Supporters gathered in Trail, B.C., on Friday for a march honouring the life of a mother and registered nurse whose estranged husband is charged with her murder.
“There are many women living in fear, walking on eggshells, wondering when the next cruelty will descend on them,” Ann Godderis with the FAIR Society and WINS Transition House told the crowd who turned out to remember Lindsay Danchella.
“Lindsay brought people together in life, but in her death, we are bound and united together to break the silence and break the cycle, added Heather Wiley, the victim’s friend.
The event was one of dozens of similar marches, memorials and vigils held across Canada on Friday to mark the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
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Near downtown Vancouver, a group gathered at a monument for the 14 women killed by a gunman at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique on this day 35 years ago.
In New Westminster, shoes were placed on the steps of city hall, each bearing the names of women and girls in the province who lost their lives to violence.
Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services said governments have failed to treat the epidemic of violence against women with the urgency it needs.
“The priority is simply not there, that half the population simply does not matter and that our lives don’t matter in the sense of being killed on a daily basis in our homes,” she told Global News.
“We’ve had 20 women killed so far in B.C. in 2024. There have been over 160 women killed all across the country specifically because of their gender.”
MacDougall and other advocates have been working for years to have femicide — the killing of a woman because of her gender — recognized in the Criminal Code.
MacDougall said until Canada develops the “political will” to address the root causes of violence against women, memorials like Friday’s will continue.