One word can change the weight of a tragedy. When Kingston police labelled a woman’s killing as “femicide”—for the first time in their history—it wasn’t just a matter of vocabulary. It was a signal. It reflected a growing recognition that the language we use shapes how we understand violence, how we measure it, and ultimately, whether justice is served.
In Canada, the term “homicide” sits at the centre of our criminal justice system—a catch-all for unlawful killings, regardless of motive or context. Yet in recent years, a debate has sharpened around the need to distinguish femicide: the killing of women and girls specifically because of their gender. For advocates, scholars, and families whose lives have been upended by such violence, this distinction is far from academic. It’s about naming a pattern that too often slips through legal and statistical cracks.
Femicide is not new, but its recognition in Canadian law is lagging behind both public awareness and international standards. The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, drawing on a United Nations framework, defines femicide as killings where gender is a motivating factor. Indicators span intimate partner violence, sexual violence, family-related murders, and patterns of coercion, harassment or misogyny. The numbers are sobering: over a thousand femicides have been documented across Canada since 2018, with last year alone seeing 187 women and girls killed—many by current or former partners, and the rest by family members or, more rarely, strangers.
The trouble starts with the law itself. Canada’s Criminal Code does not define femicide, which leaves police forces and agencies like Statistics Canada without clear guidance on when or how to apply the term. Myrna Dawson, the director of the Femicide Observatory, notes that this lack of definition fuels inconsistency and underreporting. Police in Ottawa and Kingston have only recently begun using the term, and even then, their criteria differ—Ottawa lists fourteen categories, while other forces avoid the word altogether.
Without a statutory definition, tracking gender-motivated killings is patchwork at best. As Marlene Ham of the Ontario Association of Interval Houses points out, different groups come up with different numbers. The result? An incomplete national picture and, perhaps more crucially, a missed opportunity to target prevention efforts where they are most needed. Dawson argues that “the more we know about these killings and the more we can contextualize them within that understanding of femicide, the more awareness that we can ultimately build.” Data is more than a bureaucratic exercise. It’s the difference between seeing a trend and calling it an epidemic.
Legal terminology isn’t just semantics. It drives policy, resource allocation, and public discourse. When a killing is simply a “homicide,” its gendered roots may be ignored. But call it femicide, and suddenly the focus shifts: who is most at risk, why does this keep happening, what interventions might disrupt the pattern? Advocates believe that a clear, codified definition would empower police, social agencies, and lawmakers to design more effective responses. It would also give families and communities the language to demand justice for women, not as collateral victims of violence, but as targets of a specific, preventable crime.
The political winds may finally be shifting. With promises from federal leaders to introduce legislation that would make hate-motivated killings—including femicide—a first-degree offence, the stage is set for a debate that is both legal and moral. Justice Minister Sean Fraser’s office has expressed a determination to move forward with legislation. But as Dawson reminds us, “Police really need leaders to take the initiative, and by that I mean the federal government who decides what is a criminal offence and what should be labelled and legislated officially.”
Canada stands at a crossroads. To ignore the need for a definition is to accept blurred lines and limited accountability. To act is to acknowledge, with all the weight that the law can bring, that gender-motivated killings are real, can be measured, and must be stopped. The word matters. The lives behind it matter even more.
References:
‘Uphill battle’: Criminal Code must include definition for femicide, advocates say
