Victoria/Ottawa – Niki Sharma, Attorney General, has released the following statement in response to the introduction of new, proposed Criminal Code amendments by the federal government to protect victims of gender-based and intimate-partner violence:
“Today, the federal government tabled Bill C-16: Protecting Victims Act, a landmark piece of legislation that includes key priorities British Columbia has been strongly advocating for to keep people safe from intimate-partner and gender-based violence, better protect children and address delays in the criminal justice system.
“Gender-based violence and homicides are not new challenges, but public awareness rose sharply after the deaths of Bailey McCourt, Cindy Walsh, Jinfeng Guan and too many more. Across the country, there were 100 victims of intimate-partner violence in 2024, an increase from the year before.
“These deaths are not just a tragic statistic. They are a reality that B.C. is not willing to accept or tolerate.
“That is why I so strongly advocated to the federal government for many of the changes to the Criminal Code that were announced today, including classifying homicides of an intimate partner where there is a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct as first-degree murder. In my meetings and communication with the justice minister and federal government, I have been very clear that B.C. has two simple core beliefs driving our response to this crisis: femicides committed amidst a demonstrated pattern of intimate-partner violence and abuse are among the most serious crimes and should be treated that way; and our court processes must be engineered to better protect victims and witnesses from further violence, re-traumatization and from losing faith in the system.
- Domestic violence, sexual violence and intimate-partner violence are forms of gender-based violence.
- In British Columbia, more than one third (37%) of women older than 15 have been sexually assaulted.
- Nearly half (48%) of women older than 15 in B.C. have experienced intimate-partner violence.
- In B.C., 94% of sexual assaults and 80% of intimate-partner violence are not reported to police.
- In 2022, the BC Coroners Service reported that nearly one in 10 (9.4%) reported homicide deaths in British Columbia involved an intimate partner.
