The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability regularly tracks and catalogues all of the femicides in Canada in order to advocate for change. To show the regularity and painful predictability of femicide across the country, we turned this research into a podcast series, one episode for each woman and girl who was confirmed killed by a man because of her sex or gender. We pulled from over 800 killings from 2020 to 2025. Each podcast was written by drawing from publicly available information about each death and then recorded by a woman passionate about preventing femicide and gender-based violence in her community. The episodes were released on November 25, 2025, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

The definition of femicide varies across disciplines and world regions, but broadly it’s defined as the killing of women or girls, by men, because of their sex or gender. The term’s relevance in Canadian context has continued to emerge, perhaps most clearly in 1989, with the killing of 14 women in what is referred to as the Montreal massacre (École Polytechnique massacre)—an event that continues to bring Canadians together on December 6 every year to mark the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Despite this, the term “femicide” continues to be rarely used despite its utility in underscoring how women are often targeted and killed because they are women, often within the context of intimacy and/or sexual violence. Learn more about the definition of femicide here.

Each episode is written using publicly available information drawn from reputable news sources. While every episode is cross-referenced and fact-checked, it does not necessarily depict the entire story of each woman’s and girl’s life and death. With every death, there’s more to tell. Our goal with each episode was to provide an accurate retelling of the primary facts, as told by the news, that led to each woman’s death.

This podcast was made primarily to call on the Government of Canada to officially recognize femicide and declare femicide an epidemic across Canada. True crime continues to be one of the most popular genres of podcast and documentary. Much of the time, murders of women are depicted as one-off instances, sensationalizing details, desensitizing the audience to the true facts behind femicide and gender-based violence. The purpose of releasing so many true crime podcasts was to show just how disturbingly common femicide is in Canada, turning true crime interest into action and to call on fans of the genre to advocate for change and awareness.

The episodes were recorded by hundreds of women passionate about preventing femicide and gender-based violence in their community. Many of these women have been personally impacted by the effects of femicide, whether through advocacy work or close relationships with someone who was killed by femicide. Some episodes are voiced by survivors of gender-related violence, or by family members and close friends of the victims being featured.

We’ve recorded an episode for every case from January 1, 2020, to November 25, 2025, where a woman or girl was confirmed killed by a man because of her sex or gender, totalling around 580 cases. We believe that hundreds more exist, but various factors limit public access to our knowledge of complete details regarding each woman’s death. In some cases, the perpetrator’s identity isn’t known because the case remains unsolved. We only produced an episode when we could confirm that the case fit within the parameters of what is globally considered to be a femicide. Learn more about the statistical framework for measuring femicide here and here.

The Canadian Femicide Observatory and all other parties involved do not profit from any stories featured on this podcast.

Yes. We know that every case involving an Indigenous woman is part of the wider crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls who continue to face disproportionate rates of violence in Canada. Every episode for which we knew covered an Indigenous woman’s death is voiced by an Indigenous woman and has a unique outro to the podcast that recognizes the crisis and provides unique resources focused on MMIWG. It was not always possible to determine if a victim was Indigenous from the sources reviewed.