Canada calls gender violence an epidemic after triple femicide inquest

Exclusive: government's response also indicates Canada intends to criminalise coercive control, a form of intimate partner violence

Gender-based violence is an epidemic" that has no place in our country", Canada's new justice minister has said in a letter delivered in response to a public inquest into a triple femicide in rural Ontario.

The six-page letter dated 14 August - the federal government's official response to last summer's inquest - also indicates Canada intends to pursue the criminalisation of coercive control, a form of intimate partner violence intended to isolate, intimidate and control victims.