YWCA Peterborough Haliburton has co-signed a letter to Dave Smith, MPP for Peterborough-Kawartha, on behalf of the Peterborough Domestic Abuse Network (PDAN) and its 30+ member organizations, expressing enthusiastic support of Bill 173, the Intimate Partner Violence Epidemic Act, 2024, sponsored by four Ontario NDP MPPs.
The letter urged MPP Smith to support the Bill when it was debated at Queen’s Park on Wednesday, April 10. If passed, the Bill will recognize intimate partner violence as an epidemic in the province of Ontario, and has the potential to bring much-needed attention and support to address the issue of gender-based violence.
Last November, the City of Peterborough was the 74th municipality in the province of Ontario to declare gender-based violence an epidemic, after a successful delegation to City Council by YWCA Peterborough Haliburton, Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre, and the Peterborough Domestic Abuse Network.
The declaration of gender-based violence as an epidemic in our communities was the first of 86 recommendations in the final report from the Renfrew Inquest, completed in June 2022. To date, 94 municipalities have made this declaration, but the government of Ontario has not done so on behalf of the province.
In December 2023, YWCA Peterborough Haliburton was one of over 100 organizations who signed an open letter to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, calling for a provincial declaration of intimate partner violence as an epidemic. The province of Ontario had previously indicated its support for this cause by signing the Canada-Ontario bilateral agreement on the National Action Plan (NAP) to end Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
To read the Peterborough Domestic Abuse Network’s letter to MPP Dave Smith, please click here or on the image below.
