Why Canada needs to recognize the crime of femicide, on Dec. 6 and beyond

It’s been 36 years since a mass femicide occurred at École Polytechnique in Montréal. A man shot and killed 14 women because of their sex.

Described as “violent misogyny” by the federal government, the killings have nonetheless never officially been called femicide in Canada despite its global recognition as one of the most vivid examples of femicide in the western world.

Women and girls continue to be killed every two days somewhere in Canada, mostly by men. And the numbers continue to rise.

The majority of these killings are femicide, according to the United Nations statistical framework for measuring the gender-related killing of women and girls. Femicide is broadly defined as the killing of a woman or girl because of their sex or gender.

For these reasons, the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability (CFOJA) launched its Too True Crime podcast on Nov. 25, 2025, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The podcast spotlights the stories of 580 women and girls killed by men in cases of femicide since 2020.

It only includes cases where available information indicated it was a femicide; some may have flown under the radar of authorities and remain unknown. But since the observatory launched in 2018, more than 1,100 women and girls were documented to have been killed by men.

Part of the podcast’s calls to action include a petition asking Canada to officially recognize the crime of femicide and include it in the Criminal Code.

Link to full article here.