A police board in southern Ontario is gathering input from the public as it prepares to ask the federal government to add the term femicide to the Penal Code, a move some advocates say is a crucial step in addressing a national crisis.
The London Police Services Board is looking to hear from community members, women’s advocates and experts as it prepares to send a letter to Ottawa. The last day to comment on the subject is July 31.
“What we’re trying to do is tell people, when a woman or girl is killed every 36 hours in Canada, this is a crisis and it needs to be addressed,” said board member Megan Walker, who is spearheading the initiative. .
“One of the first tools that we know we can use to address it is to define femicide and use it to carry out (criminal) investigations.”
Walker, a former executive director of the London Abused Women’s Centre, said the initiative grew out of a board meeting in May in which she asked if there was a specific breakdown of how many women were victims of homicides, attempted murders and hate crimes in the city. , and was told that no such data was readily available.
“My concern was, how do you fix a problem if you don’t acknowledge it exists? So if we can’t even name how many femicides there are, if we can’t even talk about how many hate crimes and hate incidents were against women, we’re stuck in this cycle,” he said.
Police departments across Canada have reached out for more information as the London board prepares to present its case to the federal government, Walker said.
The issue was also highlighted last month in an investigation into the deaths of three women killed in 2015 by a man with whom they had had previous relationships.
The jury that examined what happened to Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam urged the federal government to explore adding the term femicide and its definition to the Penal Code “to be used where appropriate in the context of relevant crimes.”
Myrna Dawson, founder and director of the Canadian Observatory on Femicide, said she is “encouraged and happy to see some movement” on the issue of femicide.
“It’s been a long time coming because there’s been a group of us in Canada, and more globally, that have recognized femicide as a key issue affecting women’s lives, but… the term femicide hasn’t really resonated. among members of the public,” he said.
The Canadian Femicide Observatory found that 173 women and girls were murdered in Canada as of December 31, 2021, up from 137 murders in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic. The research and information center notes that the numbers may increase over time as investigations are completed, suspicious deaths are deemed homicides or new deaths are recorded.
Dawson said she thinks the term femicide is starting to get the attention it deserves because of the pandemic lockdowns that have brought the problem of domestic violence to the fore and the number of cases in recent years that have underscored how women and girls can be killed simply because of their gender.
Unless there is official recognition of femicide as a crime, it is difficult to start prevention efforts or raise public awareness about it, he said.
“It highlights the discriminatory and symbolic aspects of this form of violence as a social reality for women and girls,” Dawson said, noting that indigenous women and girls are disproportionately affected.
“It really goes back to the attitude that men have rights and privileges over women and that there are social norms around masculinity and their need to assert power and control. When we call it homicide, we don’t capture all of that context about the way that women are killed.
Lisa Darling, executive director of the Ontario Association Police Services Board, said the association will support the London board and “advocate as necessary” on its femicide initiative.
The Toronto Police Services Board plans to review the London board’s efforts and “will consider joining them at an appropriate time,” said Danielle Dowdy, senior adviser for strategic policy and stakeholder relations for the Toronto board.
A Justice Canada spokesperson said the federal government is “committed” to ending all forms of gender-based violence and addressing gaps in the Criminal Code “to ensure a robust response from the criminal justice system, and will carefully review recommendations.” of research and other contributions. .”
Ian McLeod said that the Penal Code’s sentencing provisions “ensure that offenders of violence against women and girls receive sentences commensurate with the seriousness of the offence”, taking into account whether there was evidence that the offense was motivated by bias or hate based on the sex and gender identity.