Family violence rates hit a record high in Canada in 2025

Police in Canada recorded 147,030 victims of family violence and 133,256 victims of intimate partner violence in 2025, the highest rates for both since comparable data began in 2009, Statistics Canada said Tuesday.

That works out to about 403 victims of family violence and 365 victims of intimate partner violence reported to police every day of the year, based on the agency’s release and our own calculation.

The family violence rate reached 357 victims per 100,000 people, up 1.1 per cent from 2024. The intimate partner violence rate reached 366 per 100,000, up 1.9 per cent. Overall violent crime fell 0.8 per cent over the same period. Since 2018, the family violence rate has risen 19 per cent and the intimate partner violence rate 18 per cent.

Statistics Canada cautioned that the figures likely understate the problem, because many victims do not report to police. It also noted that a 2018 change to the definition of founded crime may have contributed to rising violent crime numbers since then.

Women and girls remain far more likely to be victims. The family violence rate was 482 per 100,000 for women and girls and 232 for men and boys, about 2.1 times higher. The intimate partner violence rate was 566 per 100,000 for women and girls aged 12 and older and 165 for men and boys, about 3.4 times higher. The rate has grown faster among men and boys since 2018, however, up 28 per cent for intimate partner violence compared with 16 per cent for women and girls.

The geographic gap is wide. The northern regions recorded 1,052 family violence victims per 100,000 people, compared with 481 in the rural south and 291 in the urban south. By our calculation, the rate in the north is about 3.6 times that of the urban south. Among the provinces, Saskatchewan had the highest rates, at 729 family violence victims and 706 intimate partner violence victims per 100,000, followed by Manitoba at 548 and 624. Ontario had the lowest family violence rate at 247 per 100,000, which puts Saskatchewan at nearly three times Ontario’s level. British Columbia had the lowest intimate partner violence rate at 280 per 100,000.

The largest one-year increases in family violence were in Nunavut (16 per cent), Nova Scotia (13 per cent) and Prince Edward Island (11 per cent). Intimate partner violence rose 13 per cent in both Nunavut and Nova Scotia. Manitoba had the largest decline in family violence, at 5 per cent, and Yukon the largest decline in intimate partner violence, at 12 per cent.

Children and seniors are also affected. Police recorded 27,256 child and youth victims of family violence, a rate of 362 per 100,000 aged 17 and younger and the highest on record. Parents were the accused in 62 per cent of those cases. Among seniors, there were 8,173 victims, a rate of 102 per 100,000 aged 65 and older, also a record. Seniors were most often victimized by their own child, in 35 per cent of cases.

Deaths moved in the opposite direction. There were 132 victims of family homicide and 75 victims of intimate partner homicide in 2025, falling 33 per cent and 29 per cent in rate terms from 2024 to the lowest levels since homicide data began in 1974. From 2015 to 2025, 78 per cent of the 958 intimate partner homicide victims were women and girls.

Among victims of intimate partner violence, 63 per cent were hurt by a current partner and 35 per cent by a former partner. Nearly half, 46 per cent, lived with the accused at the time. A weapon was present in 16 per cent of cases, and a firearm in 1.1 per cent.

The release follows our reporting on a watchdog review of the RCMP response to partner violence and on a coercive control bill that experts say has a gap on elder abuse.

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