Canada’s strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence

Background

Responding to calls from partners, stakeholders, and Canadians, It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence (the Strategy), a whole-of-government approach was launched in June 2017.

The Strategy is the Government of Canada’s response to gender-based violence (GBV). It builds on current federal initiatives, coordinates existing programs and lays the foundation for greater action on GBV.

The Strategy is based on three pillars:

• Prevention;
• Support for survivors and their families; and,
• Promotion of responsive legal and justice systems.

The Strategy aims to fill gaps in support for diverse populations, which could include: women and girls, Indigenous Peoples, LGBTQ2 community members, gender non-binary individuals, those living in northern, rural, and remote communities, people with disabilities, newcomers, children and youth, and seniors.

The Strategy includes the creation of the GBV Knowledge Centre within Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE). The Knowledge Centre better aligns existing resources across government and support the development and sharing of research and data to enable more coordinated, evidence-based action on GBV.

It's Time is a whole-of-government approach to prevent and address this form of violence, with investments from:

• Women and Gender Equality Canada;
• the Public Health Agency of Canada;
• Public Safety Canada;
• the Department of National Defence;
• the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; and
• Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

The Strategy also includes initiatives from other departments and agencies whose work, beyond the six funded partners above, is also critical to end GBV across Canada.

The Strategy has received over $200 million in new investments, starting in 2017-18 until 2022-23, and over $40 million per year ongoing, for new and enhanced initiatives within six federal departments and agencies.

WAGE received funding through Budget 2017 ($29M over five years, starting in 2017-18, with $6M ongoing) and Budget 2018 ($25.5M over five years, starting in 2018-19, with $6M ongoing) for the GBV Program. WAGE’s GBV Program is population-specific and its objective is to supports organizations working in the GBV sector in developing and implementing promising practices to address gaps in supports for Indigenous and other underserved groups of survivors in Canada.

To support the development and implementation of the federal strategy, the Minister for Women and Gender Equality established a GBV Advisory Council in 2016, comprised of members from a broad range of sectors and areas of expertise, to serve as a forum to exchange views, promising practices, and research on issues related to GBV.

WAGE released the 2018-19 Annual Report in August 2019.

Annex A

Date modified:

2020-02-11