from We Count Femicide Because…
In June 2026, there were 6 femicides reported in Ontario. The June OAITH report provides an update on Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act: enacted on June 18, 2026, Bill C-16 represents a major legislative shift by amending the Criminal Code and the Canadian Victim Bill of Rights to protect children, restore mandatory minimums for severe offenses, and elevate how the law treats gender-based violence. Most notably, it reclassifies homicides driven by intimate partner violence, sexual abuse, or coercive control as first-degree murder, officially recognizing these crimes as femicide when the victim is a woman.
Yet, for all its legal progress, the bill carries glaring gaps; because its language is strictly confined to biological sex, trans women, Two-Spirit, and gender-nonconforming survivors risk being entirely shut out of these vital protections. Furthermore, the law remains poorly equipped to handle the reality of how these tragedies actually play out—for instance, with half of Ontario’s femicide perpetrators this month dying by suicide, the absence of a criminal trial means these victims are highly likely to be erased from the very official statistics meant to track the crisis.
View the report for June here: We Count Femicide – June 2026
Since November 26th 2025, there have been 23 femicides were reported in Ontario. In 2024-2025, OAITH tracked a total of 43 femicides within media reports.
Femicide is commonly defined as the intentional murder of women because they are women. OAITH’s femicide definition includes a gender-based killing of a woman, child, trans woman, 2-Spirited Person, or gender non-conforming individual where a man has been charged in relation to the death.
Learn more: https://bit.ly/WeCountFemicideBecause
Media tips: https://bit.ly/FemicideReportingRecommendations
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