Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette responds to Opposition questions at the legislature in Quebec City, on May 12.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
On New Year’s Day, 31-year-old Tadjan’ah Desir was pushed over the railing of a third-floor balcony in Montreal. She died in hospital from her injuries four days later.
In February, 67-year-old Danielle Lascelles was found dead at her home in Saint-Jérôme, Que.
In late March, 18-year-old Katerine Alejandra Mejia Salinas was pronounced dead at an apartment in Montreal.
In each case, the woman’s partner or ex-partner has been charged in her death.
A spate of presumed femicides in Quebec this year has horrified the public, with news outlets adding each new death to a grim tally. The killings have taken place across the province, from Montreal to Quebec City to the northern region of Nunavik. The victims were of all ages and backgrounds.
The deaths are shining a spotlight on the prevalence of intimate partner violence and femicide – a term for the gender-motivated killing of women and girls – in the province. In response, the Quebec government is tabling new legislation to protect those at risk, even as advocates decry a lack of resources for women in need.
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During her opening speech at the National Assembly last week, new Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette spoke about a series of nine presumed femicides that had occurred in the first four months of the year. “As a society, we must reject this,” she said. “It has to stop.”
The next day, police in Gatineau reported a 10th victim, 30-year-old Shannon Jean Hickey. They said she had been killed by her partner, who then took his own life.
“The system has completely gone off the rails,” said Yves Imbeault, whose daughter, Joanie, was killed last June by her partner. “People need to realize that we have a societal problem.”
Ms. Hickey’s death means the number of women killed in apparent cases of intimate partner violence in the first few months of 2026 surpasses last year’s total of nine, according to Louise Riendeau, co-director of policy affairs at the Regroupement des maisons pour femmes victimes de violence conjugale, an organization representing dozens of domestic violence shelters across the province. “It’s pretty troubling,” she said.
Four of the 10 cases appear to have been murder-suicides, including two involving Indigenous women. Charges have been laid in the six others.
On Wednesday, Ms. Fréchette’s government will introduce a new bill to allow people at risk of domestic violence to request information from police about a potential abuser. The bill will be modelled on Clare’s Law, a British law named for a woman killed by a former partner who police knew to be dangerous. Similar laws exist in some Canadian provinces, including Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Several of the men accused in this year’s presumed femicides had prior charges or convictions related to intimate partner violence, including Tien Quan Vu, Ms. Hickey’s 34-year-old partner. Mr. Vu pleaded guilty in 2023 to charges including assault causing bodily harm and publication of an intimate image without consent.
The rate of femicide has increased in Canada since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Myrna Dawson, director of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice & Accountability at the University of Guelph, although she noted a decline in most provinces in 2025.
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The Criminal Code does not explicitly define femicide, meaning it is not systematically tracked by all police forces.
Ms. Dawson said pandemic lockdowns “exacerbated those who were already using violence and made that violence more severe.” Though the pandemic is over, many people are still in precarious situations because of the rising cost of living, she added.
Police services in Quebec have reported a dramatic increase in complaints related to domestic violence in recent years. The provincial police force, the Sûreté du Québec, had 12,822 open files related to intimate partner violence in 2024, up from 7,086 in 2021 – an increase of 81 per cent.
That doesn’t mean, however, that conjugal violence has nearly doubled. Police have been working hard to encourage people to report domestic abuse, said Benoit Richard, an SQ spokesperson. The force now has a team dedicated to dealing with intimate partner violence.
“I think people are more aware of what domestic violence is,” he said. “They feel more comfortable filing complaints.”
Advocacy groups also launched awareness campaigns during the pandemic urging victims to reach out, Ms. Riendeau said. “Women got the message and asked for help.”
But the spike in calls for assistance has not been met with increased resources for those in need, Ms. Riendeau added. Currently, one out of two women is unable to find a suitable spot in a shelter, she said.
Ms. Dawson said the rate of femicide in Quebec is typically below the national average. In fact, she said, the province stands out for labelling such deaths so explicitly.
Media in Quebec “refer to these cases as femicides way more than any other province,” she said.
The federal government is considering legislation that would formally recognize femicide in the Criminal Code. Bill C-16 would define murders of women in situations involving sexual violence, control and exploitation as femicide, and would consider them first-degree murder. The bill would also criminalize coercive control of an intimate partner.
“It’s progress if it passes,” Ms. Dawson said.
But Mr. Imbeault said Quebec needs to take more concrete steps to prevent the deaths of more women. His daughter, Joanie, had two young girls of her own.
“I would like them to be able to live without being afraid of being killed by a man,” he said. “I would like things to change.”
With files from Tu Thanh Ha in Toronto