Survivors of intimate partner violence say educational reforms could help break the cycle of abuse
CBC
WARNING: This story contains details of intimate partner violence
Crystal McClean says it was the beginning of a new year when she decided she needed to leave her abusive partner. It took more than a year for her to make it happen for good.
"I was in an abusive relationship — physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually," she said.
"I left probably over 50 times and just kept returning. I couldn't break the cycle."
Now separated and on a path to recovery, she wants to see educational reforms to try to lower Saskatchewan's troubling rates of domestic violence. In 2022, Saskatchewan had the highest provincial rates of police-reported family violence in the country with 730 victims per 100,000 population, and of intimate partner violence (IPV) at 732 per 100,000.
McClean said a lack of resources and education around IPV is driving the numbers up. Other survivors and educators agree.
McClean, a teacher, is trying to be part of the solution by sharing with her students what she has learned the hard way.
"We need to educate and empower people about the first signs of domestic violence. We need to start with our youth. We need to teach them healthy boundaries and relationships, about self-worth, self-love and self-respect," she said.
Her wounds have healed, but memories of the abuse still come in flashbacks. She remembers being helpless.
"I laid in the snow, my face in the snow, and I just wanted to die. I didn't want to live anymore."
She said the physical abuse started within the first couple of months of the relationship. She said resisting would make the punishment severe.
"It started off with just pushes and pulls of the hair, yanks of the arm and then it turned into full on beatings."
McClean said her partner's substance use was a big factor to the abuse she sustained. She said her family noticed bruises and worried about her.
"I told them that I fell down the stairs. They didn't believe me."
Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia can all expect between 20 and 40 millimetres of rainfall this weekend.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.