requires action across services, prevention, justice, Indigenous-led approaches and the social infrastructure that surrounds victims and survivors.

Our experience during FIFA gave BWSS a real-world test of what those commitments mean. Evidence alone did not create safety. Implementation did. Specialized capacity did. Women needed practitioners who could recognize the whole pattern of violence and respond to changing risk in real time.

Budget 2027 and the next phase of the National Action Plan now present the same question at a much larger scale.

The question is no longer simply whether intimate partner violence will be recognized.

It is whether we will stop downplaying what responding to it actually requires.

Learn more about the Downplay Effect →

Ontario woman awarded $400,000 over husband’s 54 year abuse in Tort of Intimate Partner Violence

Jul 28, 2026 | Battered Women's Support Services

The legal community is already debating whether the new tort of intimate partner violence will make family law proceedings longer, more complex and more contentious. From where we stand, that debate begins in the wrong place.

For more than 30 years, BWSS has provided specialized family law advocacy for victims and survivors of intimate partner violence. We intervened before the Supreme Court of Canada in Ahluwalia because we believed Canadian law needed to recognize what women have been telling specialized intimate partner violence services for decades.

Intimate partner violence is not experienced as a series of isolated incidents. It is experienced as coercive control — a pattern of domination that strips women of their dignity, autonomy and equality. A pattern that shapes parenting, finances, housing, relationships, decision-making and every attempt to seek safety.

Critics argue that recognizing coercive control will make family law more complicated. Women have been living that complexity all along. Family law is already one of the most difficult places to be when the person using coercive control is also the person you are required to negotiate with, parent with, disclose to, or appear before a court against.

The debate should not begin with whether this makes family law more complicated. It should begin with why women have spent decades trying to fit the reality of coercive control into legal frameworks that were never designed to recognize it.

This is The Downplay Effect. When coercive control is reduced to a series of isolated incidents, the pattern disappears. When the pattern disappears, so do its impacts on women’s dignity, autonomy, equality and safety.

The new tort recognizes the pattern — it does not create the complexity. And recognition is where meaningful justice begins.

To this survivor, who fought for justice after 54 years, and to her now adult children who chose to stand beside their mother after a lifetime of witnessing abuse: your courage reminds us that truth has the power to outlast fear.

Background: In May 2026, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized a new civil tort of intimate partner violence in Canadian common law (Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia, CP24). In July 2026, an Ontario woman was awarded $400,000 over her husband’s decades-long abuse — reported as the first award of damages under the new tort (Financial Post).

What Women Taught Us During the FIFA World Cup 2026

Jul 22, 2026 | Battered Women's Support Services

What Women Taught Us During the FIFA World Cup 2026

Specialized intimate partner violence response is public safety.

While millions celebrated the FIFA World Cup in Canada, here in Vancouver hundreds of women reached out to Battered Women’s Support Services seeking help with some of the highest-risk forms of intimate partner violence.

This report documents what women taught us, what specialized intimate partner violence frontline practice revealed, and why intimate partner violence response must be part of public safety planning for every major event.

Download the Report

Janet Barnsley, one of the founding mothers of BWSS

This report is dedicated to the memory of Janet Barnsley, one of the founding mothers of Battered Women’s Support Services.

Women living with intimate partner violence don’t need another report. They need safety.

Every conversation with a woman experiencing intimate partner violence teaches us something about coercive control, escalating risk, barriers to safety and what effective responses require.

Specialized intimate partner violence frontline practice extends beyond the delivery of a social service. It is a source of knowledge.

This report seeks to transform what women shared during the FIFA World Cup 2026 into practical lessons for governments, communities, researchers and organizations responsible for protecting public safety.

40 days of celebration — and a different reality at home

For 40 days, Vancouver was filled with celebration. Downtown streets were crowded. Matches were watched by millions. Extraordinary resources were mobilized to keep spectators safe.

At the same time, women were calling BWSS from homes where safety meant something entirely different.

They were trying to understand whether the intimate partner violence was escalating. They were weighing the risks of staying against the risks of leaving an abusive partner. They were making plans for themselves and their children while living with someone’s monitoring, threats and control.

Months before the tournament began, BWSS shared international evidence about the relationship between major sporting events and increased demand for intimate partner violence support. We proposed a specialized surge response.

The prevailing thought was that intimate partner violence would not be a factor deserving of a specialized response.

So, we prepared anyway.

BWSS expanded its specialized response to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the tournament period.

Looking back, it is difficult to imagine what women might have faced had we accepted that a specialized response was unnecessary.

Here’s what women told us

During the FIFA World Cup, BWSS analyzed 734 specialized service contacts, representing a 37.2% increase over the same period the previous year.

734specialized service contacts
37.2%increase over the previous year

The numbers reveal the scale of demand. Women’s experiences reveal why intimate partner violence frontline response specialization mattered.

Nearly two-thirds described coercive control and emotional or psychological abuse. More than half were experiencing high-risk intimate partner violence. Many were navigating family law and child safety concerns, trauma, post-separation abuse, stalking, police involvement and housing insecurity at the same time.

Among the women facing the highest levels of risk:

~7 in 10required individualized safety and risk assessment
231described escalating violence
94disclosed strangulation
85reported death threats

These were not isolated incidents or simple requests for information.

Well beyond isolated incidents or requests for information or a referral, women were trying to make decisions under conditions of fear, surveillance and ongoing harm to themselves, their children and to their companion animals. They needed advocates who could recognize patterns of coercive control, assess lethality, understand the risks associated with strangulation and post-separation abuse, and help build a safety plan around the realities of their lives.

From evidence to implementation

We did not write this report because we thought the world needs another report. We thought it was urgent to lean into the research that identified increased risk during major sporting events has existed for years, knowing the evidence alone does not create safety.

The implementation does.

Drawing on women’s experiences and 40 days of frontline practice, BWSS developed a practice-based implementation framework examining how specialized organizations translate research into action during a foreseeable period of elevated risk.

The report identifies the organizational capacity, professional competencies and implementation, public education and intervention practices required to strengthen survivor safety before, during and after a major public event.

It also documents something that administrative data alone cannot show: what specialized IPV practitioners notice, understand and do when women disclose overlapping and rapidly changing forms of abuse.

This is knowledge generated through practice — and unfortunately it remains on the frontline. It should inform policy, emergency planning, funding decisions and the design of future public-safety responses.

You might think our name would explain it

You might think an organization called Battered Women’s Support Services would not still have to explain why specialized intimate partner violence response matters.

Yet here we are. Nearly fifty years after BWSS was founded, the case for specialization is still being made.

Fortunately, we are not making it alone. Women’s Aid organizations in the United Kingdom have demonstrated the value of specialist services for decades. Feminist practitioners and researchers, including the authors of the Kirby research, have documented why women experience stronger outcomes when support is delivered by organizations with deep expertise in violence against women. Even the City of Toronto named intimate partner violence outright and said it was organizing around that reality.

Five things our FIFA Specialized Intimate Partner Violence Response reveals

1Visibility and availability help women reach support

Women sought specialized help when it was visible, clearly identified and available beyond regular office hours. A public message is only useful when a real service exists behind it.

2High-risk intimate partner violence rarely occurs in isolation

Women described overlapping forms of abuse, including coercive control, strangulation, stalking, economic abuse, child-safety concerns and post-separation violence. Effective responses must be capable of understanding the whole pattern.

3Specialized organizations produce knowledge

Frontline practitioners do more than respond to individual crises. Through risk assessment, safety planning and sustained contact with women, they identify emerging patterns and generate knowledge that can strengthen policy and practice.

4Public awareness is part of public safety

During the tournament, BWSS’s public education campaign reached millions of people with one clear message: intimate partner violence does not just escalate — it is downplayed first. When people can recognize coercive control and escalating risk, women are more likely to be believed, supported and connected with specialized help.

5Research alone does not improve safety

The evidence about violence against women during major sporting events was already available. Responses must include the specialized organizations women turn to when the danger becomes impossible to manage alone.

Related resources

The Downplay Effect

Learn how coercive control and escalating intimate partner violence are minimized before they are recognized as dangerous.

Explore The Downplay Effect

Watch the public-service campaign

View BWSS’s FIFA World Cup public-awareness videos and share the message that public safety starts at home.

Watch the Campaign

Read the press release

See BWSS’s public statement and findings following the FIFA World Cup 2026.

Read the Press Release

Get support

BWSS provides specialized crisis support, safety planning, counselling, legal advocacy and referrals for women experiencing intimate partner violence.

Access Support

Canada’s National Action Plan on Gender-based Violence

Jul 16, 2026 | Battered Women's Support Services

Canada’s National Action Plan on Gender-based Violence

The Next Phase Must Reach the Frontline

$607.4M

committed by the Government of Canada over four years to continue implementation of the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence

There is much to welcome in today’s announcement.

The Government of Canada’s commitment of $607.4 million over four years signals that ending gender-based violence remains a national priority and builds on years of work by survivors, advocates, Indigenous leaders, researchers, governments and frontline organizations to establish Canada’s National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.

BWSS is proud to have been part of those earliest national conversations and to have co-chaired the Support for Survivors and Their Families pillar that helped shape the National Action Plan. We recognize today’s announcement as an important reaffirmation of that long-term commitment.

Now comes the next phase

A national action plan is only as effective as its execution.

Over the coming months, provinces and territories will receive their share of this investment, including British Columbia through the implementation of Safe and Supported: British Columbia’s Gender-Based Violence Action Plan. We look forward to seeing how these investments are distributed and, most importantly, how they reach the specialized frontline organizations that meet with victims and survivors every day.

The true measure of success will not simply be the size of the investment announced. It will be whether frontline organizations experience stronger operational capacity, a more stable specialized workforce, and increased ability to respond to the changing realities of intimate partner violence.

An evolving understanding

Since the National Action Plan was first conceived, our understanding of intimate partner violence has evolved significantly. Frontline organizations are increasingly responding to coercive control, non-fatal strangulation, firearms-related intimidation, technology-facilitated abuse, post-separation violence and other indicators associated with escalating lethality and femicide risk. As our understanding of intimate partner violence has advanced, specialized responses have evolved alongside it.

The next phase of implementation should ensure that investments strengthen this specialized expertise.

The questions governments must answer

As governments begin allocating these funds, we look forward to understanding how much will directly strengthen specialized frontline organizations. How much will support operational capacity? How much will stabilize the specialized workforce? How much will build the expertise needed to respond to coercive control, non-fatal strangulation, firearms-related risk, technology-facilitated abuse and other forms of escalating intimate partner violence?

The National Action Plan represents an important commitment.

Its lasting legacy, however, will be measured by whether victims and survivors can access the specialized support they need, when they need it, and that frontline organizations have experienced an increase in their capacity to respond.

That is how national commitments become real safety.

Download this statement as a PDF

Background

Canada’s National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence (NAP) was launched in November 2022 as a 10-year federal, provincial and territorial framework to create a coordinated national approach to preventing and responding to gender-based violence.

About the National Action Plan

Five pillars

1 Support for Victims, Survivors and Their Families
2 Prevention
3 Responsive Justice System
4 Implementing Indigenous-led Approaches
5 Social Infrastructure and an Enabling Environment

The Plan is supported by a foundation focused on leadership, coordination, research, data, accountability and reporting.

The National Action Plan builds on more than a decade of advocacy and collaboration by survivors, Indigenous leaders, frontline organizations, researchers and governments. In 2021, Women Shelters Canada convened national expert working groups to develop recommendations that informed the National Action Plan. Those recommendations emphasized coordinated systems, integrated services, sustained operational funding, intersectional practice, and supports centred on Safety, Healing and Justice.

BWSS participated in the earliest development of the National Action Plan and co-chaired the national Support for Survivors and Their Families Working Group.

Implementation of the National Action Plan occurs through bilateral agreements between the Government of Canada and every province and territory. Each jurisdiction has developed its own implementation plan while contributing to the shared national framework.

Federal investment timeline

2022

Government of Canada committed $539.3 million over five years, including $525 million through bilateral agreements with provinces and territories.

2023–2024

Federal bilateral funding totaled $75 million.

2024–2025

Federal bilateral funding increased to $150 million. Combined federal, provincial and territorial investments reached $753 million.

July 16, 2026

Government of Canada announced an additional $607.4 million over four years to continue implementation of the National Action Plan and renew support for provincial and territorial crisis lines.

2024–2025 federal allocations by province and territory
Province / Territory Allocation
Ontario $47.784 million
Quebec $28.550 million
British Columbia $18.048 million
Alberta $15.688 million
Manitoba $6.248 million
Saskatchewan $5.658 million
Nova Scotia $5.068 million
New Brunswick $4.478 million
Northwest Territories $4.118 million
Nunavut $4.118 million
Yukon $4.118 million
Newfoundland and Labrador $3.652 million
Prince Edward Island $2.472 million
Total federal allocation (2024–2025) $150 million
British Columbia — Safe and Supported

British Columbia’s implementation framework is Safe and Supported: British Columbia’s Gender-Based Violence Action Plan, focused on four priorities:

Increasing safety and supports for survivors
Advancing Indigenous-led approaches
Breaking cycles of violence through prevention, healing and accountability
Learning from implementation through monitoring and evaluation

Under the Canada–British Columbia bilateral agreement, the Government of Canada committed approximately $62 million over four years (2023–2027) to support implementation of Safe and Supported, alongside matching pre-established provincial investments.

Firearms, Intimate Partner Violence, and What This New Statistics Canada Report Means for Women’s Safety

Jul 9, 2026 | Battered Women's Support Services

Firearms, Intimate Partner Violence, and What This New Statistics Canada Report Means for Women’s Safety

Rates of gun-related intimate partner violence rising: StatsCan Tara Carman · CBC News

On July 8, 2026, Statistics Canada released Firearms and Intimate Partner Violence in Canada, 2009 to 2024, the first national analysis focused specifically on the intersection of firearms and intimate partner violence (IPV). While much of the public discussion will likely focus on gun violence, the report tells a much broader story. 

Read through the lens of women’s safety, it is a report about risk, coercive control, separation, femicide, and the urgent need for earlier intervention. For nearly five decades, BWSS has worked alongside women experiencing intimate partner violence. Much of what this report documents statistically reflects what survivors have been telling us for years.

Key Findings at a Glance

  • Firearm-related IPV rates have risen 58% since the early 2010s
  • More than half of victims are harmed by dating partners — a historic shift
  • 41% of firearm IPV involves former partners — separation is the highest-risk period
  • Women aged 18–24 face the highest rates; girls 12–17 experience rates 16× higher than boys
  • 57% of victims had no physical injury — firearms are weapons of terror and control
  • 91% of firearm-related IPV homicide victims were women and girls
  • In more than half of firearm IPV homicides, the accused subsequently died by suicide

The Most Important Finding Isn’t About Guns Instead it is About Escalating Risk

The headline statistic is that there were 1,096 victims of police-reported firearm-related intimate partner violence in 2024. While significant, that number alone does not capture the real story. The report shows that the rate of firearm-related IPV has increased by 58% compared to the early 2010s, rising much faster than intimate partner violence overall. Since 2020, firearm-related IPV has remained consistently higher than in previous decades, suggesting that while firearms remain involved in a relatively small proportion of all IPV incidents, they are becoming an increasingly significant marker of severe violence and lethality.

58%
Increase in firearm-related IPV rate since the early 2010s
1,096
Victims of police-reported firearm IPV in 2024 alone
2020+
Firearm IPV has remained consistently elevated since 2020

For BWSS, this reinforces an essential principle of our work: public safety cannot be measured solely by counting incidents. We must also measure severity and lethality. Firearms transform already dangerous situations into circumstances where the risk of homicide increases dramatically. Systems designed to prevent violence need to identify escalating risk long before a firearm is discharged.

Dating Relationships Are Becoming the New Front Line

One of the report’s most striking findings is the changing nature of firearm-related intimate partner violence. Historically, most firearm-related IPV occurred within marriages or common-law relationships. Today, more than half of victims are harmed by current or former dating partners. This represents a significant shift toward younger relationships and earlier stages of intimate partnerships.

This finding has profound implications for prevention. It means firearm-related coercive control and violence are no longer issues confined primarily to long-term relationships. Schools, universities, youth-serving organizations, and communities must recognize that serious intimate partner violence, including firearm threats, can occur in dating relationships long before couples marry or live together. Prevention efforts must evolve accordingly.

Separation Remains One of the Most Dangerous Times

The report reinforces decades of research and frontline experience demonstrating that separation is one of the highest-risk periods for women experiencing intimate partner violence. Forty-one percent of firearm-related IPV involved former partners, a substantially higher proportion than incidents involving other weapons or physical force alone.

At BWSS, we have long emphasized that leaving an abusive partner does not necessarily end the violence. In many cases, it escalates it. Safety planning during separation must remain central to policing, family law, child protection, and community response. Systems that assume women become safer simply because they have left misunderstand the dynamics of coercive control and can inadvertently increase risk.

Young Women Face the Highest Rates of Firearm-Related IPV

18–24
Age group with the highest rates of firearm-related IPV
16×
Girls 12–17 experience firearm-related IPV at rates sixteen times higher than boys

Among all age groups, women aged 18 to 24 experience the highest rates of firearm-related intimate partner violence. Even more concerning, girls aged 12 to 17 experience firearm-related IPV at rates sixteen times higher than boys of the same age.

These findings highlight the urgent need for prevention efforts that begin well before adulthood. Healthy relationship education, coercive control awareness, early intervention, and youth-focused support services must become core public safety strategies. Young women are disproportionately carrying the burden of firearm-related intimate partner violence, and prevention systems need to respond accordingly.

Firearm IPV Is Never Just Between Two People

One of the report’s lesser-known but extremely important findings is that firearm-related IPV frequently affects multiple victims. More than one in five firearm-related incidents involved additional victims beyond the intimate partner, including children, family members, acquaintances, and strangers. This occurred at three times the rate seen in other forms of intimate partner violence.

This finding challenges the persistent myth that intimate partner violence is a private matter confined to the home. Firearm-related IPV regularly spills beyond the relationship itself, placing entire families and communities at risk. Public safety does not begin when violence reaches public spaces—it begins by addressing violence inside the home before others become victims.

Geography Matters

The report finds that firearm-related intimate partner violence occurs at rates nearly three times higher in rural communities than in major urban centres. Northern and rural regions continue to experience the highest rates nationally.

This reflects more than geography. Rural communities often face longer police response times, fewer shelters, limited access to legal services, and greater firearm availability. Women living outside major cities should not face greater danger simply because of where they live. Effective public safety requires equitable investment in rural services, transportation, housing, and crisis response.

The Nature of Firearm Violence Is Changing

For years, rifles and shotguns were the firearms most commonly involved in intimate partner violence. Since 2020, however, handguns have become the most common firearm present in non-fatal firearm-related IPV incidents. Yet rifles and shotguns continue to account for most firearm-related intimate partner homicides.

This changing pattern suggests that firearm-related intimate partner violence is evolving. Understanding which firearms are involved—and in what circumstances—is important not only for firearm policy but also for risk assessment, policing, and prevention. Different forms of firearm access may require different intervention strategies.

The Presence of a Firearm Is Violence

57%
of firearm-related IPV victims sustained no physical injury

One of the report’s most powerful findings is that 57% of firearm-related IPV victims sustained no physical injury. Some readers may mistakenly conclude that firearms therefore played a limited role. The report makes clear that this would be the wrong conclusion. Firearms are frequently used to threaten, intimidate, control, and terrorize victims without being discharged. The psychological consequences can be profound, including heightened fear and increased symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

This finding aligns directly with BWSS’s understanding of coercive control. Violence cannot be measured solely by visible injuries. A firearm displayed during an argument, pointed without firing, or used as an implied threat fundamentally changes the power dynamics of the relationship. The absence of physical injury does not mean the absence of violence.

Violence Rarely Comes Without Warning

The report also finds that more than half of those accused of firearm-related intimate partner violence had previously been accused of violent crime, while over one-third had previous police contact involving intimate partner violence itself.

This reinforces a reality that BWSS encounters daily: severe violence often develops through a series of escalating warning signs rather than isolated events. Previous violence, stalking, coercive control, breaches of court orders, and repeated police contacts should all trigger meaningful risk assessment and intervention. Public safety depends on recognizing patterns, not simply responding to individual incidents.

Firearm Intimate Partner Violence Is a Femicide Issue

294
People killed in firearm-related IPV homicides in Canada, 2009–2024
91%
of those killed were women and girls
1 in 5
Intimate partner homicides during this period involved shooting

Between 2009 and 2024, 294 people were killed in firearm-related intimate partner homicides in Canada. Ninety-one percent of those killed were women and girls. One in every five intimate partner homicides during this period involved shooting.

These numbers leave little doubt that firearm-related intimate partner violence is fundamentally a women’s safety issue. While firearm violence often receives attention through discussions of gangs or organized crime, this report demonstrates that women continue to face disproportionate risk within intimate relationships. Preventing femicide requires addressing intimate partner violence as a core public safety priority.

Murder-Suicide Demands Greater Attention

Perhaps the most sobering statistic in the report is that in more than half of firearm-related intimate partner homicides, the accused person subsequently died by suicide. This proportion is dramatically higher than for intimate partner homicides involving other methods.

These incidents are often described as isolated tragedies, but they follow recognizable patterns of coercive control, escalating violence, and access to firearms. Preventing homicide means identifying risk before a crisis unfolds. Firearm removal, coordinated information sharing, and evidence-based risk assessment are essential public safety tools.

What Systems Don’t Know Can Still Kill

The report notes that police were aware of a history of violence in only 44% of firearm-related intimate partner homicides. Importantly, the authors caution against interpreting this to mean that violence did not exist. Much intimate partner violence—including coercive control—is never reported to police and therefore remains invisible within official records.

For BWSS, this finding reinforces the importance of listening to survivors rather than relying solely on criminal justice records. Systems frequently underestimate danger because coercive control, psychological abuse, and escalating threats often remain hidden until it is too late. Absence of documentation should never be mistaken for absence of risk.

The Questions We Still Need Answered

While this report provides valuable national data, it also reveals important gaps. It cannot tell us how many firearm-related cases involved completed risk assessments, how often firearms were seized and later returned, whether Family Law Act protection orders were enforced, or whether information was effectively shared between police, Crown, and family courts. It cannot tell us how many homicides might have been prevented had earlier interventions occurred.

These are precisely the questions BWSS believes Canada must now answer. Data should not simply describe violence after it occurs. It should help systems prevent it.

This report confirms what survivors and frontline organizations have known for years: firearm-related intimate partner violence is predictable, identifiable, and, in many cases, preventable. The challenge now is ensuring that public systems act on the warning signs before another woman is killed.

BWSS Public Legal Education Series

Jul 8, 2026 | Battered Women's Support Services

BWSS Public Legal Education Series

Practical legal information for survivors of intimate partner violence and those who support them.

The BWSS Public Legal Education Series is a free monthly webinar series designed to help survivors, community support workers, legal advocates, and others better understand family law, legal rights, and options for increasing safety.

Each workshop is led by experienced family law lawyers and legal professionals who provide practical, survivor-centred legal information in plain language.

Whether you are navigating the legal system yourself or supporting someone who is, these workshops will help you better understand legal processes, common challenges, and available resources.

All workshops are free, held online via Zoom, and take place at 12:00 PM.

Who Should Attend?

✓Survivors of intimate partner violence

✓Community support workers

✓Legal advocates

✓Transition house workers

✓Counsellors & settlement workers

✓Victim service workers

✓Students

✓Lawyers and legal professionals

✓Anyone supporting women experiencing IPV

Workshop Format

✓One hour online via Zoom at 12:00 PM

✓~40 minutes of presentation

✓20 minutes of moderated Q&A

✓Submit questions in advance

✓Presentation recording provided

✓Q&A not recorded (to protect participant privacy)

✓Monthly Legal Update included

2026–2027 Workshop Schedule

Jul
23
2026
12:00 PM

Child Protection and Working with MCFD

Understanding child protection investigations, safety plans, court orders, and your rights during the child protection process.

Maddison Tebbutt — JML

Aug
27
2026
12:00 PM

Protection Orders and Immediate Safety

Understanding Family Law Protection Orders, peace bonds, exclusive occupancy orders, and common questions about immediate safety.

Bahareh Danaei — North Shore Law

Sep
24
2026
12:00 PM

Children’s Views and Parenting Issues

What happens when children do not want to attend parenting time, managing exchanges safely, and understanding children’s views.

Michael Zimmerman — LK Law

Oct
22
2026
12:00 PM

Child and Spousal Support

Understanding support obligations, self-employment income, financial disclosure, and imputing income.

Kate Lawrence — JML

Nov
26
2026
12:00 PM

Family Property and Debt

Understanding family property, excluded property, family debt, and interim financial applications.

Kate Lawrence — JML

Jan
28
2027
12:00 PM

Pensions and Financial Security

An introduction to pensions after separation, protecting future financial interests, and available resources.

Kate Lawrence — JML & Guest TBC

Feb
25
2027
12:00 PM

Working with a Lawyer

What to expect from your lawyer, understanding legal bills, preparing for meetings, and advocating for yourself.

Kate Lawrence — JML

Mar
25
2027
12:00 PM

Preparing for Mediation

How to prepare effectively, safety considerations, shuttle mediation, and understanding the mediation process.

Kate Lawrence — Guest TBC

Apr
22
2027
12:00 PM

Trial Preparation and Evidence

Preparing documents, organizing evidence, understanding disclosure, and preparing for court.

Kate Lawrence — JML

Monthly Legal Update

  • Summary of key legal information from each workshop
  • Practical reminders and plain-language legal glossary
  • Helpful resources and links
  • Information about the next upcoming workshop
  • Opportunity to submit questions for future sessions

Questions?

Questions may be submitted before each workshop through our online Question Submission Form.

Questions will be reviewed by BWSS staff and shared anonymously with presenters where appropriate.

To help protect participant privacy, only the presentation portion of each workshop will be recorded.

We look forward to learning with you.

Registration

Online Legal Workshop Registration

Workshop Registration

Name(Required)
Which workshop(s) would you like to attend?(Required)
Would you like to receive future updates?
The information collected through this registration form will be used only to administer the BWSS Public Legal Education Series, provide workshop information, distribute related educational resources, and communicate with participants about this series. Your information will not be shared outside BWSS without your consent unless required by law.

Question Submission

Question Submission

Name
All questions are reviewed by BWSS staff and shared anonymously with presenters. You are not required to provide your name or email.