Jul 24, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services, Violence against women
The answer is yes. And it’s already happening.
On July 25, 2025, five former junior hockey players—each previously signed to an NHL team—were acquitted in a high-profile sexual assault case stemming from an alleged group assault in 2018. The complainant, known publicly as E.M., testified for eight days, enduring intense scrutiny, character attacks, and invasive cross-examination. In the end, the judge ruled that her testimony was not credible or reliable.
While the legal process has concluded, its implications are only beginning. For sexual assault survivors across Canada, the outcome of this trial does more than close a file. It sends a warning. One that will reverberate through every hospital exam room, every university orientation, every crisis line, every sexual assault centre, every transition house, every therapist’s office, and every moment when someone harmed by sexual violence asks:
Should I report?
This case will deter many from doing so. Not because they don’t seek justice—but because they’ve now seen how justice is defined.
A Chilling Effect Is Not Hypothetical
Sexual violence is already among the most underreported crimes in Canada. According to Statistics Canada, only about 6% of sexual assaults are reported to police. Of those, less than half lead to charges, and fewer still result in a conviction. Now imagine watching this trial unfold as a survivor:
- The invasive dissection of E.M.’s memory.
- The weaponization of her texts, silences, and coping strategies.
- The complete absence of accountability for the accused, four of whom never testified.
- The courtroom became a stage where only one person was required to perform—while her harm was put on trial.
Survivors are being shown what “justice” requires of them: coherence, composure, perfect memory, and a version of victimhood that aligns with outdated myths. Many will reasonably conclude: I cannot survive that.
This isn’t a chilling effect in the abstract. It’s a signal to survivors that coming forward will likely not result in safety—but could cost them their dignity, privacy, and well-being.
What the Courtroom Can’t Hold
The criminal legal system in Canada was not designed with survivors in mind. As lawyer Gillian Hnatiw has said, it is a “blunt instrument”—one that demands performance from survivors, while offering silence and insulation to those accused.
The system:
- Does not ask, What happened to you?
- It asks, Can you survive what we’re about to do to you?
This is especially true in cases involving powerful or high-profile defendants. In those moments, the system doesn’t merely question the survivor. It protects the brand, the league, the national myth. It defends the reputation of those seen as valuable. That defense comes at the cost of survivors’ credibility, safety, and future.
The courtroom did not ask what E.M. endured. It asked whether her responses fit a script.
A script in which trauma must be linear. Reactions must be immediate. Memory must be flawless.
There is no space for contradiction, for confusion, for the ways people survive.
The law didn’t fail to see the harm. It failed to recognize it on any terms but its own.
E.M. wasn’t disbelieved because her story lacked truth.
She was disbelieved because the system requires victims to be consistent, coherent, and composed—while demanding those things in the aftermath of violence.
False Accusations Are a Red Herring
One of the most enduring counter-narratives after any high-profile acquittal is the assertion that women routinely make false accusations. That fear is now likely to be reignited.
But here’s the truth:
False reports of sexual assault are rare.
Research from jurisdictions around the world, including Canada, estimates the rate of false reporting to be between 2–8%—comparable to other crimes like robbery or assault.
What is far more common?
- Survivors who never report.
- Survivors who recant under pressure.
- Survivors who are disbelieved or blamed when they do come forward.
- Survivors who are retraumatized by the very systems they turn to for justice.
The myth of false accusations does not protect the innocent. It protects the status quo. And it gives perpetrators a ready-made narrative to discredit anyone who dares name them.
So What Now?
We must be honest: this case will have a chilling effect. Not because survivors are weak. But because they are wise. They have learned from what the courtroom can’t hold.
But the criminal system is not the only form of justice. As Hnatiw reminds us, survivors can—and do—pursue healing, validation, and accountability outside the courtroom. Through civil claims. Through institutional complaints. Through collective organizing. Through telling the truth anyway.
And as advocates, legal workers, educators, and community members, our job is to hold space for that truth, to refuse the silence, tell survivors: you are not alone, and the court’s disbelief does not erase what happened.
An acquittal in this case does not prove that the criminal law is incapable of responding to sexual violence. But even before the verdict, some voices were already pivoting—suggesting that this case illustrates the need for alternative, non-criminal approaches like “restorative justice.”
That response misses the point. It assumes, wrongly, that restorative models are somehow immune from the same gendered biases that plague the courts. It also assumes that survivors want dialogue, or reconciliation, with those who violated them.
We reject the idea that justice for women must mean less justice—softer processes, fewer rights, or lowered expectations. Whatever the outcome of this trial, women are entitled to a criminal legal system that respects both the right to equality and the right to a fair trial.
And to E.M.—we see your courage. We know what it cost. And we will not forget.
Jul 22, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services, Violence against women
Violence in the home has long been protected—not by secrecy alone, but by law, culture, and institutional design. The division between public and private life is not a neutral boundary. It is a deeply embedded structure rooted in centuries of legal and social norms that treated women as dependents, subordinates, and property. In British Columbia today, women are not simply being harmed in their homes; they are being abandoned by institutions never meant to protect them.
The Scale of Intimate Partner Violence in BC
Nearly half—48 percent—of girls and women aged 15 and over in BC have experienced intimate partner violence. That’s more than 1.1 million lives. Right now, we estimate that at least 92,000 women are living with physical or sexual violence from a partner. If coercive control, emotional abuse, and economic violence are included, the number exceeds 200,000. These are not signs of a failing system. They are signs of a system working exactly as it was designed—to preserve domestic order and male authority, not women’s survival.
A Legal Legacy of Control and Silence
Under English common law and its colonial inheritors, women were not legal persons in their own right. They were legally absorbed into the identities of their fathers and husbands. Marriage conferred control over a woman’s body, property, movement, and legal status. Violence within that context was not just permitted—it was structured as a right. That legal legacy is not a relic. It continues to shape institutional responses today.
When violence happens in public, it is treated as a criminal matter. When it happens at home, it is often minimized as a dispute. This logic—framing the household as a realm beyond state interference—has long shielded power of fathers, husbands and boyfriends from accountability. That logic still governs.
Systemic Neglect and Political Inaction
Government policy continues to assign intimate partner violence to health or social services, rather than addressing it as a public safety emergency. Despite the scale—1.1 million women affected—there is no provincial GBV framework, no declaration of emergency, and no mandatory risk assessments across institutions. The message is clear: violence in the home is a personal problem, not a collective responsibility.
Police routinely downplay reports of IPV as “relationship issues” or “high-conflict relationship.” The credibility of victims and survivors who report violence is questioned. Many of the 92,000 women currently experiencing violence never see timely or meaningful intervention. In court, Crown counsel and judges often rely on outdated assumptions. The myth of the good father frequently outweighs the survivor’s risk.
This divide is not just institutional—it is cultural. Families, coworkers, and communities hesitate to ask, support, or believe unless the harm is visible. That silence leaves more than 200,000 women navigating abuse on their own.
Lives Lost, Systems Maintained
This July, five women in British Columbia were killed by men they knew. These were not anomalies. They were the lethal outcome of institutional delay and political silence.
One of them was Bailey McCourt. On July 4, she was beaten to death with a hammer by her former partner. He had been convicted of assaulting her—of choking and threatening her life. Yet he was released pending sentencing. This was not an oversight. It was a calculated decision made within a legal system that continues to treat the violence by a husband or boyfriend in the home as less urgent than disorder in the public square. It reflects a framework that centres male entitlement over women’s safety.
Bailey McCourt didn’t die because the system failed. She died because it operated exactly as designed—passing responsibility from police to Crown, from Crown to courts, until her danger was no longer seen as urgent, or even real.
To stop these deaths, we must dismantle both the systems that permit them and the ideology that excuses them—an ideology that still treats men’s dominance as natural and the harm women experience as an acceptable loss.
Jul 19, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services
MEDIA STATEMENT
For Immediate Release
Another Woman Killed in Richmond: Gender-Based Violence Is the Public Safety Crisis of Our Time
Vancouver, BC – Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) is responding with sorrow and urgency to yet another killing of a woman in British Columbia—this time in Richmond, where police have arrested a man and stated that “there is no further risk to the public.”
This language is not neutral. It signals to the public that the situation is contained and resolved, that there is nothing more to fear, and that institutions have regained control. But the truth is that another woman is dead. And in just 17 days, across six different cities in this province, five women have been killed, and three others have been seriously injured—most were harmed by a man known to them. What happened in Abbotsford, Kelowna, Surrey, Langley, Vancouver and now Richmond is not an isolated tragedy. It is a repeating and escalating pattern of gender-based violence that continues to be mischaracterized as random, private, and exceptional.
When officials say there is no risk to the public, they are excluding the very people most at risk from their definition of public. They are rendering women invisible in the scope of institutional concern. These statements not only mislead, but they also protect the systems that failed to intervene. They deny the scale of the crisis and allow elected officials, police, and Crown prosecutors to remain silent while more lives are lost.
The data is irrefutable. As the Dr. Kim Stanton Report on systemic failures in the legal system noted, forty-eight percent of women and girls aged fifteen and older in B.C. have experienced intimate partner violence. Nearly half of women across the province are living with the aftermath or threat of violence—whether physical, sexual, psychological, or economic. And yet, public safety policies continue to treat gender-based violence and violence against women as secondary, invisible, or already addressed
We are now witnessing the result of that neglect where a woman is killed, and there is no emergency declared, the risk is named as over, while the cycle is allowed to continue. For every woman killed there thousand more who are living in fear.
This moment demands more than declarations or sympathy. It requires sustained and coordinated action from every level of government. Municipal governments must stop waiting for provincial direction and begin treating gender-based violence as the public safety emergency it is. Provincial ministries must coordinate across housing, health, justice, and education systems to disrupt the patterns that allow women to be killed despite repeated calls for help. The federal government must move beyond statements of commitment and legislate mandatory standards for risk assessment, prevention, and accountability across the country.
This province cannot keep building our public safety response on language that excludes survivors and institutions that protect the status quo. Public safety must be redefined to include those who are most at risk of harm. It must be proactive, not reactive. And it must be designed with survivors in mind from the outset—not added in after the violence has already occurred.
This is not just a series of individual tragedies, the violence is happening to members of the public and is a reflection on a collective failure. Until we confront that reality, the pattern will persist, and women will continue to die under the silence of institutional reassurance.
global news clip
Jul 16, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services
This Week in Public Safety: Five Women, Five Cities, One Pattern
In the span of just two weeks, five women in British Columbia were killed or critically injured—all by men they knew. These acts of violence took place in different cities, under different circumstances, but they are connected by something deeper than proximity in time. They reveal a pattern: of known risk dismissed, of institutional failure repeated, and of silence where there should have been response.
This video documents that pattern—not to sensationalize individual tragedies, but to confront the routine nature of intimate partner violence – a crisis of gender-based violence in this province and the institutional inaction that continues to allow it. We are often told these are isolated cases, unpredictable and tragic. But they are not isolated, and they are not unpredictable. The risks were visible.
The systems were informed. Women asked for help. The help did not come.
There has been no public emergency declared, no coordinated review announced and for now no meaningful accountability offered. In the absence of action, the silence itself becomes a message—a message about whose lives are valued and whose safety is optional.
This video is part of the #DesignedWithSurvivors initiative, a broader effort to reframe public safety through the lens of those most often ignored when violence occurs. It is a call to remember that what is being tolerated today will be repeated tomorrow—unless that pattern is broken by design.
Jul 16, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services
Ready to Sweat for Survivors?
This isn’t just about fitness. It’s about solidarity, healing, and action.
For the everyday person who wants to make a difference but may not know how—this is your chance.
Visit our Sweat to Support Campaign Page for more info.
Here’s the current line-up:
Outdoor Fitness – Join local instructors Danya Rogen and Shana Alexander at Emily Carr Elementary for two Bootcamp to Benefit classes this summer in support of BWSS! These strength and cardio classes are open to all, and there will be variations to accommodate everybody.
Sun, August 17 @ 11:15 am
Bungee Fitness in Mount Pleasant Studio – At this Tantra Fitness class expect a fun, loaded, high energy workout when stepping into a harness around your waist attached to a bungee cord.
Sun, August 17 @ 12:30 pm
Aerial Yoga Mt Pleasant Studio – Aerial Yoga at Tantra Fitness is a Yoga-based all-levels class that incorporates a suspended hammock.
Pelvic Pilates Mt Pleasant Studio – At this Tantra Fitness class, explore the healing and core strengthening of Pelvic Pilates.
Intro to Pole Gastown Studio – At Tantra Fitness’ Intro to Pole you will learn the important fundamentals you must have for the Pole 101 Signature Series including basic moves and how to put it together.
Eastside Fitness – The workout is a full body – strength and conditioning workout! Based on Eastside Fitness Fitcamp Series model, the workout is suitable for all levels of fitness experience Lead by Alexa Uhrich, certified Personal Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor.
The BASICS Mobility + Movement Class is hosted by Kits Beach Coffee and guided by Trauma-Informed Trainer, Gabi Varga – The workout is a full body – strength and conditioning workout suitable for all levels of fitness experience! This class is designed to improve mobility, flexibility, and basic strength bodyweight movements, all guided through trauma-informed tools to feel more connected to yourself.
The BASICS Mobility+Movement Class: West Van location – The class is open to all levels, featuring simple and easy-to-follow movements. You can expect a slower pace and plenty of space for reflection to help you check in with your body throughout.
Boogaloo Academy – Don’t miss the opportunity to take a class from our choreographer and one of the absolute BEST @jherichizon and raise money for @endingviolence.
Jul 11, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services
At Battered Women’s Support Services, we see every day how deeply gender-based violence and violence against women is embedde
d in Canadian society.What is less often acknowledged is that the work to end this violence is itself met with violence—racist, misogynist, and intended to silence.
This week, the executive director at BWSS received a message that was explicitly hateful, laced with racial slurs and misogyny. It came in response to our work addressing violence against women. The content was not unfamiliar. It was vile, yes. But it was also routine. For those of us doing this work—especially racialized women, anti-violence service providers, and feminist organizations—the backlash is anticipated.
This message ended with the full use of the N-word—undisguised, violent, and meant to dehumanize. That final word was not incidental. It was the point.
This is not necessarily about one message or one individual. It is about a pattern. A strategy of attack that seeks to derail, intimidate, and discredit those who are doing the work to build a future free from violence against women and gender-based violence. These attacks—whether online, by text, through public campaigns or threats—are political. And they are designed to keep systems of power intact.
This is not new. Anti-violence movements have always faced resistance. But today, that resistance is finding more visible and violent forms—shaped by digital tools, political polarization, and a growing effort to undermine anti-violence services, feminist and anti-racist advocacy. When we challenge the roots of this violence, when we advocate for survivors, we become targets ourselves.
What this message reveals is not just the existence of hate, but how central that hate is to the structures we are trying to change. It reflects the ways that some people see gender and racial justice not as a necessity but as a threat. And that is precisely why this work remains urgent.
We are not sharing this to sensationalize the abuse. We are sharing it because silence is what hate relies on. When we expose it, we name it for what it is: an extension of the violence we are committed to ending.
BWSS has reported the incident to authorities, and a Hate Crimes Unit is investigating. We always take precautions to protect the safety of our staff and community and have internal protocols in place for situations like this.
This work is about building safety—for survivors, for communities, for future generations. And safety means more than responding to violence after it happens. It means disrupting the conditions that allow it to thrive. That includes confronting the racist and misogynist backlash that follows every step forward.
This moment is not about one message. It is about the need for a collective refusal to accept hate as the cost of doing this work. It is about calling on our allies, our communities, our funders, our media, and our governments to see this clearly: those who fight for safety should not have to defend themselves from new forms of violence in the process.
We will continue. And we will not be silent. To join #DesignedWithSurvivors please email us at endingvolence@bwss.org
