Overview:
This is the fifth article in a series examining recent government bills or laws that experts say deserved more scrutiny.
For years, survivors of intimate partner violence and advocates have argued that abuse often begins long before a partner becomes physically violent.
Now, for the first time, Canada has criminalized this pattern of behaviour.
Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act, became law on June 18. It creates a new criminal offence for coercive control and expands protections against intimate partner violence, online sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse.
Many say the legislation addresses gaps in the law that had allowed patterns of abuse to escalate into serious injury or even death.
“Bill C-16 validates many victims’ realities and definitely increases accountability,” a spokesperson for the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime said in an email.
But sources also worry about the legislation being implemented effectively.
“Legislation alone cannot keep victims safe,” the centre’s spokesperson added. “Police, prosecutors, and judges need training to recognize coercive control and respond in a trauma-informed way.”
Protecting Victims Act
The Protecting Victims Act was among 18 bills passed into law before Parliament adjourned for the summer.
Among its most significant changes, Bill C-16 creates a new criminal offence for exerting coercive control in intimate relationships.
It targets controlling behaviour such as isolation, monitoring, threats and financial control. The maximum penalty is 10 years’ imprisonment.
“Many people endure years of intimidation, manipulation, isolation, financial control, and ongoing fear before anyone recognizes what is happening,” the spokesperson for the victim support centre said.
The legislation also expands the circumstances in which an intimate partner killing can be classified as first-degree murder. First-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence with no eligibility for parole for 25 years.
First-degree murder is normally defined as killings that are planned and deliberate. But under Bill C-16, some intimate partner killings can now be treated as first degree even without proof of these elements.
Police and prosecutors will be able to rely on evidence such as texts or emails, social media, financial records and witness testimony to prove a pattern of coercive conduct.
Karine Barrette, a socio-legal expert on domestic violence with Montreal’s Regroupement des maisons pour femmes victimes de violence conjugale, says the legislation is a positive first step.
“It was very important to us that coercive control get criminalized, because there are some gaps in the Criminal Code,” Barrette said.
Barrette, who testified before the House committee studying the bill, says some victims are killed the first time an abusive partner becomes physically violent.
“People will think that necessarily there will be escalation through physical violence before femicide … whereas the studies show that in a third of cases the first act of physical violence will be femicide,” she said.
In 2025, 147 women and girls were violently killed in Canada. Over one-third were killed by a current or former intimate partner.
“What many Canadians have lived through made it painfully clear the law needed to change,” Jeanne Joannie Fogue Mgamgne, press secretary for the federal justice minister, said in a statement to Canadian Affairs.
Implementation
Some sources worry, however, about the new law being implemented effectively.
“Police, prosecutors, and judges need training to recognize coercive control and respond in a trauma-informed way,” the spokesperson for the victim support centre said.
Barrette previously authored reports on coercive control laws in the U.K. and Australia. She found that “the whole chain … police officers … investigators, Crown prosecutors, judges … needs to be trained” before the offence comes into force. Otherwise, cases may never make it to court.
In Canada, Department of Justice officials have said the offence will not come into force until June 2028, to provide governments time to train police, prosecutors and judges.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police also said the law’s success will depend on implementation. This must include “victim-centred and trauma-informed training, consistent investigative practices, and evidence-based risk assessment tools,” the association said in a statement published after the bill became law.
Barrette says a key implementation challenge will be recognizing coercive control in practice and translating those behaviours into evidence of a broader pattern.
She also emphasized the need for law enforcement to distinguish between defensive violence by survivors and ongoing abuse by perpetrators, who may attempt to “reverse victim and offender” by portraying themselves as the victim.
During a June 15 Senate debate on the bill, Senator Kim Pate raised similar concerns. She noted the bill risked drawing some survivors into the criminal justice system as accused individuals. It “will risk more women … being induced to plead guilty and result in them being sentenced more harshly,” she said.
“Nine in ten women in federal prisons experienced physical or sexual abuse before they were criminalized,” she said.
The Department of Justice says the offence was deliberately designed to reduce this risk.
The department spokesperson said prosecutors will need to prove a pattern of conduct, and courts will need to consider the nature of the relationship.
But Barrette worries there is nothing in the Protecting Victims Act that would force the government to properly implement the law.
In her prior report, Barrette recommended federal and provincial task forces oversee the rollout, training and evaluation of the new law.
Trapped
Barrette also noted that law does not address the barriers that prevent victims from leaving abusive relationships in the first place — such as financial dependence, housing insecurity or immigration concerns.
“If there is no affordable housing, for example, well, [criminal] legislation [won’t] help with that kind of obstacle,” said Barrette.
Barrette’s report recommends Canada fund specialized domestic violence services, police units and prosecutorial teams to meet the increased demands created by the new offence.
“We fear that the government will say, ‘Well, we addressed the issue — we created this offence.’ However, without proper implementation measures … it could be even worse for victims.”
