Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis agrees that the country is seeing a rise in gender-based violence.
“I think we're in the middle of an upswing of gender-based violence,” said Cindy McMann, public educator at Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis, in the wake of gender-based violence being called an epidemic by Justice Minister Arif Virani.
Gender-based violence increased during the pandemic and hasn’t abated since then, she said.
Locally “we're not immune from these trends. Our caseload for our organization have been going up and up and up,” McMann said.
There was an inquest into the deaths of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam. These women were murdered by Basil Borutski. The jury's recommendations from that inquest were for the Ontario government to formally declare intimate partner violence as an epidemic along with 85 other recommendations.
The recommendations and the response from the government to them “were really focused on strengthening the criminal justice system responses to gender-based violence, intimate partner violence,” McMann said.
“I think we can't forget that most people who experience violence are going to be navigating the impacts of that violence outside of the criminal justice system. And they will also deeply need support,” she said.
There is evidence to show the criminal justice system is effective at stopping people who have caused harm in relationships from causing harm in future relationships, she said.
There is more promising research around changing behaviour through counselling, learning to process trauma differently through coping skills and relearn what healthy relationships are, she said.
The stabbing attack at the University of Waterloo in a gender studies classroom in June is a stark reminder of violence being perpetrated in communities similar to Guelph.
“It's such a violation of the sense of safety that everybody should have when they're going in for their classes. When you show up onto a campus to get an education, this should be a safe space for you. And it should be a safe space for people to explore. Even really complex issues like gender and to have that space violated, and to experience harm in that way, is so traumatizing. Our hearts really went out to everybody,” said McMann.
“I think that shift in language, thinking about gender-based violence as an epidemic might actually be really helpful, right, because historically, as a society, we've tended to either ignore it, or to really minimize it as a personal issue, or a private matter between couples,” McMann said.
Calling gender-based violence an epidemic re-frames it as a public health issue, she said.
Part of the prevention of gender-based violence is having conversations about what healthy relationships look like.
“I think that violence prevention piece is really essential to our trying to eradicate gender-based violence, because there are so much in the way of cultural messaging that teaches us that violence against women, gender diverse folks is okay,” said McMann.
There is a lot of messaging about what it means to be a man or masculine in this culture and the education system is a great place to start to have conversations about healthier forms of masculinity and how to build better relationships, she said.
She is cautiously optimistic for what comes after gender-based violence was declared an epidemic.
McMann hopes to see more action toward prevention and more survivor support.
