Latest news with #SallyArmstrong
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
OPINION: Intimate partner violence is not a women's issue – where are the men?
On June 6, 2025, the Ontario government rejected a unanimous consent motion to officially declare intimate partner violence an 'epidemic'— even as it resurrected a committee to study the issue. Premier Doug Ford's government has not explained its position, nor offered a path forward to effectively address the issue. The silence is not just disappointing, it's dangerous. Failing to name the crisis prevents us from confronting it with the urgency it demands. Every 48 hours, a woman in Canada is killed by her partner. This isn't rhetoric — it's reality. In December 2024, a 23-year-old woman thought she was safe after leaving her abusive ex. But he returned, forced her into a car and drove it into the freezing Richelieu River before swimming away. She survived, but many aren't as lucky. Prominent journalist Sally Armstrong's provocative question: 'Where are the men?' strikes at the heart of the issue. IPV is too often labelled a 'women's issue,' placing responsibility on victims rather than addressing the root cause: Violence enacted by men. Women cannot end IPV alone. Declaring IPV an epidemic isn't semantic; it's a public health approach that frames violence as systemic, societal and preventable. In 2022, Canada's federal government launched a 10-year National Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence, focused on prevention, survivors, justice, community-led solutions and social support. Ontario received $162 million in federal funding and pledged $1.4 billion over four years, with programs ranging from IPV-focused training for judges and education for high school coaches to promote healthy relationships among male athletes. At the municipal level, Toronto has declared IPV an epidemic, building on programs like the IPV Action Plan and SafeTO's Community Safety and Well-Being Plan, but the action remains fragmented and under-resourced. Each day, about 699 women and 236 children in Canada are denied access to domestic violence shelters. This crisis forces survivors into an impossible choice – returning to their abuser or facing homelessness. The lack of immediate options underscores the urgent need for increased investment in shelter capacity and survivor support. No one should endure further harm because they have nowhere to go. IPV is rooted in power dynamics among men. Until men, especially those in leadership, speak up and act, change is stalled. We need men to be unequivocal: IPV is unacceptable and silence is complicity. Just as Bell's Let's Talk campaign shifted the conversation on mental health, corporations can lead public education efforts and business leaders can use their platforms to drive cultural change. We also need faith leaders to challenge harmful norms in their congregations and sports organizations to adopt respect and consent as foundational values. As immediate next steps, we must: • Declare IPV an epidemic in Ontario and across Canada to reflect its scale and urgency; • Embed comprehensive education on respect, consent and intervention in schools, universities and workplaces; • Expand shelter capacity with sustained funding so that when survivors seek help, no one is turned away; • Define clear metrics, timelines and public reporting across all levels of government; • Launch targeted public education campaigns that engage men as active allies and leaders. It's impossible to ignore the growing crisis of IPV. In the past three months, six women in the Maritimes have been killed. The tragic deaths of these women — mothers, daughters, and friends — underscore the deadly consequences of inaction. Their deaths are a direct result of warning signs being ignored, systems failing to intervene and a lack of comprehensive support for survivors. We can no longer afford to wait for another tragedy to mobilize us. If we are serious about ending IPV, we must hold ourselves and each other accountable. The time for change is now. Corporate Canada must step up.
Toronto Sun
a day ago
- Toronto Sun
OPINION: Intimate partner violence is not a women's issue – where are the men?
On June 6, 2025, the Ontario government rejected a unanimous consent motion to officially declare intimate partner violence an 'epidemic'— even as it resurrected a committee to study the issue. Premier Doug Ford's government has not explained its position, nor offered a path forward to effectively address the issue. The silence is not just disappointing, it's dangerous. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Failing to name the crisis prevents us from confronting it with the urgency it demands. Every 48 hours, a woman in Canada is killed by her partner. This isn't rhetoric — it's reality. In December 2024, a 23-year-old woman thought she was safe after leaving her abusive ex. But he returned, forced her into a car and drove it into the freezing Richelieu River before swimming away. She survived, but many aren't as lucky. Prominent journalist Sally Armstrong's provocative question: 'Where are the men?' strikes at the heart of the issue. IPV is too often labelled a 'women's issue,' placing responsibility on victims rather than addressing the root cause: Violence enacted by men. Women cannot end IPV alone. Declaring IPV an epidemic isn't semantic; it's a public health approach that frames violence as systemic, societal and preventable. In 2022, Canada's federal government launched a 10-year National Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence, focused on prevention, survivors, justice, community-led solutions and social support. Ontario received $162 million in federal funding and pledged $1.4 billion over four years, with programs ranging from IPV-focused training for judges and education for high school coaches to promote healthy relationships among male athletes. At the municipal level, Toronto has declared IPV an epidemic, building on programs like the IPV Action Plan and SafeTO's Community Safety and Well-Being Plan, but the action remains fragmented and under-resourced. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Each day, about 699 women and 236 children in Canada are denied access to domestic violence shelters. This crisis forces survivors into an impossible choice – returning to their abuser or facing homelessness. The lack of immediate options underscores the urgent need for increased investment in shelter capacity and survivor support. No one should endure further harm because they have nowhere to go. IPV is rooted in power dynamics among men. Until men, especially those in leadership, speak up and act, change is stalled. We need men to be unequivocal: IPV is unacceptable and silence is complicity. Just as Bell's Let's Talk campaign shifted the conversation on mental health, corporations can lead public education efforts and business leaders can use their platforms to drive cultural change. We also need faith leaders to challenge harmful norms in their congregations and sports organizations to adopt respect and consent as foundational values. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. As immediate next steps, we must: • Declare IPV an epidemic in Ontario and across Canada to reflect its scale and urgency; • Embed comprehensive education on respect, consent and intervention in schools, universities and workplaces; • Expand shelter capacity with sustained funding so that when survivors seek help, no one is turned away; • Define clear metrics, timelines and public reporting across all levels of government; • Launch targeted public education campaigns that engage men as active allies and leaders. It's impossible to ignore the growing crisis of IPV. In the past three months, six women in the Maritimes have been killed. The tragic deaths of these women — mothers, daughters, and friends — underscore the deadly consequences of inaction. Their deaths are a direct result of warning signs being ignored, systems failing to intervene and a lack of comprehensive support for survivors. We can no longer afford to wait for another tragedy to mobilize us. If we are serious about ending IPV, we must hold ourselves and each other accountable. The time for change is now. Corporate Canada must step up. Ralph Lean is a distinguished counsel in residence at Ted Rogers School of Management and Claudia Redondo is a student at Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Toronto Metropolitan University Toronto Raptors Columnists Toronto & GTA Toronto Maple Leafs World
Globe and Mail
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
This V-E day, reflect not only on Canada's valour in past battles. There is a new aggressor at our gate
Sally Armstrong is a journalist, author and human-rights activist. Her latest book, written with Sima Samar, is Outspoken: My Fight for Freedom and Human Rights in Afghanistan. 'Take up our quarrel with the foe.' Those historic words from In Flanders Fields penned by John McCrae in 1915 resonate poignantly but sharply with Canadians visiting sites in France and Belgium associated with the First and Second World Wars these days. Eighty years after V-E Day (Victory in Europe) was declared on May 8, 1945, U.S. President Donald Trump wants to rename V-E Day and Veterans Day to Victory Day because he says, 'We won both wars; nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery or military brilliance.' Here in Arras in northern France and at Vimy and in Belgium at Passchendaele and in Flanders Fields and over on the English Channel at Juno Beach and Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, his ego-driven pronouncements fail the facts in the ground. This blood-soaked land that pushes poppies and miniature daisies and forget-me-nots and sometimes unexploded ordnance out of its soil is the sacred place where allies fought fascism. I read McCrae's poetry through a different lens the day I visited the memorial to this Canadian Army Medical Officer deployed during the First World War because now there is an aggressor at our gate. Of the Americans I meet at the sites, most shrug off their President's treatment of Canada saying, with a grin, 'Oh that's Trump.' What's worse is the fact that most of them are astonished to learn that Canada had anything to do with either the First World War or the Second. For example, at the McCrae memorial, an American woman asks why there are there so many Canadian flags at this site. Mary Ann Mann who hails from Fredericton points to the plaque that tells the life story of McCrae as well as the poem in his own handwriting and says gently, 'He was Canadian.' The American replies, 'Huh?' Ms. Mann continues, 'A lot of Canadians are in there,' while she points to the cemetery beside the plaque. Again, the American visitor replies, 'Huh.' And then Ms. Mann continues, 'In fact, there are Canadians here too, including me.' And at the famed beaches of Normandy where allied troops landed on June 6, 1944, and started the beginning of the end of the war, of course American visitors flock to Utah and Omaha Beaches where the U.S. forces came ashore. But a tour guide tells me most are very surprised to know that the Canadians – including the North Shore Regiment from New Brunswick, the Queen's Own Rifles from Toronto, the Royal Winnipeg Rifles and the Royal Regina Rifles – also stormed Juno Beach. And then he adds that 66 per cent of the soldiers who came ashore that day were from either Canada or Britain. While the beautifully kept sites and meticulous records tell a story of courage and immense bravery that reinforces the past, it's hard not to reflect at the same time on our current battle with a former friend and ally. There's an automobile in the parking lot with a Canadian flag stuck on its back window. The owner, Jon Haslock, a Brit who moved here 20 years ago to conduct guided tours of the sites, says, 'The day Trump declared he would annex Canada, I put that flag on my car.' In the same parking lot, a Tesla with a French licence plate has a sign on the back that says, 'Vintage Tesla, pre-madness edition.' Mr. Haslock says he's seen a considerable increase in inquiries and bookings from Canadians to come to the Western Front, which includes Juno Beach as well as Passchendaele, Vimy and Flanders Fields. 'I think it could be an increased sense of identity with Canadians who fought here. That tends to come with a crisis; standing by friends and allies, as it increases awareness. Canada being next door to America is looking at its present and back at one of the defining moments of its own history.' In Ypres, Belgium, there are thousands of memorials and graves, and every night at the Menin Gate, where the names of 6,940 Canadian soldiers who have no known graves are etched into the limestone, The Last Post is still played and still attended by thousands of tourists and townspeople. On the night I visit, the bagpipers are from Canada (an amalgamation of several B.C. pipe bands on their way to the Netherlands to mark V-E Day) and local children carry wreaths of poppies to the cenotaph. But even here the Trump effect lingers: A bookstore called the British Grenadier Bookshop on the main street of Ypres has a sign in the window that says in large red letters 'Canada is not for sale but this shop is' and includes an e-mail address for more information. It seems Canada is everywhere in memory, in solidarity and even in jest. One of the defining moments in Canada's history is said to be Vimy Ridge, a piece of land that spreads only a few kilometres, but is above sea level, and therefore a buttress for whichever force managed to take it and hold it. Many tried and failed but on April 12, 1917, the Canadians overcame extraordinary odds and took Vimy Ridge. It was the first time all four Canadian battalions came together to score this brilliant victory and it is said that this is when Canada truly became a nation. The Canadian National Vimy Memorial, a symbol of sacrifice and achievement – built starting in 1925, unveiled in 1936 and restored in 2007 – can be seen for miles and is lit up at night like an inukshuk. The monument includes 20 sculptures that represent peace, justice, honour, hope, charity, faith, truth and knowledge. It includes the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who died in France and have no known grave. One of the achingly beautiful statues called Canada Bereft lingers with me: A woman with her head bowed in sorrow speaks of loss and I cannot fail to equate her expression with the loss of an ally and a friend on our own border. Vimy brought us together as a nation. Now from coast to coast to coast, Canadians are coming together again in ways that surprise even every one of us. John McCrae wrote, 'Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high.'
