Canada’s rate of police-reported intimate partner violence rose two per cent in 2025 compared with 2024, leaving it 15 per cent above its 2018 level, according to Statistics Canada data reported by Global News.

The figures released Tuesday show a continuing national increase, but researchers cautioned that police reports do not capture the full extent of the violence — or establish whether the rise reflects more incidents, more victims coming forward, or both.

Kaitlynn Mendes, interim director of Western University’s Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children, told Global News that intimate partner violence remains chronically under-reported. Greater awareness, community support and movements such as #MeToo may have encouraged more people to report abuse, she said.

Mendes said intimate partner violence can involve physical, psychological, emotional or financial abuse. She also raised concern about what she described as an “anti-feminist backlash,” including influencers promoting aggression and dominance as markers of masculinity.

“I think that the numbers that we see from Statistics Canada, we should regard as the floor, not the ceiling,” she said.

The national trend was not uniform. Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec and Saskatchewan recorded lower rates in 2025 than in 2024, although each remained substantially above its 2018 level.

Rates in the territories were between three and 19 times the national average. Manitoba and Saskatchewan recorded rates nearly twice the national average. Mendes said isolation and limited access to social supports could help explain higher rates in remote communities.

Alexa Yakubovich, an associate professor in Dalhousie University’s department of community health and epidemiology, told Global News that the pandemic and subsequent economic turmoil created a combination of risks, including inadequate housing, food insecurity, economic insecurity and unemployment.

She said declarations recognizing intimate partner violence as an epidemic must be accompanied by substantially increased funding for community services and health care. Nova Scotia made such a declaration in 2024, followed by New Brunswick in 2025 and Newfoundland and Labrador in May. Ontario has faced repeated calls to do the same.

Yakubovich stressed the importance of health-care providers recognizing warning signs, saying health care is the formal service most commonly accessed by victims before they are killed. Mendes also called for community education to reduce stigma and help people recognize abuse and respond.

Sources