Minister says declaring Ontario intimate partner violence epidemic would be ‘disingenuous’

The minister leading Ontario’s work on intimate partner violence says it would be “disingenuous” to declare it an epidemic and that doing so would oversimplify a complicated, long-term problem.

For years, advocates, survivors and experts have called on the Ford government to formally declare intimate partner violence an epidemic in Ontario, arguing it would add urgency and emergency funding to the acute problem.

The government resisted the demands until the beginning of 2024, when the Progressive Conservatives appeared to agree with a request from the Ontario NDP.

They sent a bill from the opposition to declare an epidemic to a specialist committee to study the question. The committee heard testimony from survivors of intimate partner violence and is in the process of finalizing its report.

Now, however, the government appears to be backing away from the declaration, suggesting intimate partner violence could be unsolvable.

“History has shown intimate partner violence has been here for decades,” Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity Charmaine Williams told Global News.

“It is not something that you can make go away because there are so many different factors that drive intimate partner violence, that’s why we know it’s systemic, it’s deep-rooted.”

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She said it would be “disingenuous” to make the declaration because calling it an epidemic would not “go far enough” to address the issue.

“We believe intimate partner violence is deep-rooted,” she said. “It’s not something that just pops up requiring short-term solutions to address it, because you can’t make intimate partner violence go away.”

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said Williams was making excuses for not taking the decisive action needed to truly tackle the problem.  

“We don’t make excuses and wipe our hands of it, we do absolutely everything in our power and she and her government have the power to do more,” she said.

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“Making excuses like that is beneath the minister.”

Calls to declare the epidemic partly stem from an inquest into the deaths of three women at the hands of their former partners.

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The jury at a coroner’s inquest into the 2015 deaths of Nathalie Warmerdam, Carol Culleton and Anastasia Kuzyk in Renfrew County made that recommendation, along with 85 others aimed at preventing similar tragedies.

When the recommendation first came forward, the government said it would not declare the epidemic because it was not an infectious or communicable disease. Last year, it delayed the declaration again so the committee could study the issue.

“Intimate partner violence is an epidemic, the government knows perfectly well,” Stiles added. “And the reason they would not declare it that is because it would mean that they would have to assign more resources to it.”

If Ontario were to declare an epidemic, which the government is signalling it will not, it would not be the first place to do so.

Nova Scotia made the declaration in September 2024.

“We were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, unfortunately, this is exactly what we feared. That they would go through this entire process and then land exactly where they started.

— with files from The Canadian Press