Canada calls gender violence an epidemic after triple femicide inquest

People march in protest against domestic violence, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on 2 April 2021. Photograph: Christinne Muschi/Reuters

Gender-based violence is an epidemic that “has no place in our country”, Canada’s new justice minister has said in a letter in response to a public inquest into a triple femicide in rural Ontario.

The six-page letter dated 14 August – the federal government’s official response to last summer’s inquest – also indicates Canada intends to criminalise coercive control, a form of intimate partner violence intended to isolate, intimidate and control victims.