Global News published this video item, entitled “The rise of violence in Canada’s public libraries” – below is their description.
Public libraries in Canada are dealing with an increase in violence from harassment to verbal and even physical assaults.
The spike started about five years, and it has grown worse because of the pandemic. Experts blame deep cuts to social services, leaving many vulnerable people with nowhere to turn for support.
While only a fraction of the visits ever turn violent, libraries are grappling with how to provide services and support for its visitors with complex needs.
As Melissa Ridgen reports for The New Reality, libraries across Canada are responding to the ever-evolving needs of their clients and keeping branches a safe space.
Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. It extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world’s second-largest country by total area.
Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world’s longest bi-national land border. Canada’s capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Various Indigenous peoples inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. The Canada Act 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British Parliament. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with a monarch and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the Cabinet and head of government.
As a highly developed country, Canada has the seventeenth-highest nominal per-capita income globally as well as the thirteenth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index. Its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks.
