11/13/2025
Last week, MPPs in Ontario’s legislature declared that intimate partner violence (IPV) is endemic in this province.
What does that mean?
It’s recognition, across community and party lines, that this form of gender-based violence — whether it’s by someone’s spouse, common-law partner, or during/after a dating or intimate relationship — is a deep-rooted, persistent, and widespread problem in Ontario.
IPV is real.
It’s dangerous.
It’s claiming lives — most often, women’s lives — and causing devastating impacts that echo across communities and generations.
In recent years, survivors and voices within and beyond the gender-based violence sector, including here at Interval House of Ottawa, have called for the recognition of IPV as an epidemic. More than 100 municipalities, including our own, have done exactly that, in the lead-up to last week’s official recognition of IPV as endemic in Ontario. With silence so often weaponized against survivors of violence, we are grateful that the realities of GBV are being acknowledged and spoken out loud.
At the same time, what must follow any language is action. We need urgent action, which addresses intimate partner violence as the public health and safety crisis it is, together with the focused commitment required for true systemic and cultural change.
In 2026, our shelter will have been in operation for 50 years. We still believe a safer community for women, gender-diverse people and all those impacted by gender-based violence is possible. But collaborative, transformational work must be continued, at all levels of government and beyond, because the crisis of IPV does. And the ambition of that work must match the devastating realities of intimate partner violence in 2025.
With continued hope,
- Interval House of Ottawa
