How We Got Started

METRAC’s beginnings date back to the summer of 1982 when there were a number of brutal sexual assaults and murders of women in Toronto. A group of Toronto women organized themselves as "The Toronto Pink Ribbon Committee" to demand that something be done to stop the violence. This Committee approached then-Metro Toronto Chair, Paul Godfrey, who, acting on their suggestions and in collaboration with the Metropolitan Toronto Board of Commissioners of Police, established a task force to examine issues related to public violence against women and children.

The Task Force worked with the cooperation of Metro Toronto staff and council members, more than 80 individual community volunteers, local experts and community and service agencies. The Final Report released in March 1984 listed recommendations including one that the Metropolitan Toronto Council appoint a body to act as an implementation committee for the Task Force to ensure that its recommendations would be acted upon.

Out of this collaborative process with police, government bodies, community agencies, support services and individuals, the "Metro Action Committee on Public Violence Against Women and Children" was established to address violence against women and children in Toronto. A ten-member Board of Directors was appointed, headed by Toronto lawyer and then-Police Commissioner Jane Pepino. More than 20 years later, METRAC has developed and grown, and continues in its work as a catalyst for change.