How Gender-Based Violence Reduction Funds are Spent

Everyone here will agree that the crimes these days referred to as gender-based violence (GBV) are an evil that should be fought. And I’d imagine even the most hard-core libertarian will agree that it’s within the mandate of a responsible government to do its part to help that happen.

But as taxpayers and voters, it is our job to assess the government’s specific plans to ensure they’re reasonable, effective, and represent an efficient use of public funds. To that end, this post will explore the federal Liberal’s 2023 national action plan to end gender-based violence.

Since the program covers what are technically provincial areas of authority, the government transferred a total of $552 million to the 10 provinces and three territories. Well, except for Quebec. Being Quebec, their agreement included this delicious only-in-Canada-you-say disclaimer:

Although it supports the overall objectives of the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, the Government of Québec cannot adhere to it because it intends to retain its full responsibility in this area on its territory. Through an agreement that respects its autonomy, the Government of Québec expects to receive its fair share of federal funding to support the programs, initiatives, and services to end gender-based violence that it puts in place based on the needs of its territory.

On the one hand, they’re quite right. The federal government has no constitutional business getting involved here. Although just for consistency, I guess Quebec should have opted out altogether in favor of funding their own program through local tax revenue.

In the event, Quebec graciously agreed to accept $97 million to spend as they saw fit. Is there a nation more generously blessed than ours?

Ok. The program itself is poorly named. Besides the fact that, sadly, there’s no way they’re going to actually “end” gender-based violence, many of the measures are focused on important but tangential objectives like supporting victims and survivors and promoting a responsive justice system.

Beyond the marketing, though, it’s really the practical details that determine success and failure. For this article I’m going to focus on just those measures within the program that aim to directly reduce GBV. Those would be the second and fifth program pillars:

• Prevention programs including public awareness campaigns, engaging men and boys in challenging harmful gender norms, and GBV prevention education in schools and communities

• Strengthening social infrastructure to address socio-economic determinants such as poverty, housing, and employment disparities with a focus on affordable childcare, healthcare, and technology access

Is there empirical evidence associating those two approaches to actual real-world crime reduction? I'm aware of no meaningful evidence that, for instance, "engaging men and boys in challenging harmful gender norms" has ever been successful in actually reducing GBV rates. Until such evidence is found, we’re probably not ready to devote hundreds of millions of dollars in the hope that it might work.¹

What about that fifth pillar: addressing “poverty, housing and employment disparities”? It’s true that studies have shown an association between lower income and higher GBV rates. But no one has yet demonstrated a clear causal relationship - especially considering contemporary and historical societies where extreme poverty is common but violence is rare.

Also, poverty reduction is the official focus of countless existing government programs. Besides income-based tax credits, here are just some of the federal programs that already exist to combat poverty and housing and employment disparities:

• Canada Child Benefit

• Canada Workers Benefit

• Old Age Security

• Guaranteed Income Supplement

• Canada Disability Benefit

• Canada Student Grants and Loans

• National School Food Program

• Child Care Expansion Loan Program

• Canada Student Loan Forgiveness Program

• Canada Learning Bond

• Canada Student Grants

• Youth Mental Health Fund

• National Housing Strategy

Service duplication and overlap is not the hallmark of a well-designed program.

The bottom line is that I couldn’t find any measures in the national action plan containing mechanisms that would demonstrably impact GBV rates. That’s not to say there’s nothing of value in the program, but that it would be hard to justify the scope of the expense in terms of its stated goals.

It also means that, ten years down the line, we’re likely to look back at the initiative as another statistical failure. And by “statistical failure” I mean that a statistically quantifiable number of real human beings will have suffered real violence despite the massive program costs.

Of course, that won’t stop governments from lying about the results. The Liberals’ 2024 federal budget document contained this whopper: