Tuesday's federal budget has a focus on closing the wage gap between men and women, and that's something that could have an effect on intimate-partner violence.

Saskatchewan had the highest rate of all provinces in 2015 of intimate-partner violence that was reported to police, at 666 per 100,000 according to Statistics Canada. Prince Edward Island and Ontario were the lowest of provinces, as 197 and 226 respectively.

Jo-Anne Dusel is the executive director of the Provincial Assocation of Transition Houses and Services (PATHS) - a member association that represents Southwest Crisis Services - and believes that Tuesday's budget is something that could reduce rates of violence against women across the country.

"When it comes to connecting finances with violence against women, the linkages might not always be clear," she said. "But in fact, intimate-partner violence or domestic violence is very much about power and control. When you think that, in a couple, if one person is earning all of the money, or most of the money, that gives them a certain amount of power over the other person. And individual who doesn't have adequate funds of their own may not be able to leave a violent situation, as an example. So we know that having less access to financial independence makes people more vulnerable to abuse."

Coming from the budget is pay equity in the public sector as well as for some federal contract workers.

Dusel hopes that trend carries over into the private sector.

"Seeing the government take a leadership role by actually modelling this sort of pay equity for their employees and the businesses that do work with the federal government is a really good way of modelling the behaviour we would like to see all employers implement in their workplaces."

And while Dusel credits the Trudeau government for "taking a leadership role and actually putting some concrete measures in place," she finds there's room for more to be done so Saskatchewan's rate of intimate-partner violence can fall.

"There's a few things that women's organizations have been asking for, including a national action plan on violence against women. That's not currently something that this government is talking about - they have a strategy, which is a good thing - but what we would really like to see is the federal government taking a bit of a stand in terms of minimum standards across the country so that the standards for supports for victims of violence can't be so different across the country."

That would be things like minimum standards of service, education, and awareness preventative services, Dusel said. It would cost money at first, but could have a long-term benefit.

"I think everything does come down to finances in the end, and there's no question that any sort of initiative will have an up-front cost," Dusel said. "But like so many other things around the social determinants of health, one of the impacts that happens when you address social determinates of health including things like poverty, levels of education, access to education, access to affordable housing, is rates of illness go down, rates of violence go down, and you start saving in other sectors like the justice system, the healthcare system."

On top of the influence a shrinking wage gap can have on reducing intimate-partner violence, Dusel said social media has helped things trend in the right direction.

"When you look at what has changed in terms of violence against women over the last number of years, is probably the fact that we as a society are more willing to talk about it openly."

Dusel also said that social media has played a helpful role, especially with the #MeToo movement.

"We certainly see that attitudes are shifting," she said. "Unfortunately what we don't see at the moment is numbers of police-reported incidents of violence actually decreasing."

It's important to bear in mind the 'police-reported' aspect of the violence rates. The rate of police-reported intimate-partner violence could stay static, with incidents on the decline, as long as the a higher percentage of cases are reported.