Manitoba getting up to $1M in federal funding for crisis hotlines

Manitoba is getting up to $1 million in federal funding for crisis hotlines that support people experiencing gender-based violence — services that have seen increased demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a federal cabinet minister.

The funding announcement came at a news conference Wednesday, where Marci Ien, the federal minister for women and gender equality and youth, said the province was the first to sign on to such an agreement with Ottawa.

The money will be doled out in increments over four years, Ien said, and similar agreements with other provinces are pending.

Manitoba Families Minister Rochelle Squires, who is responsible for the province's status of women file, said the funding "will alleviate the pressure of increased demand on crisis lines and will strengthen our community organizations so they are able to continue providing high-quality service for victims and survivors of violence."

The money was pledged in the 2021 federal budget, which outlined $30 million over five years to support crisis hotlines across the country. 

Ien said crisis lines in Canada saw a surge in call volumes during the pandemic.

That includes Winnipeg's Klinic Community Health, which in 2021 answered more than 30,000 crisis calls, despite a significant drop during the pandemic in the number of volunteers it had to respond to those calls, Ien said.

From 2020 to 2022, Klinic also saw a 231 per cent increase in the number of calls it got through its sexual assault crisis line.

"If you look at the data … it tells a grim story: a story of mothers and sisters and daughters and friends and neighbours who are not safe in their own homes," Ien said.

"Gender-based violence continues to be a huge problem in Canada — one that takes a physical, psychological and an economical toll on survivors, witnesses and, of course, children."

Klinic executive director Ayn Wilcox said the new funding is essential to respond to both the growing demand for help and the increasing complexity of the calls.

"We feel it and we see it every single day, and we know how critical it is that we be able to invest more and be able to expand the services that we can offer," said Wilcox, who attended the news conference virtually.

Klinic is still working to build back its capacity to respond to all the calls coming in through its 24/7 crisis line, after its baseline of about 150 volunteers dropped to around 30 when the pandemic hit, said Wilcox.

"Most crisis hotlines across the country rely very heavily on trained volunteer responders and many, like ours, lost the vast majority of our volunteers at the beginning of the pandemic," she said.

"We are in the process of rebuilding those, because we know that when our community reaches out, essential service organizations like ours need to be able to respond."

Wilcox said Klinic is looking at spending the money it gets from the new funding on steps like expanding the technology the hotline uses and increasing training for volunteers.

The organization has trained 75 volunteers for its crisis program so far this year, Ien said, with more training scheduled for this fall.