In order to measure spousal violence, we use a scale of 10 questions. It ranges from everything such as threatening to hit you with their fists or throwing something at you that could hurt you, to being choked, beaten, sexually assaulted, etc. There are 10 items.
I should say the reason we don't have 1993 figures for men is that in 1993 we conducted a national violence against women survey that was funded by the then Health Canada. It was in 1999, when we adapted this module of spousal violence and put it onto our national victims survey—and that survey includes both male and female respondents—that we for the first time got figures for men.
There is no statistical difference between the 7% and the 6%. We know men experience violence, but we know the impact of that violence isn't as severe. For instance, they're not as likely to be beaten, choked, threatened with a weapon, or have a weapon used against them as women. It's those serious types of violence that result in the more serious outcomes of the violence. That's why you're seeing more women are being injured and having to receive medical attention and fearing for their lives as a result of the violence.
So men are experiencing some types of violence, but it's not as serious, when you look at that scale of 10, as women are experiencing. There are some, obviously, who experience serious violence, but on a scale looking at both men and women, women overall suffer much more serious, injurious, and repeated violence than do men.