Policy & Advocacy

Since 2013, WSC has been advocating for an adequately funded, robust National Action Plan (NAP) on Violence Against Women and Gender-Based Violence. While the federal government announced the NAP in 2022, we continue to call for a fully implemented and adequately resourced NAP, with explicit commitments and dedicated funding for the women’s shelter sector.  A whole-of-government approach – encompassing prevention, legal reform, housing, health care, education, and justice – is needed to address the root causes and long-term impacts of violence. To ensure that all parts of the federal government are ready to deliver on this, it is also necessary to fully fund the renewal of a comprehensive Federal Strategy to prevent and address GBV. Selected publications related to our work on the NAP are:

• Blueprint for Canada’s National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Girls, 2015
• Call: Canada’s National Action Plan Needs to be Bold, Ambitious, and Intersectional, 2020
• A Ready Roadmap for the NAP, 2021

WSC has long called on the federal government to address the affordable housing crisis and expand second stage and longer‑term options. Previous wins on this issue have included a $250M pot of funding for second stage housing in 2021-22 through the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation, and the development of a federal National Housing Strategy and Housing Advocate.

Shelters cannot respond effectively to violence when survivors have nowhere safe and affordable to go after their stay. There is an urgent need to align housing policy and GBV policy through:

• Dedicated federal and provincial/territorial capital envelopes for VAW shelter infrastructure, with clear eligibility criteria for Indigenous‑led organizations.
• Building at least 50,000 new rent-geared-to-income social housing units per year over the next ten years, with priority given to those in core housing need and/or leaving violence, aligning with human rights-based national housing targets (Social Housing & Human Rights, 2024).
• Designated targets and funding within federal, provincial, and territorial housing programs for second stage and longer-term transitional housing, including in rural, remote, northern, and Indigenous communities.
• Integrated shelter-to-housing pathways that include dedicated housing workers in shelters, formal partnerships with housing providers, and guaranteed access to a proportion of units for survivors exiting shelter, particularly in non-market or affordable housing.
• Income and benefits policies that support survivors to maintain housing after they leave shelter, such as enhancements to the GBV Housing Benefit, so that survivors are not forced to choose between leaving violence and becoming homeless.[

Recent engagements include:

• The Lack of Accessible Housing in Canada, Submission to the National Housing Council, July 2026
• The Financialization of Purpose-Built Rental Housing in Canada, Submission to the National Housing Council, August 2023

Femicide is the gender-related killing of women and girls. The Montreal Massacre is the most infamous example of femicide: fourteen women were murdered in an anti-feminist attack at the École Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6, 1989. On average, a woman or girl is killed every two to three days in Canada, most often by a current or former intimate partner. That’s more than a dozen Montreal massacres every year. Women’s Shelters Canada supports naming femicide in the criminal code, while also investing in prevention and supports for those experiencing violence.

Recent engagements include:

• Brief to the Justice and Human Rights Standing Committee on Bill C-16, April 2026
• Appearance in front of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women regarding gender-based violence and femicide, October 2024

Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) is when technology (such as a smartphone, computer, Smartwatch, or a Smart home device) is misused to commit abusive acts such as domestic violence, harassment, stalking, sexual assault, impersonation, extortion, and the non-consensual filming and sharing of intimate images. This violence includes digital financial abuse, such as sending abusive messages through Interac e-Transfer® or impersonating someone through online banking. TFGBV is getting more complex with the development of Artificial Intelligence.

WSC calls on the federal government to build TFGBV capacity by funding technology safety training for women’s shelter staff and survivors and upgrading digital and cybersecurity infrastructure so that shelters can prevent, detect, and respond to technology-enabled abuse. WSC also regularly engages with the telecoms and banking systems in Canada to advocate for policies and practices that will support . Previous wins on this issue have included a voluntary Code of Conduct for the Prevention of Economic Abuse and an opt-out feature for Interac e-Transfer® that lets users disable the message field for specific senders.