Coercive control is a common tactic of adult children who abuse their aging parents. Yet members of Parliament recently backed away from making such insidious patterns of elder mistreatment a standalone crime. This is unfortunate for seniors who suffer relentless and often subtle abuse by adult children, who are the most common perpetrators of elder abuse.
On June 12, 2024, the House of Commons unanimously passed Bill C-332, which would make coercive control by intimate partners a separate criminal offence. The proposed law has headed to the Senate for consideration.
Bill C-332 is a welcome, non-partisan effort to address domestic violence. However, it does nothing to tackle coercive control by adult children, a pervasive form of elder abuse that violates older victims’ safety, autonomy and dignity.
This legislative inaction sends the distressing message that such behaviour, when committed against an older parent, is not a true crime.
While data on its prevalence is scarce, the federal government’s 2021 national consultation on senior abuse called attention to the problem of coercive control. Many participants across the country said such harmful patterns of conduct should be included in any definition of the term.
Coercive controllers intimidate, exploit and isolate their victims. They might repeatedly threaten violence to get money, block visitors without lawful authority, or withhold food, mobility equipment and incontinence products. Abusive adult children might also overmedicate or physically restrain a parent, especially someone with dementia.
Victims often live in fear, though some may not realize or have the capacity to understand that they are being abused.
When first tabled in 2023 by Victoria NDP MP Laurel Collins, Bill C-332 was broader. Coercive controllers included relatives who live with the victim, which would have at least captured adult children who reside with an aging parent.
But as the bill progressed through the lower chamber, MPs narrowed the law, limiting it to intimate partners. The Criminal Code defines intimate partners as current or former spouses, common-law partners or dating partners.
By restricting the crime’s scope to intimate partners, MPs missed an opportunity to help police stop elder abuse perpetrated by adult children before it descends into severe malnourishment, deplorable sanitary conditions or death.
The omission also leaves unfulfilled the federal government’s commitment to establish new offences and penalties related to elder abuse, as stated in the justice minister’s 2021 mandate letter.
To be sure, not everyone agrees that coercive control should be a standalone crime. Some women’s advocates say the criminal law is the wrong approach, pointing to the justice system’s failure to protect victims of domestic violence. They are also concerned that the offence will be weaponized against mothers trying to protect their young children.
In elder abuse cases, there is also a long-held hesitation to use a carceral response, grounded in worries that putting an abuser in jail can have negative or unwanted outcomes for older victims. “I don’t want my son to get in trouble,” a mother might say. She just wants the abuse to stop.
A coercive control offence might also be manipulated by inheritance-greedy siblings, who falsely accuse their well-meaning brother or sister of elder abuse as they care for an aging parent.
Some lawyers say Bill C-332’s language is vague and unconstitutional, and that much of the behaviour is already captured by offences like intimation, uttering threats, unlawful confinement and theft.
As federal lawmakers wrestle with these concerns, they can take lessons from jurisdictions that have already made coercive control a separate crime.
England and Wales were first to create the offence in 2015. Their legislation covers abuse by family members, and in 2023, legislators removed the cohabitation requirement.
“The criminalisation of coercive control is an important step forward in securing older people’s right to access criminal justice,” said the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, an independent watchdog for older people’s rights.
In contrast, Scotland’s law only covers partners and ex-partners.
Australian states have taken different approaches. For instance, Queensland’s forthcoming law will criminalize coercive control in domestic relationships, defined as intimate personal relationships, family relationships and informal care relationships.
New South Wales, on the other hand, limits its offence to intimate partners. The state’s attorney general defended the narrow scope on the grounds that evidence of coercive control escalating to homicide is strongest in the intimate partner context. This is especially the case where men abuse and then kill their female partners.
The gravity of femicide cannot be overstated, but in extreme elder abuse cases, older victims of coercive control by adult children die too, often by neglect. Others come precariously close. People with dementia can be at particular risk of dying in appalling conditions if they are unable to advocate for themselves or access support.
A crime of coercive control would give law enforcement a new tool for earlier intervention, for example, when concerned neighbours call the police about a senior next door. With training, officers can spot the warning signs of geriatric cruelty and arrest the abuser.
When parliamentarians return to Ottawa in September, they should amend Bill C-332 to criminalize coercive control by adult children. This practical action tells Canadians that elder abuse will not be tolerated in this country and that the justice system will hold criminally manipulative sons and daughters accountable.
