N.S. mass shooting: committee member flags lack of action on gender-based violence

HALIFAX — A member of the committee monitoring how governments and the RCMP are responding to the inquiry into the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting is raising concerns from survivors of gender-based violence about a lack of action.

On Friday, the head of the committee released a report saying the Nova Scotia and federal governments were making good progress on implementing the inquiry’s 130 recommendations.

Domestic violence was a key theme for the commission of inquiry that investigated the worst mass shooting in modern Canadian history, which claimed 22 lives on April 18-19, 2020 and began with the gunman’s violent assault on his common-law spouse. The inquiry also heard the killer had a long history of domestic violence.

Kristina Fifield, a social worker and trauma therapist who represents the gender-based violence advocacy sector on the committee, says survivors and those who work with them are telling her they were angry and discouraged when the committee released its first annual report.

Fifield said she is being told the report does not reflect the lack of meaningful progress in dealing with gender-based violence.

“People are asking: What is it going to take? Why is it that people are not listening?” she said in an interview. “Why are things not moving fast enough? There’s anger and frustration.”

She stressed that she was not commenting on the committee’s report, but she said that she felt compelled to share the many concerns being brought to her attention.

On Friday, committee chairwoman Myra Freeman said the governments were making progress on implementing the inquiry’s recommendations. Among other things, she pointed to gender-based violence prevention programs and support services. She also cited progress on implementing a national plan to end gender-based violence.

“The (committee) feels that, overall, steps have been taken to begin the important work of addressing the changes called for in the related recommendations (from the inquiry), but more work needs to be done,” the report says.

Responding to the concerns relayed to Fifield, Freeman issued an emailed statement saying: “There is no question that we need to see meaningful progress in addressing gender-based and intimate partner violence. We have had devastating reminders recently of why this work is so important and the committee will continue to monitor progress on this theme and inform the public through our reports.”

Fifield said a lack of meaningful action to address root causes of gender-based violence and barriers in supporting survivors in fleeing violent situations is particularly upsetting as rates of domestic violence continue to rise in Nova Scotia.

The trauma therapist said she’s seeing an increase in gender-based violence, instances of coercive control and injuries from strangulation and suffocation related to such violence.

A Statistics Canada national report published in October found that police-reported family violence was up by 17 per cent and intimate partner violence was up by 13 per cent between 2018 and 2023.

In 2023, there were 123,319 victims of intimate partner violence reported to police across in Canada.

“Because of the normalization of violence and how oftentimes this type of violence remains in a silo, a lot of people don’t see the increased rates, they’re not seeing how this violence is impacting individuals,” she said.

Since Oct. 18, police in Nova Scotia have reported three cases of men who killed their female partners before taking their own lives. One case was reported in Yarmouth, N.S., and the other two occurred in suburban Halifax.

The mass shooting inquiry, formally known as the Mass Casualty Commission, found that “gender-based violence is ubiquitous and under-reported in Canada” and that this type of violence has become an epidemic.

Fifield said a first step to address this crisis should be providing the organizations that support survivors of gender-based violence with “core funding” so they can provide consistent support, as opposed to the contract or project-based funding that many of these non-profits rely on.

The committee’s report cites the Mass Casualty Commission recommendation to provide “epidemic-level” funding for prevention of gender-based violence, and says this work is considered “initiated.”

It’s also important, Fifield said, that the justice, health and police systems that interact with survivors of gender-based and intimate-partner violence are trained to believe victims.

The report also said work to counter victim-blaming of women survivors and creating safe spaces to report gender-based violence is considered “initiated.”

“Too often, individuals that come forward and are reaching out for help are again being failed because they’re not being believed,” Fifield said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 3, 2024.

Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press