Essex town council will write a letter to the province asking it to declare intimate partner violence (IPV) an epidemic.
Council passed a motion at Monday's meeting to send a letter to the premier and local MPPs urging them to pass Bill 173. The bill which was introduced by Windsor West MPP Lisa Gretzky, would recognize IPV as an epidemic in Ontario.
The bill passed a second reading in April and has been referred to the justice policy committee.
Councillor Kim Verbeek says more than 100 municipalities have already declared IPV an epidemic.
"By the province declaring that it's an epidemic, it will recognize the pervasiveness and the severity of the problem, it sends a message that the problem and the solutions will be taken seriously and in an effort to stop the violence and the killing."
She says by IPV being declared an epidemic by the province, it would create accountability.
"It gives MPPs and the public the opportunity to hold the government to making the necessary investments and the policy choices to end the violence."
Verbeek says there's potential for the bill to fail with rumblings of an early election.
"So there's a little bit of an urgency to get this and a lot of other important bills passed before an election is called because then they all just fall on the floor."
The council motion comes after police were called to a home in Harrow in June and found 41-year-old Carly Walsh and her two children, 13-year-old Madison and eight-year-old Hunter, dead from gunshot wounds.
Police said Carly's husband and the children's father, 42-year-old Steven Walsh, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
-With files from The Canadian Press