Question Period Note: National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence

How is the Government of Canada working to end gender-based violence?

• Everyone has the right to live free from violence.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified and reinforced the need for and urgency of a National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.
• Budget 2021 included more than $3 billion over five years to advance initiatives that prevent and address gender-based violence, including:
o $601.3 million over five years to advance towards a new National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence;
o $2.2 billion over five years and $160.9 million ongoing to build a safer, stronger and more inclusive response to the tragedy of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls; and
o $236.2 million over five years to expand work to eliminate sexual misconduct and gender-based violence in the military and support victims and survivors.
• These investments complement ongoing work under It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence, launched in 2017, which committed more than $200 million over five years to advance efforts to prevent gender-based violence, support survivors and their families, and promote responsive legal and justice systems.

• Gender-based violence (GBV) is one of the most pervasive, deadly and deeply rooted human rights violations of our time, and the Government of Canada is committed to preventing and addressing it. GBV is a significant barrier to achieving gender equality and it is preventable.
• Certain populations are at a greater risk of experiencing GBV, including women and girls, and more specifically, young women and girls, Indigenous women and girls, Two-Spirit, LGBTQQIA+ and gender non-binary individuals, women living in Northern, rural and remote communities and people living with disabilities. Qualitative research also suggests that Black, other racialized and newcomer women to Canada may experience high levels of GBV.

Federal GBV Strategy
• It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence (federal GBV Strategy), launched in 2017, brings together the GBV-related efforts of all federal departments and agencies to form a whole-of-government approach to end GBV in Canada.
• Early accomplishments under the Strategy include:
o Amending the Canada Labour Code to strengthen existing frameworks for the prevention of harassment and violence in the workplace (ESDC);
o Strengthening sexual assault provisions and enhancing measures to better respond to intimate partner violence in the Criminal Code (JUS);
o Creating the Sexual Assault Review Team, which has completed a review of over 30,000 “unfounded” sexual assault case files (RCMP);
o Launching the National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking in partnership with a number of departments, including WAGE and Public Safety, and through which WAGE received funding to develop the Continuum of Care – Prevention and Interventions for Vulnerable Populations initiative;
o Developing training on cultural awareness and humility as well as trauma-informed approaches for all RCMP employees (RCMP);
o Launching the GBV Program, which has provided funding to approximately 60 projects to develop and test promising practices to support victims and survivors of GBV and their families (WAGE);
o Launching the GBV Knowledge Centre’s online platform in December 2018 (WAGE); and,
o Conducting 3 national and recurring surveys to establish baselines on the prevalence of different forms of GBV, provide a deeper understanding of GBV in Canada, and measure progress over time (WAGE and StatsCan).

National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence
• In December 2019, the Minister for Women and Gender Equality was mandated to build on the foundation laid by the GBV Strategy and move forward with the development of a National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence (GBV National Action Plan), with a focus on ensuring that anyone facing GBV has reliable and timely access to protection and services, no matter where they live.
• The December 2021 mandate letter reiterates this priority and mandates the Minister to “move forward with the development of a 10-year National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, begin negotiations with the provinces and territories within a year, and accelerate the establishment of a dedicated Secretariat.”
• The Government of Canada, through WAGE, is working closely with provinces and territories on the development of the GBV National Action Plan, notably through the Federal-Provincial-Territorial (FPT) Forum of Ministers responsible for the Status of Women. At their 38th Annual Meeting held in January 2021, the FPT Ministers endorsed the Joint Declaration for a Canada Free of Gender-Based Violence, through which they confirmed their common vision, principles and goals for responding to GBV, including through the development of the GBV National Action Plan. In December 2021, at their 39th Annual Meeting, they agreed to continue their commitment and collaboration to advance towards a GBV National Action Plan .
• To advance these efforts, Budget 2021 included:
o $601.3 million over five years to advance towards a new National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, including $415 million directed to WAGE:
 $200 million over two years to support gender-based violence organizations (WAGE);
 $105 million over five years to enhance the Gender-Based Violence Program (WAGE), including funding to engage men and boys, stop human trafficking, support at-risk populations and victims and survivors, and provide support for testing and implementing best-practices;
 $14 million over five years for a dedicated secretariat to coordinate ongoing work towards the development and implementation of the GBV National Action Plan (WAGE);
 $11 million over five years for gender-based violence research and knowledge mobilization (WAGE);
 $55 million over five years to bolster the capacity of Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ organizations to provide gender-based violence prevention programming aimed at addressing the root causes of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+people (WAGE); and
 $30 million over five years so crisis hotlines can serve the urgent needs of more people in Canada who are experiencing gender-based violence (WAGE).

COVID-19 Impacts on Gender-Based Violence
• The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, as well as members of at-risk communities. While everyone in Canada has been urged to stay at home, home is not safe for all, particularly women and children who experience GBV.
• Data from a sample of 15 police services indicate that calls related to domestic disturbances increased at certain stages of the pandemic. Domestic disturbance calls reached their highest volume between May and August 2020, when they were 8.6% higher than the same period in 2019. By late 2020, monthly calls were back at pre-pandemic levels, but rose again in the summer of 2021. Police data do not show the full picture because many survivors do not file police reports and lockdown measures have made it more difficult to do so.
• The Canadian Centre for Child Protection reported that the organization saw an 88% spike between April 2020 and February 2021 in reports of online sexual exploitation of Canadian children to their national hotline (Cybertip.ca). This rise in some forms of GBV since the beginning of the pandemic has come to be recognized nationally and internationally as the “GBV shadow pandemic.”
• Many organizations providing GBV-related supports and services have reported a significant increase in demand since the beginning of the pandemic. Others have seen a decrease in demand for their services, raising concerns that those experiencing GBV cannot or are not reaching out for help.
• Statistics Canada conducted a crowdsourcing survey from May 12-25, 2020 with participation from 43,000 people on “Canadians’ perceptions of personal safety since COVID-19.”Conclusions from the survey show that younger participants, specifically young women, visible minorities, and Indigenous participants, were more likely to have concerns about safety in their neighbourhood during COVID-19. Furthermore, young women were more likely to report having contacted or used a victims' service, and less likely to report feeling safe when walking alone after dark in their neighbourhood since the start of the pandemic.
• Specific groups of women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people may be at an increased risk of experiencing GBV during the pandemic. National data from before the onset of COVID-19 show that Indigenous women, women living in rural or remote areas, women living with disabilities, transgender and gender diverse people, as well as lesbian, bisexual and gay people are significantly more likely to experience GBV and/or be more vulnerable to its impacts.
• As part of the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, the Government of Canada, through WAGE, distributed $90M to shelters, sexual assault centres and organizations providing critical GBV supports to women and children experiencing violence. Due to high demand, WAGE leveraged an additional $9.5M in existing program funding, bringing the total funding to $99.5M.
• Additional funding of $200M over two years provided in Budget 2021 is being distributed to shelters, sexual assault centres and organizations supporting women and children experiencing violence to ensure these critical front-line organizations can continue to provide life-saving services and supports to those who need it most. These funds are being rolled out across the country through Women’s Shelters Canada and the Canadian Women’s Foundation, as well as the Government of Québec.
• First payments to organizations started mid-December.
• To date, funding has been provided to over 1,300 organizations, including women’s shelters, sexual assault centres, and other organizations providing services and supports to those experiencing gender-based violence across the country. This funding has given more than 1.3 million women and children a safe place to turn since April 2020.

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