Wellness Within Condemns NS Budget for Failure to Address Gender-Based Violence
In February, the Province released a $17.6 billion budget that promises to help us “become a stronger, more resilient province” but notably lacks substantial support for responding to gender-based violence. While the budget notes “more than $100 million in continued supports to address Gender-based Violence and Intimate Partner Violence (…) [and] a new team with a dedicated focus on addressing [this issue],” this previously announced funding will offer little in the form of sustained funding. The budget also ignores calls for universal free contraception, which the party previously stated it would accept only “if the federal government offers funding for Nova Scotians.”
The Access Now Nova Scotia coalition underlines the connection between intimate partner gender-based violence and contraception access. In Canada, women who face intimate-partner violence are twice as likely to experience an unintended pregnancy, with 1 in 4 Canadian women self-reporting not being able to make their own reproductive choices freely. The cost of contraception falls disproportionately on women and persons of all genders at risk of unintended pregnancy, and around 20% of Nova Scotians do not have adequate drug coverage. Other governments have acknowledged that ensuring reproductive autonomy is also fiscally responsible, as direct costs of unplanned pregnancies in Canada total $320 million per year.
In 2020, following the perpetrators’ violent assault on his common-law spouse, a mass shooting took the lives of 22 Nova Scotians, including 13 women. The province has seen a broader surge in intimate partner violence, with seven women killed by their partners since October 2024. In the wake of these tragedies, the Mass Casualty Commission and the Halifax Regional Municipality’s Subcommittee to Define Defunding the Police have developed recommendations to respond to the epidemic. Carrie Low, a gender-based violence advocate and survivor, told CityNews that this year’s budget “doesn’t include substantial new funding to prevent domestic abuse or support survivors,” sending the message to victims “that this is not a priority.”
To truly build resilience we must uplift all Nova Scotians, and Wellness Within calls on the Houston government to invest in gender equity, including funding the implementation of the Mass Casualty Commission's recommendations and free contraception.
Wellness Within is a volunteer-based registered non-profit organization that serves women, transgender, and nonbinary people who have experienced criminalization and are pregnant or have young children in Nova Scotia, part of the unceded and unsurrendered ancestral territory of the Mi'kmaq people.
Wellness Within supports people through the full spectrum of reproductive health experience; facilitates workshops and education sessions; develops resource materials; and advocates for reproductive justice issues.
Contact: Natasha Hines, Chair, (902) 717-2956 or natasha_hines@outlook.com