As Canada marks the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, a national advocacy group is taking to the airwaves with a powerful new project aimed at raising awareness about violence against women.
The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability (CFOJA) is launching Too True Crime, a podcast series that shares the real stories of every woman and girl killed by femicide in Canada since 2020.
With 580 episodes, the series is a blunt reminder of the scale of the crisis, says Myrna Dawson, Founder and Director of the CFOJA and a Professor of Sociology at the University of Guelph.
“The Too True Crime podcast directly confronts the normalization of this violence, moving the conversation from entertainment to education and activism,” she said. “Femicide is an escalating crisis. To make real change, Canadians must unite in demanding that the federal government recognize femicide.”
In Canada, a woman or girl is killed every two days – most often by a man – because of her sex or gender. And the numbers aren’t slowing down: there have already been 130 cases of femicide in 2025 alone.
Meanwhile, true crime podcasts have exploded in popularity, often zooming in on sensational cases or dramatic plot twists. Too True Crime takes a different approach. It lays bare the everyday reality of violence against women, showing how widespread and persistent it is across the country, highlighting cases in major cities to small towns. Volunteers helped record the episodes, and many are voiced by family members or people connected to the victims.
“To literally be the voice and keep the memory of these women alive is so important in this ongoing battle for justice,” says Denise Halfyard, a voice actor who recorded an episode about her cousin, Tamara Chipman, who has been missing from the Highway of Tears since 2005. “These women are not just victims. They are mothers, daughters and friends. She matters. She is somebody.”
The episodes run just two to three minutes each, drawing from publicly available information. And, every one ends with the same reminder: “This story isn’t entertainment. It’s the reality of women and girls whose lives have been taken by femicide.”
The CFOJA is also urging Canadians to sign its petition calling on the federal government to officially recognize femicide and work toward adding the term to the Criminal Code.
For more information on the podcast, or to learn more about the petition, you can visit www.tootruecrime.com.
