B.C. groups fighting to end gender-based violence met with Canada’s minister for women and gender equality on Tuesday as they push for action on what they say is an epidemic of violence against women and girls.
The organizations included groups from rural and remote B.C., sexual assault centres, inner city services and girls’ right advocates.
“We’re a little bit nervous about where this country’s going around gender equality right now and addressing violence against women, the signals aren’t looking great,” said Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services.
“We wanted to look in her eyes and to make sure that she understood what’s at stake so that she can go back to Ottawa and carry our voices forward.”
The meeting comes amid a string of high-profile cases of intimate partner violence in B.C., and across the country, including the murder of Kelowna’s Bailey McCourt, allegedly at the hands of her ex-husband.
Those incidents have prompted calls for a distinct criminal offence for “femicide,” the intentional killing of women or girls with a gender-related motivation.
The groups pressed Minister Rechie Valdez on issues including rising femicide rates, housing insecurity and systemic failures to protect women from abusive partners and in the justice system.
Valdez said addressing violence against women is an issue to which she has a personal connection.
“I also lost someone in my family, so to all the women and girls out there who have experienced gender based violence, our government remains committed to continuing to fight against gender based violence,” she said.
“And how we’re doing that is through our national action plan to end gender-based violence. This is a 10-year commitment, we are three years into that commitment, we’ve invested close to half a billion dollars.”
MacDougall said that even if the government sticks to its 10-year commitment, the plan will require an increase in funding, “and that’s something that we did not hear today.”
Sharon Gregson, B.C. spokesperson for the $10-a-Day Childcare Campaign, said the groups also pressed Valdez on its support for child care, something she said is critical both to gender justice and to keeping the province’s economy healthy.
She said advocates will be watching closely to see if Ottawa sticks to its commitments.
“There is a lot of room for improvement, and we were heartened to hear Minister Valdez say that the budget for women and gender equality in Canada is not being cut,” she said.
“So we’ll look forward to the federal budget and ensure that we still see that line item.”
Advocates say they also stressed the need for core federal funding to sustain anti-violence services and concerns about the impacts of resource extraction projects on communities, women and gender-diverse people.