A revived Violence Against Women in Relationships Committee (VAWIR) received offers of support from Prince George city council at its meeting on Monday, April 7.
Committee representatives Kendra Kurisu of Métis Nation BC, and Yvette Quinn and Hannah S of the Elizabeth Fry Society, explained that there are several VAWIR committees across the province.
The committees were first created as part of a 1993 directive from the provincial government, following a 1986 policy on battered women.
While Prince George has had a VAWIR for decades, Kurisu said the local group paused between 2018 and 2024. Last year, she added, community agencies partnering on VAWIR were retrained in collaboration with the Ending Violence Association of BC to continue their work.
“The Prince George VAWIR coordination committee works to ensure a collaborative community and justice response to those impacted by intimate partner violence,” Kurisu said.
“The committee is made up of several of the community’s key stakeholders from both the public and not-for-profit sectors.”
The partnering organizations, including the Elizabeth Fry Society, Northern Health, Phoenix Transition House Society, Prince George Sexual Assault Centre, Carrier Sekani Family Services, Community Corrections, the Northern Women’s Centre, BC Sheriff’s Service, and the Mennonite Central Committee, work together to address the impacts of domestic and intimate partner violence.
Intimate partner violence includes coercive control, criminal harassment, emotional and psychological abuse, financial abuse, physical abuse, reproductive coercion, sexual violence, spiritual abuse, and technology-facilitated violence occurring between people in an intimate relationship.
While IPV can affect people of all ages, genders, and cultural backgrounds, Kurisu said women experience it at much higher rates, with most perpetrators being men.
She said it can occur at any time during a relationship or after it ends, whether the partners live together or are sexually intimate. Children can also be exposed to it.
Quinn said that after a relationship has ended and a woman is fleeing, it can be one of the most dangerous times for her.
She said an intersectional feminist framework is essential when dealing with this work, which considers social structures and power dynamics, such as racism, ableism, and heterosexualism, while recognizing that feminism means different things to different people.
She stressed that anyone, including men, can be abused, but women, girls, and gender-diverse people are at higher risk of gender-based violence.
In 2019, Quinn said, a Statistics Canada survey showed that only 19 per cent of spousal victims of violence had reported their abuse to the police — a 10 per cent drop from 20 years prior.
Statistics Canada also reported that intimate partner violence in northern Canada was 21 per cent higher in 2023 than in 2018, with an overall increase in violent crime of 28 per cent.
Hannah said that she works as the specialized victim services worker on the Prince George Domestic Violence Unit.
Her unit was created through a letter of agreement between the RCMP’s E Division, which covers British Columbia, and the Government of British Columbia. She said the unit is a partnership between the RCMP, specialized victim services workers, and the Ministry of Children and Families to keep victims of domestic violence safe and hold offenders accountable.
The VAWIR policy was last updated in 2010 and is being modernized, she said.
She added that VAWIR meets monthly at the courthouse and invited a representative from council to attend a meeting, with council ultimately providing ongoing representation on the committee.
By doing so, she said, council would learn more about intimate partner violence from experts in the city and how Prince George can respond to it and make changes.
“This involvement would establish a standard for Northern BC and would highlight Prince George as an innovative leader in community action against gender-based violence,” Hannah said.
She also said that VAWIR would like to provide council with twice-yearly updates on its work and what the city is doing to contribute to its efforts. By getting involved, Hannah said, Prince George would be fulfilling one of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People’s calls to action.
Last year, Mayor Simon Yu successfully proposed a motion for council to recognize intimate partner violence as an epidemic. Recently, the Standing Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs announced that Prince George would join the Human Trafficking Prevention Network of British Columbia.
Hannah said the committee supports these actions and wants to provide its expertise in helping council achieve its goals.
After the presentation, Yu expressed his support for having a councillor attend VAWIR’s meetings and report back to their colleagues.
Coun. Garth Frizzell said he would like to take the committee up on its offer as soon as possible.
Coun. Kyle Sampson said he was also open to attending a meeting and asked what city staff could do to help figure out what kind of support VAWIR could be provided.
City manager Walter Babicz suggested that council direct administration to request a list of needed supports from VAWIR and proceed from there.
Coun. Susan Scott said she had a male family member who was not taken seriously when trying to report intimate partner violence and knows a woman in her 70s who was experiencing violence at the hands of her son.
She asked whether these cases would be captured in the work being done by VAWIR and was told that anyone experiencing or witnessing domestic violence can be helped by the partner agencies.
Coun. Tim Bennett noted a decline in reported domestic violence heading into the COVID-19 pandemic and a spike in reports after the pandemic started. He asked whether that represented a true decline or just a drop in reports.
Quinn said that in 2023, she dealt with many people who reported IPV to her but not to the authorities. She said the concern they voiced was that they weren’t taken seriously.
Kurisu said that every time there’s a large-scale disaster, such as a pandemic, wildfire, or layoffs, there’s an increase in gender-based violence.
“Knowing that our city is on the brink of uncertain times with some of our major resource extraction industries, we know this is coming or is already here, based on most of what we’ve seen,” Kurisu said.
She said this situation is another reason VAWIR wanted to present to council.
Coun. Cori Ramsay said she grew up in a violent household, and her family relied on transitional housing.
“It was the educational piece I needed to know that it wasn’t okay, and that is the reason I’m sitting here today, quite frankly,” Ramsay said.
“Without those resources, without the support of people educating me and providing a hand-up into a different life, I would not be sitting here. So, if you’re looking for proof of the statistics, look no further because I am it.”
She said she was grateful for the committee’s work and its impact on children affected by these situations.
Kurisu thanked Ramsay for sharing her personal story and said the committee tries to maintain close ties to School District 57 to provide age-appropriate information to children through school-based programming.
