135 Dead, Same Old Recommendations: BC's Intimate Partner Violence Crisis and the NDP's Decade of Inaction

BC's chief coroner released a death review panel report today that should be required reading for every voter in this province. Between 2016 and 2024, at least 135 people in BC died as a result of intimate partner violence. The deaths disproportionately fell on women, Indigenous people, and people in rural, remote, and northern communities.

The coroner's findings are unambiguous. The warning signs were present in case after case. The systems were uncoordinated, overburdened, and unable to respond. And the recommendations in today's report — urgent, carefully documented, backed by a panel of health, law enforcement, and Indigenous health experts — largely repeat what was already recommended in 2016.

A previous death review panel published the same calls to action ten years ago. The NDP has been in government since 2017. This is their record.

What the Coroner Found

Chief Coroner Dr. Jatinder Baidwan was direct: "IPV-related deaths are overwhelmingly preventable." Not "difficult to prevent." Not "complex to address." Overwhelmingly preventable. In too many cases, victims had contact with systems that could have intervened. They didn't.

The deaths were concentrated in rural, remote, and northern BC — communities with fewer services, longer response times, and less access to transition housing and legal support. Indigenous women were killed at rates dramatically out of proportion to their share of the population.

The panel's recommendations include: a clear, coordinated provincial strategy by September 2027; a standing committee to review all IPV deaths; better training for front-line responders; a community-based prevention model; a public awareness campaign; and improved demographic data collection.

The Problem: We've Heard This Before

Here is what the report itself acknowledges, buried in the findings but critical to understanding the accountability picture: these recommendations echo a previous death review panel from 2016.

That report — covering IPV deaths from 2010 to 2015 — made similar calls. Coordinate the systems. Improve data collection. Target rural communities. Invest in prevention.

The BC NDP took government in 2017. They have held power continuously since. During their tenure, at least 135 more people died of intimate partner violence. The same systemic gaps the 2016 report identified remained unaddressed. The 2026 panel is now asking for an updated provincial strategy — to be released in September 2027.

Think about that timeline. A problem identified in 2016. A government in power since 2017. A new report in 2026 asking for a strategy by 2027. That is eleven years between the first report and the promised plan — during which time more than a hundred people died preventable deaths.

Indigenous Women: The Recurring Failure

Indigenous people make up roughly 5.9% of BC's population. The coroner's report confirms they are disproportionately represented among intimate partner violence deaths — a pattern that has been documented, reported on, and called out for decades.

The NDP government has spent years claiming that reconciliation and Indigenous well-being are central to their agenda. They passed DRIPA. They funded Indigenous organizations. They renamed government ministries. They gave speeches.

And Indigenous women kept dying at disproportionate rates from preventable violence.

The gap between the NDP's reconciliation rhetoric and the lived reality of Indigenous women in BC is not subtle. It is documented in coroners' reports. It is measured in death tolls. The government's response, per today's report, has been a decade of missed opportunities and uncoordinated systems.

The NDP's Response

The government's response to today's report has not yet been detailed. The coroner presented alongside the review panel chair, Ryan Panton, this afternoon. The recommended provincial strategy isn't due until September 2027 — conveniently after the next provincial by-election cycle, and only a year before the 2028 general election.

The NDP has responded to previous coroner's reports with announcements of task forces, working groups, and coordinating committees. Whether today's report generates genuine systemic change or another round of process language will be the measure.

What Accountability Looks Like

The NDP government will say the right things today. They will express commitment to the recommendations. They will announce funding or working groups. They may even set up the standing review committee the coroner has requested.

But voters should measure the NDP not by their announcements, but by their record. A death review panel told this government — or its predecessor — exactly what was needed to prevent these deaths. The systems remained uncoordinated. The data remained incomplete. The rural communities remained underserved. And 135 more people died.

That is the NDP's record on intimate partner violence in BC. Not a policy paper. Not a press release. One hundred and thirty-five preventable deaths over eight years of NDP government.

The coroner called them "overwhelmingly preventable." The NDP had the power to prevent them. They didn't.