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Women’s group questions progress on gender-based violence as anniversary approaches

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As they approach their 10-year-anniversary, a women’s group is questioning how much progress we have made on the epidemic of gender-based violence.

It stems from a sign put up at an off-campus home at St. Franciss Xavier University that said, “Drop-off zone: Acadia girlfriends.”

Project coordinator of Be the Peace Institute, Stacey Godsoe, says they have done a lot of good work but incidents like this are exhausting.

“It just shows how normalized and misunderstood misogyny is still in our spaces, in university settings,” says Godsoe.

Intimate partner violence was declared an epidemic in Nova Scotia in 2024.

Sue Bookchin, one of the co-founders of Be the Peace Institute is pictured here. PHOTO SUBMITTED: sue Bookchin

Sue Bookchin, co-founder and executive director, says it depends on the day but sometimes she is not very hopeful we have made much progress, either.

In the case of the sign off the St. FX campus, she says an incident like that would retraumatize any survivors of sexual assault who have never had accountability for what was done to them.

She says what interested her were some of the comments online talking about the sign being a joke, and some wondering what the real intent was behind the sign.

“What are you advocating for? What is the message you’re sending here? Is this supposed to be a joke? It is not a joke. These are real lives. This is real pain. This is long-lasting consequences for people,” she says.

“Would you want that to be your sister, or your niece, or your mother, or your girlfriend? Like, it’s just beyond me that people are so tone-deaf or so blind to this.”

Stacey Godsoe, project and resource coordinator with Be the Peace Institute, is pictured here. PHOTO SUBMITTED Stacey Godsoe

The Be the Peace Institute does not offer direct services to women, but their projects focus on studying and understanding the root causes of gender-based violence to work toward systemic change.

The work in the gender-based violence sector is predominantly done by women.

But men have a key role to play, says Godsoe, to tackle these issues.

When men see or hear about things like what happened at St. FX, men must use their positions to speak up, says Godsoe.

“It’s so key that men feel equipped to in their spaces,” says Godsoe.

Later this month, on Oct. 17th, they are celebrating their 10-year anniversary.

They both say change like this takes time, a generational timeline, in fact, so it is hard to see the immediate impacts.

But reflecting on their work, they say funding is crucial to continuing.

Sustainable, core funding would give them even more capacity than they’ve had, which is part of the message they want to relay as they celebrate.

“Looking back, if we had had secure core funding, larger staff, greater capacity, absolutely, we would have been able to do more of what we did anyway,” says Godsoe.

Correction: A previous version of this story said The Be the Peace Institute was a women’s centre. In fact, they do not offer services directly to women. They work toward studying and understanding the root causes of gender-based violence.

The RCMP badge can be seen on the shoulder of a police officer.

Two men charged with attempting to kill woman they knew: RCMP

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Two men are facing charges for attempted murder and other serious offences in a case of intimate partner violence in Beechville.

It was just before 8 in the morning on Tuesday when police got a call that two men had tried the night before to kill a woman known to them, according to a news release from RCMP.

Officers say it allegedly happened after a dispute at a home.

About 20 minutes after they got the call, police arrested one of the men at the home. The second was arrested in Dartmouth in the afternoon.

The woman was hurt but her injuries were not life-threatening, police say.

A 32-year-old man and a 24-year-old man, both from Beechville, face a list of charges on top of attempted murder, including assault by choking and unlawful confinement.

They appeared in court on Wednesday. RCMP are not releasing their names to protect the victim.

They will appear in court again next month.

The RCMP says anyone experiencing or at risk of intimate partner violence should reach out. Support can be found by calling 211, the provincial toll-free line at 1-855-225-0220, or visiting Nova Scotia 211 online.

Nova Scotia declared intimate partner violence an epidemic in 2024, following a recommendation from the Mass Casualty Commission’s final report on the 2020 Portapique mass shooting.

PSD Becks

IPV-related incident leads to firearms arrest in Eastern Passage

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An 18-year-old man has been charged with multiple firearms offences following what officers say was a “fast-moving intimate partner violence-related situation” in Eastern Passage.

Police responded to a report of a masked man outside a restaurant on Cow Bay Road at around 8:40 p.m. on March 31. It was later determined that he was known to an employee.

The HRP Canine Unit located the man, who was wearing gloves and appeared to be hiding a weapon in his pants. During the investigation, officers found a loaded rifle, ammunition, and a prohibited magazine, which were seized.

When the man attempted to escape, police dogs caught him, and he was arrested with assistance from RCMP officers.

A search warrant was later executed at a residence on Romkey Drive, where officers seized a loaded handgun with a prohibited magazine, two long guns, ammunition, two RCMP patches, and body armour.

RCMP Sgt. Mark MacPherson said, “Given the weapons involved, this incident had the potential to be much more serious, and the teamwork on scene played a critical role in preventing harm.”

In addition to 15 firearms-related offences, the man is also charged with possession of body armour without a valid permit and possession of police shoulder patches. He also faces charges related to incidents in December and January involving the same victim.

The man remains in custody and is scheduled to appear in Dartmouth Provincial Court on April 23.

Gavel

N.B. proposes ending limitation periods for intimate partner‑violence claims

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The government has introduced legislation aimed at improving access to the civil justice system for survivors of intimate partner violence.

In a press release Wednesday, the Department of Justice and Public Safety said the government is proposing amendments to remove limitation periods for non‑sexual harm in intimate relationships. The changes would also apply when the survivor was financially, physically, or emotionally dependent on the person who harmed them.

According to the release this will signify an expansion of claims survivors of domestic violence can file without a limitation period, which includes claims for damages, for trespass to the person, and assault or battery for acts of a sexual nature.

“These relationships can involve fear, control, and power imbalances that make it extremely difficult for survivors to come forward within the standard limitation periods,” said Justice Minister and Attorney General Robert McKee in the release. “This legislation recognizes those realities.”

If passed, the bill would also remove limitation periods to file claims for recent or historic misconduct.

This means that people who have experienced sexual assault, intimate partner violence or similar ham in a relationship of dependance would be able to file claims regardless of when the misconduct took place, unless the claim had already been settle or it had been decided by the courts.

Additionally, the changes would align New Brunswick’s laws on these matters more closely with those in other Canadian jurisdictions.

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Budget cuts increase risk factors for intimate partner violence: Elizabeth Fry Society

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Programs that deal with intimate partner violence mostly avoided recent budget cuts from the province, but Kylee Nun with the Elizabeth Fry Society says other cuts to food, transport and youth supports will still be directly impacted.

The government’s recent budget revealed a long list of cuts amid a $1.2 billion deficit.

As people across the province rally on Wednesday against many of the cuts, Nun says that some of those risk factors are housing insecurity, transportation barriers, and food insecurity. Those stressors impact the well-being of families and by extension increase the risk of violence.

“I hope that Nova Scotians are paying attention to that and paying attention to the interconnectedness of the social supports and services and how those contribute to our well-being as a whole, as a community,” says Nun.

The Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia helps women, girls, non-binary and gender diverse people dealing with intimate partner violence or who have been incarcerated, including through housing or legal supports, according to their website.

Since the budget revealed nearly 300 programs and services were cut, including spending reductions for universities, the tourism and arts sectors, several affected groups have spoken up about how these cuts will impact them.

Finance Minister John Lohr said the government had to make some tough decisions in the budget.

“We value our hard-working public servants, but government needs to become more focused and efficient. We will protect core front-line services that Nova Scotians rely on and work to right-size government through attrition wherever possible,” said Lohr.

Some of the affected supports include a pilot project that offered free bus passes to students. The province contributed $1.2 million to that program, offering free bus passes to 30,000 students in the HRM between Grade 7 and Grade 12.

Halifax city councillor Kathryn Morse previously told our newsroom that program had huge benefits.

“If students get comfortable using the bus and navigating around the city with their bus pass, then they kind of build transit use for the future and comfort with it,” says Morse.

Nun says that meeting people’s needs creates healthy communities.

In the North End of Halifax, she says the Hope Blooms youth social enterprise program was also hit by the cuts, and she was disappointed to see that.

Hope Blooms has youth between 5 and 18 growing their own food, and once they graduate from the program at 18, they get a yearly renewed scholarship from the proceeds of their salad dressing social enterprise, according to their website. Our newsroom has reached out to Hope Blooms for more details.

“When you look at things through a whole health approach, and the number of systems that are actually involved in creating safety and well-being for families and for people who are experiencing violence, you start to understand that funding is essential,” says Nun.

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New pilot could help more victims of intimate partner violence

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A new pilot project out of Toronto could help better protect victims of intimate partner violence across the country.

The federal government is spending nearly $871,262 for a group to implement a new model that would help multiple agencies coordinate their responses to intimate partner violence to protect more victims, according to a news release.

Kylee Nun, with the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, says it is fantastic.

“It’s like looking at, how can we work together across agencies, pulling in different, you know, sectors of police, health, child protection specialists, community agencies to really create safety and plans to move forward safely for victims. I think that’s really important work,” says Nun.

The federal government announced the funding for the pilot project on Friday. The government previously funded part of the project, with $920,917 to test the model in a Canadian context, according to the release. But the funding announced on Friday will let the group test out the model in Toronto.

The group is the Woman Abuse Council of Toronto, also known as WomanACT. The model itself is called the Community Wellness – Canadian Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) Pilot.

“The model has previously been implemented and evaluated in other settings, where it has led to fewer women being repeated victims of intimate partner violence, provided holistic support, and improved the quality of life for victims and survivors,” the government writes.

Nun says the response model can assess risk as well, particularly for victims of high-risk domestic violence, or people at risk of homicide or serious injury.

At least in Nova Scotia, she says, groups do not necessarily work together to assess safety or create safer situations for people at high risk or harm.

She says she has worked on several projects that looked at responses involving multiple agencies. One example, called RAMP (Restorative Approach to Multiple Proceedings), looked at supporting families experiencing intimate partner violence, and that involved Child Protection Services, as well.

“We faced major challenges within that project, with regard to collaboration across these, you know, various different agencies and organizations, because there’s differences in approach to the work,” says Nun.

Different organizations have different ways of assessing risk, she says, and different systems are set up to operate on their own, so there are a lot of challenges.

If police are under-resourced, she says, or child protection is under-resourced, then that creates another set of issues.

“However, I do still think it’s the right move forward, and I would love to see more collaboration and practice here in Nova Scotia,” says Nun.

She says she looks forward to seeing the results of the pilot in Toronto and their final takeaways, their successes and failures, and how it could be implemented in different places.