Item - 2023.CC8.2

City Council on July 19 and 20, 2023, adopted the following:

1. City Council declare gender-based violence and intimate-partner violence an epidemic in Toronto.

2. City Council urge the Provincial and Federal Governments to rightfully declare intimate partner and gender-based violence an epidemic and enact the additional 85 recommendations from the inquest into the 2015 murders of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam in Renfrew County, Ontario, which provide a roadmap to preventing intimate partner violence from escalating to femicide.

3. City Council request the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario to declare a gender-based and intimate partner violence epidemic across the country.

4. City Council advocate that Femicide be added as a term to the Criminal Code of Canada and state its position to the Honourable David Lametti, Minister of Justice and Attorney General Canada, and the Prime Minister of Canada.

5. City Council request the Provincial and Federal Governments to provide the necessary support to meaningfully address the gender-based violence and intimate-partner violence epidemic.

6. City Council direct the City Manager, in consultation with the Medical Officer of Health, the Executive Director, Social Development Finance and Administration, the Director, Indigenous Affairs Office, the Chief People Officer, community organizations serving victims of intimate partner violence and the Toronto Police Service, to consider the best ways to actualize this declaration through community safety, wellbeing, and other related plans and making meaningful investments to the programs and services that prevent intimate partner and gender-based violence and support those who face it.

7. City Council forward this item to Toronto Members of Parliament and Members of Provincial Parliament, and to Ontario’s Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity.