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The average rate of firearm-related intimate partner violence has spiked since 2020, according to Statistics Canada.
Data released by the agency on Wednesday shows the average rate was 31 per cent higher from 2020 to 2024 than from 2015 to 2019 and 58 per cent higher than from 2010 to 2014.
“It’s not surprising to us in the work that we do in terms of gender equality in Canada,” said Mitzie Hunter, CEO of the Canadian Women’s Foundation. “We have seen the steady and the sharp rise in violence against women and intimate partner violence.”
The study “examines trends in firearm-related intimate partner violence, including characteristics of incidents, victims, and accused persons.”
In 2024, there were 1,096 victims of police-reported intimate partner violence in which a firearm was present during the incident. In addition, rifles and shotguns were found to be the most common types of firearms present in firearm-related intimate partner violence each year from 2010 to 2019. Since 2020, handguns have been the most common type.
The role that the COVID-19 pandemic played in the heightened numbers is also notable to experts.
“When we required everyone to shelter at home, we didn’t necessarily ask ourselves how are women affected by that, women and girls,” Hunter said. “And essentially we were requiring people to shelter with their abuser.”
A November 2025 study published by BMC Public Health states that out of 1,344 participants, nearly one in four participants (23.4 per cent) self-identified as experiencing either “emotional, sexual, physical, mental, financial, coercive, spiritual and/or technology-based abuse” during the lockdowns.
In addition, survivors “had over three times greater odds of facing multiple barriers to formal supports” alongside facing “1.6 times higher odds of decreased communication with friends or family.”
The 2022-2023 Domestic Violence Death Review Committee conducted by Ontario’s office of the chief coroner states the use of firearms is listed as the second most common cause of death in partner homicides.
“Research shows that when there is a firearm present, that does increase the risk for firearm-related harms and crimes,” Katreena Scott, a professor in applied philosophy at Western University, said.
Data released by the 2023 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Commissioner of Firearms Report states there were 2,364,726 firearm licence holders in Canada and 1,296,221 registered firearms.
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However, “estimates of the number of unregistered firearms vary, but the number may exceed two million.”
In 58 per cent of firearm-related intimate partner homicides, the accused person “did not have a valid firearms license, had a valid license but was not in legal possession of the firearm used to commit homicide, or had neither a valid license nor legal possession,” according to Statistics Canada.
Information on the licensing status and legal possession was unknown in the remaining 17 per cent.
The Supreme Court of Canada officially recognized intimate partner violence as a distinct legal basis for pursuing civil damages on May 15, with the judgment stating that this form of violence is not limited to threats to physical or psychological integrity but also includes abusive behaviour by one partner meant to coerce and control the other, effectively depriving them of their autonomy.
Canada’s Criminal Code is also expected to implement tougher penalties for intimate partner violence, particularly in cases of murder, after a Conservative bill became law on June 17.
The private member’s bill essentially leapfrogged the Liberal government’s own bill that would criminalize femicide and other forms of intimate partner violence and coercive control and includes many of the same measures.
The legislation is named after Bailey McCourt, a 32-year-old B.C. woman who was killed in a Kelowna parking lot in 2025. Her estranged husband, James Plover, has been charged with first-degree murder in her death and is scheduled to stand trial in 2027.
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