Madam Chair, over the last seven weeks, seven women in Quebec tragically lost their lives to heinous acts of domestic violence. This is incredibly alarming and, unfortunately, is reflected in provinces all across the country. I am reflecting tonight. A death because of intimate partner violence does not just happen all of a sudden. There is a lead-up to it.
Therefore, I will invite members to reflect with me this evening on what it is like to be in a home where one's every move could trigger an argument and any word that comes out of one's mouth could lead to a sharp slap across the face. I ask members to imagine their child watching and listening as their partner hurls profanities at them, and having to find their child later, hiding because they are too afraid from watching the abuse take place. I ask members to imagine the embarrassment, the shame and the helplessness.
I ask members to imagine not having anywhere to go for escape, or living miles away from their closest neighbour, or not speaking the language that others around them understand, or not having a penny to their name to seek out support to get out. Where would they go? Who would they count on?
Let me be clear. Intimate partner violence is prevalent in all cultures, ethnicities and socio-economic situations. In 2019, I had an event through my women's council in my riding of Mississauga—Erin Mills on raising awareness for intimate partner violence. I remember there were about 100 women who had come to this event to learn more about the supports that are out there.
At the end of the event, there was a very young woman who approached me. She said how afraid she was for herself. I asked her what could we do. She said, “I'm a police officer, and I still feel like this in my home.” The helplessness in her eyes that day will haunt me forever.
On average, 69 women are killed by intimate partner violence every year. To put that in a different context, a report by the Canadian Women's Foundation states that a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner approximately every six days. Indigenous women are three times more likely to experience intimate partner violence. Women with disabilities are two times more likely. Research also shows that approximately 28% of domestic homicides in Canada between 2010 and 2018 involved rural and remote communities. Intimate partner violence accounted for a third of all violent crime in 2018.
In 2018 alone, about 100,000 people reported intimate partner violence to police, and 79% of them were women. This is based on data that is reported to the police. According to the police, the majority of incidents go unreported. The real number would be much, much higher. On any given night, 3,491 women and their 2,724 children sleep in shelters because it is not safe at home, and 300 women and children are turned away because shelters are full.
Over the last year, more people are staying in their homes instead of going out, obviously because of the pandemic. In this environment, where there are many struggling with their mental health, victims of intimate partner violence are living full time with their abuser.
A report by the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability found that in 2020 alone, 160 women were killed by acts of violence. This is one woman killed every two and a half days in our country. The Peel region, which is where my riding of Mississauga—Erin Mills is, sees officers responding to over 1,000 calls for family violence and intimate partner violence each month. That is 33 calls a day. Over the last two years, about 40% of all homicides in the Peel region were the product of family violence.
According to Statistics Canada analysis, calls related to domestic disturbances rose by approximately 12% between March and June 2020, according to data from 17 police forces across Canada, compared to the same period in 2019.
Women's shelters and help lines in regions across the country have experienced a major surge in calls. From March to July 2020, calls to the Vancouver Battered Women's Support Services tripled, while in Alberta, calls to specialized crisis lines for intimate partner violence increased by up to 50%. Across Canada, 54% of victim services programs saw an increase in domestic violence victims during that same period.
From September to December alone, Canada's Assaulted Women’s Helpline saw a 60% increase in calls compared to the previous year. In April to June, they saw double the number of calls from 2019.
I have spoken to shelters and police services in my riding, and they are very worried that these numbers do not reflect the whole picture. When victims are trapped with their abuser, unable to see family or friends, it limits their ability to call for help before the situation escalates. It limits the ability for services to go out and proactively reach these individuals who are need of that support.
Worse still, domestic violence is not only becoming more common, it is becoming more severe. Last year, the Ending Violence Association of Canada and Anova conducted a survey of staff and volunteers working at women's shelters, and 82% reported that violence had become more frequent. Abusers' violent tactics have changed, and control over their victims has increased. They use access to technology, or the outside world, even information about the coronavirus, as a weapon. In these cases of isolation with an abuser, the scale of violence has also escalated, with one worker describing many more cases of strangulation and serious physical assaults leading to a higher risk of lethality.
We see the same trends echoed in our partner nations across the world. UN Women and women's organizations around the world have called this the shadow pandemic, which has grown amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and threatens to impact our communities long after this health crisis has passed. The data tells us that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, has intensified.
More needs to be done to prioritize addressing this crisis. It is vital that we continue to take action.
Since 2015, our government has taken firm action on this issue of intimate partner violence and gender-based violence. In 2017, we launched the first-ever federal strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence to fill important gaps and support women and girls, indigenous peoples, and LGBTQ2+ members and gender non-conforming people in communities across Canada.
We launched the gender-based violence knowledge centre to coordinate federal actions under its three pillars. We announced $15.6 million in funding for projects to end violence against women and girls. We are investing more than $50 million in nearly 60 projects to support survivors of gender-based violence and their families in communities across Canada—