In 2023, the provincial and federal governments put together a group called the Progress Monitoring Committee. Chaired by former Nova Scotia lieutenant-governor Myra Freeman, the PMC was an oversight panel, a way to monitor, report on, provide accountability and exchange knowledge and information as the governments implement a response to Turning the Tide Together, the Final Report of the Mass Casualty Commission.
One of the key recommendations made in Turning The Tide is: “a greater focus on addressing and preventing the root causes of violence in communities, including gender-based violence (GBV), intimate partner violence, and family violence.”
As The Coast has reported extensively on, some of the key ways that we can achieve this goal are through substantially increased funding, implementation of accountability mechanisms, improved training and education across sectors and the elimination of the use of non-disclosure agreements, NDAs.
On Nov 29, Freeman and her PMC released their annual report. Both in the report and at a press conference announcing the report, the PMC said publicly that the province has shown “progress” in implementing GBV prevention programs and support services.
The Coast reached out to the PMC to find out exactly what steps have been taken that would constitute “progress.” Which programs received more funding and how much? What kinds of accountability mechanisms have been put in place? What steps have been made towards new education or training programs? We waited four days for a response from the PMC office.
The response that finally came via email Nov 9 was a 500-word public relations by Freeman, that essentially boiled down to either no progress has been made, or we don’t know what progress has been made, depending on the paragraph. Neither of which is great.
“Detailed updates on specific recommendations can be obtained from the responsible agency—either RCMP, the federal government or the province, depending on the recommendation,” writes Freeman in the email to The Coast. “I encourage you to speak to the agencies responsible who can speak to their progress and funding in specific areas.”
So in review: Committee in place to monitor progress says “there’s progress,” and then basically says “we can’t tell you where the progress is.”
There is no question that GBV is a complex and complicated issue to tackle; Freeman herself told us in the email, “we are looking for complex, systemic, transformative change.” But given it’s so complex, why does the PMC’s report lump the whole issue together in one “thematic bucket” in a truly perplexing generalized approach that lacks specificity about any action being taken?
Last Friday—on the National Day of Remembrance and Action Against Violence Against Women—a coalition of advocates from the GBV prevention sector sent a letter to Freeman in response to the annual report. They voiced their collective concern with the lack of transparency and detail within the report, explaining how it makes it impossible for anyone to know what needs to be done to allocate resources to the right advocacy groups, individuals and communities who can help the most and in the most useful ways.
For her part, Freeman doubled down on the usefulness of the report in her email to The Coast, saying “The value of this Committee is that we have the authority to assess progress and report on any gaps and share that information with those responsible for implementation and with the public, as we did last week.”
The report says GBV is one of five “themes” and that progress on that theme has been “initiated” and is “on-track.” These terms are woefully insufficient for encapsulating the urgency of creating a cultural shift in our province.
Normally, we’d all just roll our eyes and chalk it up to government doing and saying government things (AKA lying), because appointing Myra Freeman as chair of this committee was obviously a political move by the Tim Houston government because they wanted someone notoriously uncontroversial who would not rock the boat.
But with an issue as dire and urgent as GBV, it’s actually dangerous for the public to believe that progress has been made and that things are improving when they are not. It negates all of the work being done by GBV advocacy groups and survivors who are screaming at the top of their lungs for help. It leads to a cultural complacency, where everyone believes the problem is going away when it’s actually getting worse.
Here’s the thing: If you don’t believe that a culture of GBV is one of the most prolific contributors to mass casualty events, and therefore, you have no plans to implement and monitor any measures to change that, why not just say so? In the spirit of transparency, why doesn’t the Houston government just admit that they don’t understand the relationship between a culture of GBV and mass killings? At least it would be honest.
Instead, we hear platitude after platitude. We hear Freeman say in her email “It’s heartbreaking to see that these tragedies continue to unfold in our communities” and that we need “meaningful progress.”
Which are both very true. What we don’t need is one of the most complex cultural issues—that touches every part of society—dumped into one giant bucket labeled “Initiated,” and calling that progress.
This article appears in Dec 1-18, 2024.
