Tracy Porteous’s commitment to helping and supporting victims began when she started volunteering at the Victoria Women’s Sexual Assault Centre at 19 years old. Her experience of supporting survivors was so meaningful that she decided to dedicate herself to the cause for the rest of her life and that has made her a visionary and pioneer in her field.
During her time as project manager with the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre, with the help of two other women, she wrote a booklet aimed at teenage girls called “Let’s Talk About Sexual Assault”. This booklet was the first of its kind in Canada and won the national award for crime prevention. It became a Canadian bestseller and was widely used in schools, doctors’ offices, police departments and sexual assault centres.
When Porteous became the executive director of the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre she realized that the sexual assault and victim service centres in B.C. did not have a coordinated voice at the provincial level. With that knowledge, she worked to create a provincial body that exists today as the Ending Violence Association of British Columbia (EVA BC) which today has over 300 programs and initiatives.
Her determination as executive director led EVA BC through a game-changing initiative that they called “Be More Than a Bystander.” This opened up the conversation to what was historically viewed as only a women’s issue at a time when there was a dramatic increase in domestic violence homicides in B.C. By asking the B.C. Lions football club to become spokesmen, this successful initiative encouraged men to talk to other men about sexual assault and intimate partner violence. For this groundbreaking campaign, Porteous was honoured with a lifetime achievement award from B.C.’s Child and Youth Representative Mary Ellen Turpel-LaFond. Porteous is also the co-chair of the Ending Violence Association of Canada, which helped the Canadian Football League develop its national violence against women policy, which coordinates the training of players, coaches and staff of every CFL team and assists the league on critical incidents that relate to gender-based violence.
In June of 2020 the University of British Columbia bestowed an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree to Tracy as they do each year for “distinguished individuals who are deemed worthy of recognition for their outstanding contributions to society.”
The recognition of her work extends beyond Canada. In 2012 Porteous attended the United Nation’s 57th commission on the status of women in New York as an official delegate from Canada and spoke at a global session about prevention of violence against women. Porteous’ commitment and leadership has brought her many other recognitions such as the Justice Canada Excellence in Victim Services Award (2018) and the Governor General of Canada’s medal, which she won three times. The most recent medal (2014) in recognition of the Persons Case for “exemplary contributions towards the equality of women in Canada.” Porteous was also a member of B.C.’s 2010 and 2016 Domestic Violence Death Review panels and has testified before parliamentary committees related to violence against women, law reform, and judicial training.
The work Porteous has done throughout her life has and will continue to help countless women across the province. There is no one more deserving of this award than her.
