The Standing Committee on the Status of Women recently released a major report on coercive control, an insidious form of violence that remains poorly understood in Canada. The report highlights the profound consequences of this dynamic on women, children, and the functioning of the family justice system. For family law firms, these findings underscore the importance of recognizing coercive control as an essential element when assessing safety, parenting capacity, and the best interests of the child.
Understanding coercive control
Coercive control includes a range of behaviours such as humiliation, intimidation, surveillance, manipulation, social isolation, and financial domination. Individually, these actions may seem minor. Together, they create a climate of fear that deprives the victim of autonomy and the ability to make free decisions.
Witnesses heard by the Committee emphasized that nearly all physical violence cases studied were preceded by a long period of coercive control. This reality shows how crucial it is to recognize this form of violence as a major warning sign.
Impact on victims and children
Coercive control leads to psychological and economic consequences that make leaving an abusive relationship extremely difficult. Many victims must deal with imposed debts, job loss, threats of losing child custody, or fear of being stalked after separation.
Children exposed to coercive control often develop fear, emotional difficulties, and relational challenges. The report stresses the need for courts to consider the context of family violence when evaluating parenting capacity and parenting time orders.
The current legal framework
The Divorce Act recognizes coercive control as a form of family violence, but does not clearly define it. This absence creates uncertainty for family courts, which nonetheless must rule on the safety and well-being of children.
The Committee recommends adding an explicit definition of coercive control to the Divorce Act. This would allow judges and legal professionals to more easily identify these behaviours and assess their concrete impact on safety and family dynamics.
Parental alienation and the risk of misuse
One of the most sensitive points in the report concerns the use of parental alienation. Several witnesses explained how this concept can be misused to discredit a parent who is reporting violence. According to the Committee, the abusive invocation of parental alienation can itself become a form of coercive control exercised by a violent parent.
The report recommends a federal study on the use of this concept in family disputes and legislative amendments to prevent it from being used to distort power dynamics or deprive a child of a protective parent.
Populations particularly affected
The report notes that some victims experience coercive control more intensely, including Indigenous women, women with disabilities, racialized individuals, and newcomers. These groups face additional systemic barriers such as mistrust of police, ableism, racism, or fear of losing their children.
The recommendations therefore underline the need for services adapted to the cultural and social realities of these groups, as well as increased collaboration between community services and family courts.
Key recommendations of the report
The Committee proposes a series of measures to improve the response to and prevention of coercive control. These include:
- Mandatory training for police officers, lawyers, judges, and mental health professionals.
- The development of educational tools tailored to family justice system actors.
- The implementation of national awareness campaigns.
- Increased funding for victim services, including safe housing, legal support, and mental health services.
These recommendations aim to ensure better coordination between the justice system, social services, and community organizations.
An unavoidable issue for family law
This report makes it clear that coercive control is not solely a criminal issue. It is a central concern in family law. Courts must be able to recognize controlling dynamics, understand their effects on children, and adjust their decisions accordingly.
For family law professionals, understanding the nature of coercive control, its manifestations, and its impacts is now essential. It allows for better client guidance, improved safety planning, and proposals to the court that genuinely respect the best interests of the child.
To read the full report: https://www.noscommunes.ca/Content/Committee/451/FEWO/Reports/RP13740927/feworp01/feworp01-e.pdf
