Sep 8, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services
From Vigils to Action: Toward Ending Femicide in British Columbia
Last weekend, we attended the vigil for Ivy Michelle Bell. Yesterday, we gathered with family and community to honour Jessica Cunningham. This Saturday, we will travel to Kelowna for the celebration of life for Bailey McCourt.
These gatherings are moments of profound grief. They are also reminders of love — the love that families, friends, and communities hold for women whose lives have been stolen. Each woman was unique, cherished, and irreplaceable. And each should still be alive today.
And just this past Friday, Vancouver police confirmed that two women were killed and one woman seriously injured. A man has since been arrested and charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault. While details are still emerging, what is already clear is that this case belongs to a devastating pattern: in just 13 months, 34 women have been killed in British Columbia.
A Devastating and Preventable Pattern
Whether inside their homes or in public spaces, women and girls are being killed by men. Some by partners or ex-partners, some by acquaintances, some by strangers. These are not isolated tragedies. They are the visible tip of a crisis that has been normalized, dismissed, and too often explained away as private.
We need to be clear: femicide is preventable. Every one of these women should still be alive. Every community gathering at a vigil this month is mourning not just the loss of one life, but the failure of a society that refuses to take violence against women seriously as a matter of public safety.
What Women and Girls Are Carrying
Each time another headline announces a woman killed or a sexual assault, women and girls across BC feel the weight:
- Fear and Hyper-Vigilance – “It could be me. It could be my daughter. It could be my friend.” Women and girls are reminded again that their daily safety is not guaranteed — on the street, in their homes, at school, at work. They carry an invisible burden of safety planning: checking surroundings, sharing locations, avoiding certain spaces, calculating risks in relationships.
- Anger and Frustration – “Why does this keep happening? Why doesn’t anything change?” Many feel outrage at the normalization of male violence, and at systems (police, courts, governments) that appear reactive at best, negligent at worst. There’s anger at hearing condolences instead of commitments, promises instead of action.
- Grief and Exhaustion – “Another one. Again. I can’t bear to read the details.” For survivors, each new killing or assault can trigger trauma and memories of their own experiences. Even for those not directly affected, there is collective mourning and fatigue — the sense of an endless cycle of loss.
- Solidarity and Connection – “That could have been me — I understand her fear, her pain.” Many women and girls feel immediate empathy and identification with victims and survivors. This can fuel solidarity, mutual care, and collective calls to action — vigils, marches, petitions, demands.
- Distrust and Disillusionment – “The systems meant to protect us are failing.” News of another killing reinforces the sense that police, courts, governments, and community institutions do not prioritize women’s safety. Girls growing up with these headlines may begin to believe that violence is an inevitable part of being female.
- Resolve and Defiance – Alongside grief and fear, many women and girls channel their emotions into resistance: “We will not be silent. We will organize, fight, and protect each other.” Especially among younger generations, repeated tragedies are radicalizing new voices demanding systemic change.
This is the emotional climate that femicide creates. This is the reality that families, survivors, and communities are forced to carry while governments delay.
This is a Public Safety Crisis
If three men were killed on the street in one week, there would be immediate calls for a public inquiry and emergency action. When women are killed again and again — 34 in just over a year — we hear condolences, but not coordinated action.
Violence against women is not an unfortunate private matter. It is a public safety crisis. It belongs in the same category of urgent government response as wildfires, pandemics, and organized crime.
Five Immediate Actions to End Femicide
On July 20th, we presented the Premier with five immediate actions the Province of BC could take today to prevent femicide and save lives. These are not aspirational. They are feasible, affordable, and urgent:
- Mandate Municipal GBV Task Forces – Every city must convene a survivor-centred task force to coordinate safety across policing, housing, and justice.
- Stabilize Frontline Services – Provide a 15% emergency funding increase so crisis lines, outreach, and victim services can meet demand and keep survivors safe.
- Standardize Risk Assessment – Make intimate partner violence risk assessment tools mandatory across police, Crown, and child protection, with oversight and enforcement.
- Launch a Province-Wide Prevention Campaign – Use existing government communications infrastructure to educate the public and prevent intimate partner violence.
- Appoint a GBV Lead in Public Safety – Designate a dedicated provincial lead to coordinate this work across ministries and municipalities.
- These five steps will save lives. The solutions exist. What is missing is political will.
BWSS Advocacy and Municipal Leadership
BWSS has and continues to meet with government officials, ministries, and community organizations across BC to keep pushing for the change needed. We are advancing survivor-centred approaches to public safety, bringing evidence, solutions, and survivor voices to the table.
At the same time, we have begun our own work directly with mayors and councils. From Surrey to Burnaby, from Maple Ridge to Prince George, municipalities are stepping forward to recognize gender-based violence as a public safety crisis. Local governments are creating space for survivor-centred safety planning and demanding provincial leadership.
When municipal leaders say, “This is our responsibility too,” they are modeling the kind of courage the Province must now follow.
Grief, Rage, and Action
We will continue to stand with families at vigils, to bear witness to the lives taken, and to honour the love that communities carry forward. But grief alone is not enough. We will continue to rage at the systemic failures that leave women unprotected.
And we will continue to demand action until the killing stops. Families should not have to gather week after week in mourning. Women and girls deserve to live free from violence. British Columbia deserves a public safety system designed with survivors in mind.
Sep 4, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services
Across British Columbia, women have been killed in Kelowna, Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey, Abbotsford, and Maple Ridge. In Burnaby, a woman was sexually assaulted in Central Park, a reminder that violence in public spaces persists. In Langley, a woman was severely injured when a substance was thrown on her, burning her body. These events show the range of violence women experience, from femicide to sexual assault to brutal attacks, and they reveal how urgently municipalities must act.
At Battered Women’s Support Services, we know local governments are central to ending this violence. Municipalities oversee the systems where safety is either supported or undermined: housing, transit, parks, lighting, policing oversight, and community programs. They are not bystanders; their decisions directly affect whether survivors live safely.
Our initiative, #DesignedWithSurvivors, reframes gender-based violence as a public safety crisis. The guiding question is simple yet transformative: what would public safety look like if it were designed with survivors in mind? Since May, we have contacted every mayor and council in BC, inviting them to meet with us, learn from survivors, and commit to action. To ensure transparency, we launched a public tracker showing which municipalities have stepped forward, which are preparing to do so, and which remain silent.
The response has been encouraging. We have met with leadership in Surrey, Vancouver, Richmond, Abbotsford, Kelowna, Burnaby, and Maple Ridge—municipalities where women have been killed or where serious violence has occurred. These conversations have focused on concrete steps such as establishing gender-based violence task forces, embedding survivor-centred risk assessment into safety planning, and advancing resolutions for the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) convention. Meetings are also scheduled with Langley, Trail, Ucluelet, and Tumbler Ridge. The momentum is growing.
The urgency is undeniable. In Maple Ridge, the disappearance of Jessica Cunningham and the discovery of human remains in her home shocked the community. In Burnaby, the Central Park assault showed that women are still unsafe in public spaces. In Langley, the attack that left a woman with chemical burns highlighted another dimension of this crisis. Residents are not asking for more headlines; they are demanding action.
The lessons from Ontario’s Renfrew County Inquest show what action looks like. In 2015, three women—Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk, and Nathalie Warmerdam—were murdered on the same day by a man with a known history of violence against them. The inquest that followed in 2022 examined the systemic failures that allowed the killings to occur. The jury issued eighty-six recommendations, including a clear directive that municipalities must integrate intimate partner violence into their community safety and well-being plans.
The inquest also stressed the importance of risk assessment. It called for a common framework to identify risk and lethality in intimate partner violence cases, co-training for justice and community personnel, and the consistent use of survivor-informed risk assessments in bail, plea, and sentencing decisions. These are practical reforms designed to prevent women from being killed after their risks are visible but ignored. Without consistent, survivor-centred risk assessment, tragedies will continue.
Here in British Columbia, Dr. Kim Stanton’s 2025 Independent Systemic Review confirmed the same failures. Her report documented how police, Crown counsel, and courts routinely fail to assess risk in cases of intimate partner violence and sexual assault. Women are being left unprotected because warning signs are disregarded. Stanton’s findings echo the Renfrew Inquest: risk assessment is not bureaucratic procedure, it is a matter of life and death.
When BWSS meets with municipal leaders, we bring these lessons forward. Cities can show leadership by embedding survivor-centred risk assessment into their community safety strategies. That means ensuring local policing contracts and safety plans include evidence-based assessments. It also means creating municipal gender-based violence task forces that unite service providers, justice representatives, and survivor advocates to monitor risks and design prevention strategies. These steps are structural, not symbolic, and they can save lives.
UBCM is the next critical moment. Each year, municipalities across the province debate and adopt resolutions that influence provincial policy. This September, municipalities can demonstrate leadership by adopting survivor-centred motions: declaring intimate partner violence and gender-based violence a public safety epidemic, integrating risk assessment into community safety plans, and establishing gender-based violence task forces. Together, they can send a clear message to the provincial government that local governments will not remain passive in the face of femicide and violence against women.
We are already seeing what change looks like. Municipalities are listening, survivors are being heard, and councils are beginning to act. The momentum we have built in only a few months shows that local governments understand their role in creating safer communities. BWSS is committed to supporting them with policy analysis, survivor expertise, and practical recommendations. Our tracker is not only a record of who has responded, it is a tool for accountability and public engagement.
The message to municipalities is straightforward: the time to act is now. Women and gender-diverse people cannot wait for another inquest or another report to confirm what we already know. Public safety designed with survivors in mind is safer for everyone. Cities that prioritize survivor-centred strategies will be stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient.
The killings in Kelowna, Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey, Abbotsford, and Maple Ridge, together with the sexual assault in Burnaby and the brutal attack in Langley, should never have happened. They must serve as catalysts for systemic change. With survivor-centred planning, consistent risk assessment, and municipal leadership, BC can move from words to action and from silence to accountability. BWSS is proud to lead this campaign and remains committed to working with municipalities, provincial leaders, and communities to end intimate partner violence and femicide.
Aug 26, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services
Today, gender justice and anti-violence organizations from across British Columbia met with Rechie Valdez, Canada’s Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Secretary of State for Small Business and Tourism.
Organizations representing the north-west and north coast, rural and remote communities, provincial associations, Indigenous and Black women’s organizations, law reform advocates, anti-violence programs, child care advocates, and sexual assault centres came together with a unified message: survivors, girls, women, and gender-diverse people frontline services, and equality movements across BC are speaking with one voice.
The roundtable opened with a territorial welcome from Summer Rain, Manager of the Justice Centre at BWSS, followed by a moment of silence honouring women and girls lost to femicide in BC.
To frame the discussion, participants introduced two powerful visuals: the “Wall of Rollback Receipts” documenting federal cuts and failures, and the “Equality Opportunities Wall – #DesignedWithSurvivors” outlining solutions and pathways forward.
A round-robin of interventions then followed, with organizations from across BC highlighting key themes: sector funding and stability, Indigenous women and MMIWG, rural and northern realities, Black and immigrant women’s leadership, law reform and justice, child care and the care economy, and girls’ safety and leadership.
Together, organizations presented a unified voice through three core asks:
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Stable, core, multi-year funding for the sector.
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Shifting investment toward the care economy, housing, and prevention.
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Independent, survivor- and Indigenous-led accountability for the NAP and MMIWG Calls for Justice.
Minister Valdez was invited to reflect and asked for one clear commitment to carry forward to Cabinet. The meeting closed with a collective affirmation that survivors’ safety is public safety, and a shared commitment to follow up ahead of the Fall 2025 federal budget.
Statement from BC Gender Justice and Anti-Violence Organizations
An Urgent Meeting in an Urgent Time
We thank the Minister for her time and openness to hearing directly from frontline organizations. This meeting was an important opportunity for BC leaders to present evidence, experiences, and solutions rooted in the realities of survivors across our province.
- What we shared was clear: the situation facing women, girls, and gender-diverse people in BC is dire.
- Every 6 days a woman in Canada is killed by her partner.
- BC has some of the highest femicide rates in the country, with recent tragedies still fresh in our communities.
- Resource extraction and man camps continue to put Indigenous women and girls at risk, in direct contradiction to the MMIWG Calls for Justice.
- The National Action Plan on Gender-based Violence has not achieved enough profile and there is not commitment to continue beyond year 5.
- The housing and child care crises traps survivors in unsafe situations and prevents them from building safe futures.
- Digital misogyny and online harms are targeting girls, normalizing violence, and fuelling extremist ideologies.
- And now, an 80% cut to WAGE’s budget threatens to gut the very sector working to hold the line.
- BC organizations highlighted our unique realities:
- The province’s femicide crisis is deepening, with women and girls killed in Abbotsford, Kelowna, Richmond, Surrey, Vancouver and beyond.
- Extractive projects in northern and rural BC make this province a frontline for resource-linked violence against Indigenous women and girls.
- Housing costs and shortages in BC are among the worst in Canada, child care are the highest in Canada, both intensifying the dangers survivors face.
Three Core Asks
Together, we called on Minister Valdez to advance three urgent priorities:
- Stable, core, sufficient multi-year funding for the gender justice and anti-violence sector, ending the cycle of project-based precarity.
- Shifting federal investment toward the care economy, child care, housing, and prevention — recognizing that these are violence prevention measures as essential as policing or infrastructure.
- Independent, Indigenous- and survivor-led accountability for the National Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence and the MMIWG Calls for Justice, ensuring promises do not remain words on paper.
The BC Difference
BC organizations highlighted our unique realities:
- The province’s femicide crisis is deepening, with women and girls killed in Abbotsford, Kelowna, Richmond, Surrey, Vancouver and beyond.
- Extractive projects in northern and rural BC make this province a frontline for resource-linked violence against Indigenous women and girls.
- Housing and child care costs and shortages in BC are among the worst in Canada, intensifying the dangers survivors face.
Our Commitment
Organizations across BC are committed to working with Minister Valdez and WAGE, but we will also hold the federal government accountable. Our work is not optional — equality organizations are the backbone of public safety, economic participation, and democracy in Canada.
Quotes:
“Child care in BC is the most expensive in Canada and there’s only enough licensed child care for 25% of children in our province. Women with children fleeing violence need access to $10aDay child care where educators are valued and fairly compensated.”– Sharon Gregson, Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and $10 a Day Child Care
One in three women in B.C. have experienced sexual assault and this is unacceptable. – Laurie Hannah, Westcoast Community Resources Society
“The heaviest consequences are disproportionately carried by racialized and Immigrant women” – Nataizya Mukwavi, Black Women Connect Vancouver and Pacific Immigrant Resources Society
“There can be no meaningful access for justice for women and gender-diverse people without the advocacy and support services provided by our sector. – Shannon Daub, West Coast LEAF
“Women and children cannot survive another era of austerity.” – Jennifer Mackie, Fraser Region Aboriginal Friendship Centre Association
“The creation of safe and affordable housing is a key lever for addressing women’s safety and investments are necessary because the home can be one of the most dangerous places.” – Amy Fitzgerald, BC Society of Transition Houses
“Women, girls and gender diverse folks in the north need and deserve safety.” Lynnelle Halikowski, Prince George Sexual Assault Centre
“Every six days a woman in Canada is killed by her partner. In British Columbia, we are losing women and girls at an alarming rate, yet the federal government has not committed to the National Action Plan on Gender-based Violence past year five. Today, we are telling the Minister clearly: gender equality is not optional. Without safety for women, girls, and gender-diverse people, there is no public safety in this country.” – Angela Marie MacDougall, BWSS Battered Women’s Support Services Association
Attendees
- Amy FitzGerald – BC Society of Transition Houses
- Nataizya Mukwavi – Black Women Connect Vancouver and Pacific Immigrant Resources Society
- Angela Marie MacDougall – BWSS Battered Women’s Support Services
- Sharon Gregson – Coalition of Childcare Advocates of BC $10 a Day Child Care
- Alice Kendall – Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre
- Ninu Kang – Ending Violence Association of BC
- Jennifer Mackie – Fraser Region Aboriginal Friendship Centre Association
- Sue Brown – Justice for Girls
- Lisa Schmidt – ‘Ksan Society
- Lynnell Halikowski – Prince George Sexual Assault Centre
- Shahnaz Rahman – Surrey Women’s Centre
- Laurie Hannah – Westcoast Community Resources Society
- Shannon Daub – West Coast LEAF
Aug 22, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services
When describing an abusive partner, it’s common to hear terms like “narcissist,” “psychopath,” or “sociopath” thrown around. These labels may seem to offer clarity, but they often serve to individualize harm, relying on medicalized frameworks that distract from the patterns of power and control at the heart of gender-based violence.
In reality, no diagnosis is required to understand abuse. Abusive partners are not dangerous because they have a personality disorder. They are dangerous because they choose to use tactics—manipulation, isolation, intimidation, humiliation, threats, and violence—to dominate and control others. These behaviours are not accidental. They are intentional, calculated, and often repeated over time with escalating harm.
Many public-facing articles attempt to distinguish between narcissism, psychopathy, and sociopathy. For example, they may describe narcissists as entitled and lacking empathy but still capable of shame; psychopaths as emotionally cold and lacking remorse; and sociopaths as shaped by environmental trauma. But these distinctions risk obscuring the fact that abusive behaviour does not require a clinical diagnosis. People who use violence can present as charming, remorseful, or emotionally intelligent—and still be dangerous.
It’s also important to consider that psychiatric labels have historically been used to excuse or explain abusive behaviour, especially when the abuser is male. Conversely, survivors—especially women—are often pathologized for their trauma responses. This double standard reinforces stigma, removes accountability from perpetrators, and undermines survivors’ credibility.
Instead of focusing on diagnostic categories, we can ask different questions:
- Does this person repeatedly ignore boundaries?
- Do they blame others for their actions?
- Do they isolate or control their partner?
- Do they escalate in response to accountability?
A trauma- and violence-informed approach does not require diagnostic confirmation to believe survivors, recognize harm, or intervene. It centers survivors’ experiences and shifts the focus from “what is wrong with him?” to “what is he doing—and why is he allowed to keep doing it?”
Understanding abuse requires looking beyond psychology and into systems of power—patriarchy, racism, capitalism, and colonialism—that enable and excuse violence. While clinical tools can offer insight, they should never replace political, social, and survivor-informed analysis of abuse.
If someone’s behaviour is causing fear, harm, or control—those are the receipts. You do not need a label to take it seriously or to take action.
Aug 17, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services
Every survivor of violence knows what it means to calculate risk in an instant. Sometimes survival looks like running, sometimes like fighting back. But often it looks like compliance — a smile to defuse anger, a “yes” to avoid worse harm. This is fawning, and it is as much a trauma response as fighting, freezing or fleeing. Yet in courtrooms across Canada, it is misunderstood as consent, leaving survivors unprotected and
unheard.
Fawning is not a sign of weakness. It is a survival strategy that develops under conditions of coercion, threat, and control. The survivor aligns themselves with the demands of the one in power most often the abusive party, not out of desire but out of necessity. In many cases, it is the only way to stay alive in a moment where resistance could trigger further violence including lethal violence. Despite this reality, the justice system has no framework to interpret fawning. Instead, compliance is misread as willingness. In a country where sexual assault is rarely prosecuted and convictions are rarer still, this gap has devastating consequences.
From an early age, women and girls are conditioned under patriarchy to anticipate male anger and to minimize it. They are taught to smile, to smooth over tension, to soothe men’s emotions in order to avoid punishment. These lessons are reinforced in families, schools, workplaces, and intimate relationships, where power is unequally distributed and male authority often goes unquestioned. What is framed as “female politeness” is in fact a set of survival behaviours under male dominance. Fawning is not only an individual trauma response but also a reflection of systemic gender inequality that normalizes women’s submission to men’s demands.
This conditioning is so deeply normalized that when it surfaces in sexual assault cases, courts interpret it as proof of consent. Judges, prosecutors, and defence lawyers work within a legal framework built on patriarchal notions of sexuality, where men’s pursuit is assumed and women’s resistance is demanded in order for “no” to be taken seriously. The result is that survival strategies like placating, freezing, or silence are weaponized against survivors, reinforcing male power in the courtroom just as it operates in the home or on the street. The law’s blindness is not neutral rather it actively protects perpetrators while punishing women for doing what they had to do to survive.
Recent high-profile cases in Canada illustrate this clearly. In acquitting five former members of Canada’s world junior hockey team on sexual assault charges, the court dismissed the survivor’s fear as irrelevant.
The defence argued that there is “no consent-vitiating level of fear,” suggesting that unless a woman actively resisted, the law must see her actions as agreement. This interpretation reflects a patriarchal logic that centres men’s desires and dismisses women’s realities. It also reveals the structural power imbalance in play: young men backed by institutions of sport and law are granted credibility, while a woman’s fear and survival strategies are erased.
The consequences extend far beyond any one trial. In family court for instance, survivors are discouraged from disclosing intimate partner violence because their trauma responses will be turned against them.
Perpetrators learn that compliance under pressure can be twisted into a shield against accountability. Families are left to grieve in the aftermath of preventable violence. All of this occurs within a justice system designed to preserve male authority rather than challenge it. What is at stake is not only the failure to prosecute individual cases, but the broader normalization of male violence as a tolerated feature of society.
A survivor-centred system would centre something different. It would recognize that strategies that women…and girls deploy for survival cannot be divorced from the unequal power relations that shape them. It would take seriously the ways patriarchy constrains women’s choices and forces compliance as a means of staying alive. It would require police, prosecutors, and judges to see fawning not as consent but as evidence of coercion, fear, and structural inequality. To do otherwise is to continue siding with male power at the expense of women’s safety.
The stakes are not abstract – based on numbers from 2019 gender-based violence is escalating across Canada while femicides have also increased. Service providers like ours are witnessing unprecedented numbers of women, girls and gender-diverse people reaching out for help. In this context, the refusal to recognize fawning is not simply a technical legal flaw. It is part of a larger pattern in which institutions uphold patriarchal dominance by denying the full reality of violence, leaving survivors to carry the consequences alone.
Survivors should not be penalized for the ways they manage to stay alive, because compliance under duress is not consent and silence in the face of threat is not agreement. Fawning is a survival strategy born out of fear and enforced by patriarchy, and until our justice system acknowledges this truth, it will continue to deny justice.
We call on legislators, prosecutors, and judges to engage with this reality, to confront the failure of the current legal framework, and to take responsibility for reform.
Survivors cannot afford another decade of neglect. The time to change the way our courts see survival is now.
Aug 8, 2025 | Battered Women's Support Services
In the wake of multiple femicides and a growing public reckoning with systemic failures in BC’s response to intimate partner violence, Hotel Pacifico invited BWSS Executive Director Angela Marie MacDougall for a full-length interview on the escalating crisis of gender-based violence and the political inaction that sustains it.
The conversation aired just weeks after five women were killed in British Columbia within a single month, including in Kelowna, where state systems had been actively engaged but failed to prevent the outcome. What emerged from the interview was not simply commentary on tragic events, but a rare and unflinching public analysis of the social, legal, cultural, and institutional conditions that allow violence to persist.
Angela brought a survivor-centred, systemic lens to the table, challenging the “random tragedy” framing that too often dominates news coverage, and instead calling out state responsibility, political inertia, and the refusal to implement known, evidence-based solutions. From lethality risk assessments to the urgent need for mayors and councils to name this issue publicly, she laid out a clear and actionable path for change.
This episode marked one of the most strategic and impactful public discussions on GBV in BC to date. It came at a critical moment when public frustration is rising, the media is beginning to connect the dots, and policymakers can no longer justify delay.
We invite you to listen and read our full analysis of the interview’s key strengths, missed opportunities, and implications for government, media, and public safety systems.
Listen to the episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/hotel-pacifico/id1712174560?i=1000721099609
