Alberta unveils 10-year strategy to tackle gender-based violence
Alberta has announced a 10-year strategy to tackle gender-based violence with an emphasis on prevention and early intervention.
At a press conference on Thursday, Arts, Culture and Status of Women Minister Tanya Fir unveiled a strategy that aims to provide immediate, short-term, and long-term solutions, including the expansion of support and annual reporting on the rate of gender-based violence.
Fir said the strategy has more than 100 actions to address and prevent gender-based violence and called it the 'most comprehensive' strategy of its kind in Canada.
'Alberta's government is striving to create a future where gender based violence is rare and, when it does occur, it doesn't repeat,' Fir said.
In 2023, the province surveyed 1,192 Albertans and consulted with 500 individuals and organizations to develop the strategy.
The strategy aims to bridge gaps in policy and legislation, pointing to various government bodies having responsibilities for specific aspects of gender-based violence.
Under the 10-year strategy, the province outlined five key priorities — increasing awareness of gender-based violence, preventing gender-based violence, supporting Indigenous-led solutions, empowering women to be economically independent and supporting survivors and those impacted.
Each priority outlines immediate solutions to be implemented in 2025, short-term solutions to be implemented in 2026-2027, medium-term solutions to be implemented in 2028-2029, and long-term solutions to be implemented in 2030-2035.
The immediate solutions include supporting campaigns to raise awareness of gender-based violence, some targeted towards men and boys, supporting Indigenous-led programs to increase the safety of Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people, fund a 24-7 childcare pilot program supporting parents in skilled trades and other shift professions, and assisting survivors with housing expenses.
The province is also looking to increase access to sexual assault care, expand services to rural communities and develop a centralized platform for sexual assault support services. The strategy will provide additional training for health care providers and law enforcement in the coming years.
In 2026-2027, the province plans to support programming for disproportionately impacted groups, including those with disabilities, LGBTQ+, newcomers, Indigenous and racialized people.
Officials said the province will create a new deputy minister-level committee on gender-based violence to guide the implementation of the strategy. The committee's main objective will be to enhance data collection.
The province currently gets the majority of its data from Statistics Canada, along with some additional data from internal tracking done in ministries.
Annual reporting on rates of gender-based violence in Alberta will come as early as 2026, according to the report. Between 2030-2035, the province plans to collect data and research about the impacts of gender-based violence on Indigenous people.
According to the province, Alberta has the third-highest rate of gender-related homicides in Canada. In 2023, Statistics Canada reported 385 cases of intimate partner violence for every 100,000 people in Alberta, translating to approximately 18,800 cases in a single year.
There were 931 Aboriginal Alerts issued in Alberta in 2022 for missing Indigenous people, according to the report. Of those reports, 76 are still missing and 15 are deceased.
According to the province, it has invested $188 million annually in programs and services related to combating and responding to gender-based violence.
Alberta signed a four-year bilateral agreement with the federal government in 2023 to support and implement a 10-year strategy to end gender-based violence. The federal government will be providing $54 million over four years.
Alberta NDP status of women critic Julia Hayter said the announcement 'does nothing' for women fleeing violence today and said the province should have begun implementing solutions 18 months ago.
'I honestly believe that they should have started doing this work when they were elected,' Hayter said.
'We have been seeing a rise in intensity of violence to women right now that are fleeing gender violence. I've been told by many shelters that they're shutting down their beds because there's not enough funding.'
ctran@postmedia.com
X: @kccindytran
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