In October 1990, we held a Thanksgiving tea for special donors and friends to show them recent renovations at the house, fire safety improvements and the childrens playroom. It was the first visit to Interval House for many of our donors, but certainly not the last. Read about our Thanksgiving tea in our 1990 Winter newsletter.
In February 1990, the federal budget makes deep cuts to the Secretary of State women’s programs, the federal department that finances centres providing esssential services to women such as rape crisis centres and battered women shelters. The cuts result in 80 women’s centres across Canada losing their core funding and becoming at risk of shutting down. Protests against the cuts emerge across Canada. In Toronto, about 70 women stage a sit-in outside the Secretary of State’s office on Spadina Ave.
Cameron, Stevie. Women’s centres across Canada begin to close as funding dries up. The Globe and Mail, pg A9. Apr. 7, 1990.
Interval House is grateful for the Toronto Star’s licensing support for the imagery and articles in this timeline. Further reproduction is prohibited without the Toronto Star’s permission.
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Photograph: Bock, Tony. About 70 women stage a sit-in outside the Secretary of State’s office on Spadina Ave. yesterday as part of a Canada-wide protest. The groups are angered by federal funding cuts to women’s organizations. Police in Metro made no arrests but had to force the doors shut so the office could be closed. Toronto Star, pg A1. April 2, 1990.
On December 6, 1989, 14 women die at the hands of anti-feminist gunman Marc Lepine at École Polytechnique de Montréal in Montreal, Quebec and another ten women and four men were injured. The massacre remained the deadliest mass shooting in Canada until the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks.
Photo: In Memory of The Victims of the Montreal Polytechnique Massacre by Sergey Mkrtchyan, 6 December 2014
Sergey Mkrtchyan, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Witnessing abuse can lead a child to develop dangerous ideas about violence, including the belief that violence is an acceptable response and that there must be an aggressor and a victim in every relationship. To help model positive and respectful interactions, Interval House adds its first male counsellor to the Children’s Program in 1987.