The B.C. government needs to step up its efforts to prevent deaths caused by intimate partner violence (IPV) and improve data collection, a death review panel called by B.C.’s chief coroner has found.
The report, which echoes calls made by previous reviews and advocates, highlights the failings of the current system to identify and prevent cases of intimate partner violence prior to the victim’s death, and the outsized toll of this on women, Indigenous people and rural communities.
B.C.’s chief coroner, Dr. Jatinder Baidwan, is expected to speak alongside Ryan Panton, who chaired the review panel, on Monday afternoon to discuss their findings and recommendations.
“This Death Review Panel’s findings are unequivocal: IPV-related deaths are overwhelmingly preventable,” writes Baidwan in the report.
“Too often, the warning signs were present; too often, systems were uncoordinated, overburdened, or unable to respond in ways that meaningfully enhanced safety.”
The responsibility to act decisively to prevent future deaths, he said, is a shared one.
At least 135 people in B.C. died due to intimate partner violence between 2016 and 2024, the coroner’s service found, with those deaths disproportionately taking place in rural, remote and northern B.C. communities.
The report shares an urgent call to action, recommending targeted, long-term investment to address these issues.
“The findings of this review demonstrate that many victims had contact with systems that could have intervened, yet opportunities for prevention were missed,” said the report.
In response, the report’s panel recommends creating a clear, measurable and coordinated provincial response culminating in an updated provincial strategy to be released in September 2027.
The panel also calls for a standing committee to review all intimate partner violence-related deaths, for improved training for front-line responders, to create a community-based model for preventing intimate partner violence, and to launch a public awareness campaign.
It also renewed calls for improved demographic data collection and reporting on intimate partner violence.
The recommendations echo calls made in a previous death review panel report on intimate partner violence from 2016.
The new report is the result of a death review panel convened in late 2025 to examine intimate partner violence-related deaths between 2016 and 2024. It included experts in fields including health care, law enforcement, gender equity, Indigenous health, and victims services.
Although Indigenous people make up just 5.9 per cent of B.C.’s population, 24 per cent of people killed by intimate partner violence during this time period were Indigenous.
The review also found that 76 per cent of people killed by an intimate partner were female.
By region, northern B.C. saw the highest death rates, followed by the Interior. Communities of less than 10,000 residents, along with “materially deprived” neighbourhoods, were overrepresented, the review found.
The majority of those killed in a private residence died in their own homes.
It is also common for there to be a history of violence, the review found, with over half of perpetrators having a history of assault prior to the victim’s death. In 36 per cent of cases, a prior incident of intimate partner violence had been reported to police before the victim’s death, and 29 per cent of those incidents happened within a month of the victim being killed.
It’s not the first time prevention efforts have faced scrutiny. A CBC News investigation of intimate partner violence-related deaths in 2021 found that one in three people accused of the crime in Canada demonstrated at least one warning sign prior to the killing.
