Canadian law inspires hope on the elimination of intimate partner violence

(25 minutes read time; post-graduate level)

Eliminating intimate partner violence globally may be almost intangible goal, but within Canada there is continued hope and effort for advancement. In the face of a global backlash against women’s human rights and following a rough beginning under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new leadership in 2025, Canada has seemingly recommitted itself to the progression of gender equality. Even so, as Canadian Parliamentarians return to their seats this fall, they have unfinished business to resume from the 45^th Parliament, 1^st Session. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is just one of many interrelated forms of gender-based violence and remains a persistent issue within Canada, contributing to substantive gender inequality. After several years of declining rates, IPV began increasing in 2015,[ia] as reported by Statistics Canada in 2025, coinciding with the beginning of the global backlash. And, while IPV is not confined to a particular sex, gender, class, age, ability nor ethnicity, women and girls are the primary victims; those with intersectional marginalized identities face increased risk. This article provides an overview of recent federal commitments taken to mitigate intimate partner violence by using the international framework of human rights indicators.

Human rights indicators

States have a legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfill human rights. Compliance and progress with these obligations are measured through human rights indicators (HRIs). The assessment framework, as endorsed by the United Nations in 2012, measures three types of human rights indicators – structural, which are the voluntary commitments that a State has made, process, which consider the efforts that each State has made, and outcome indicators, which measure the results. The infographic below illustrates examples.

Ratification of international human rights treaties (structural indicators)

An assessment of a State’s compliance with international human rights law begins with a determination of its legal commitments – the structural indicators. The ratification[ii] of international human rights instruments, also known as treaties or conventions, in turn create legal obligations for the implementation of human rights standards into domestic law and policies.

The ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which is globally recognized as a core human rights treaty, has become the minimum commitment towards gender equality that is expected of all United Nations Member States. To date the CEDAW has been ratified by 189 UN Member States, including Canada in 1981, but notably not by the United States. And while the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has become a legal source for women’s human rights, it does not explicitly address violence or abuse. But now, that massive gap is being filled through regional conventions.

The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence[iii], also known as the Istanbul Convention, according to the city where it was adopted, requires member parties to create laws, policies and related support services to end violence against women. This Convention functions as complementary to the CEDAW. Unfortunately, the Convention is only open to Council of Europe member States, as it is a regional organization. However, the Council has a similar counterpart in the Americas – the Organization of American States (OAS).

While many Canadians are aware that Canada is a member party of the United Nations, a global organization, they are mostly unaware of Canada’s membership, or even the existence of the Organization of American States (OAS). Membership in this regional organization carries with it human rights obligations, which extend legal rights to all individuals within the jurisdiction of those States. Like the United Nations, the Organization of American States has a commission to oversee gender equality. “Established in 1928, the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) was the first inter-governmental agency established to ensure recognition of women’s human rights.”[iv]

On June 23, 2026, Canada ratified the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women.[v] This human rights instrument is essential because the CEDAW does not contain a stand-alone provision prohibiting violence or abuse. Global Affairs Canada, in their press release, referred to violence against women as “one of the most pervasive and deeply rooted human rights violations and abuses of our time”.[vi]

Also known as the Belém do Pará Convention, after the Brazilian city where it was adopted, the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women recognizes “that violence against women is an offense against human dignity and a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between women and men”[vii]. In doing so, the treaty takes aim at substantive inequality. Whereas in 2026 women may be equal to men according to the law in most democratic nation States, they are not substantively equal, even in Canada. Violence against women continues to infringe upon the enjoyment of many other human rights, including the right to education, the right to work, the right to political participation, the right to health and the right to life; therefore, ratification is an essential step towards women achieving substantive gender equality. For Canada, on July 23, 2026, the Belém do Pará Convention entered into force, as per Article 21.

Domestic legislation and rulings addressing gender-based violence

Structural indicators are used to measure human rights commitments internationally, regionally and domestically. The enactment of domestic legislation is necessary to give legal effect to international and regional commitments. Human rights must exist in law. The following legislative acts have been adopted according to the implementation of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women. Although the Convention does not name ‘coercive control’ or ‘femicide’ explicitly, the concepts of both are implied in Article 1 and other provisions.

Article 1

For the purposes of this Convention, violence against women shall be understood as any act or conduct, based on gender, which causes death or physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, whether in the public or the private sphere.[viii]

Once the legislative act is passed or reaches ‘royal assent’, as is the formal term in the Canadian Parliament, and has entered into force, it can then be upheld as law in Court.

Bill C-16: Protecting Victims Act

An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters (child protection, gender-based violence, delays and other measures);

Introduced in the House of Commons and sponsored by the Minister of Justice,
the Honourable Sean Fraser
First reading: December 9, 2025
Assented to: June 18, 2026

On June 18^th of 2026 all sides of the House of Commons came together and passed Bill C-16 (2025), the Protecting Victims Act. The Act amended the Criminal Code of Canada to address child protection, gender-based violence, delays in the court system and other important measures. The Act recognizes the complexity of gender-based violence by adding two crucial crimes that fill in the shadows. Bill C-16 defined and added coercive control as an autonomous criminal offence to the Criminal Code thereby acknowledging that gender-based violence is more than incident-based; it is an abuse and a form of psychological violence that occurs over an extended period of time, often using threats and intimidation, exhibiting a pattern of conduct meant to entrap and control a partner, spouse or vulnerable person.

While most amendments of Bill C-16 came into force on July 18^th, 2026, those on coercive control will take up to two years to implement, allowing time to train peace officers, judges and others. In the meantime, countless women continue to survive without liberty or safety. Some won’t make it to the two-year mark, as coercive control is a strong predictor of femicide and suicide.

Canada also conceptualized femicide in the Canadian Criminal Code. This addition classifies the murder of a woman as first-degree murder, under certain circumstances, including following a pattern of coercive control. Canada, however, does not join the almost 30 other nation States, mostly from Latin America and the European Union, that recognize femicide as a stand-alone crime.[ix] [x] [xi]

This question remains – how will the delay in the implementation of recognizing coercive control as a crime in and of itself, affect the determination of femicide?

Bill C-225: Bailey’s Law

An Act to amend the criminal code

Introduced in the House of Commons by the Honourable Frank Caputo
First reading: April 28, 2026
Royal Assent: June 17, 2026

Bailey’s Law amends the Criminal Code of Canada to strengthen protections against intimate partner violence. First, it creates “a new specific offence of murder in the first degree if the murder is committed against an intimate partner in the context of a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct”[xii]. If manslaughter is committed under that same context, “the court must consider whether to impose a sentence of imprisonment for life on the offender and, if that sentence is imposed, an adult offender is ineligible for parole for 10 to 25 years”[xiii]. It also creates “new offences in respect of included offences in which violence is used, threatened or attempted against an intimate partner”[xiv]. Additionally, Bill C-225 will “increase the detention period of things seized under section 490 of the Act from three months to 180 days”[xv], which could keep lethal weapons away from offenders.

Bill C-225 may appear at first glance to be redundant to Bill C-16, however, it has an important distinction that lies in its raison d’être. The justice system failed Bailey McCourt, a 32-year-old mother of two, who was killed by her abusive, estranged ex-husband shortly after he was released on bail.[xvi] Earlier on the day that James Plover blugeoned Bailey McCourt to death with a hammer in a Kamloops, BC parking lot, he had been sentenced to three counts of uttering threats and one count of assault by strangling.[xvii] Plover never should have been released from police custody! But now, Bailey’s Law will reform bail policy for high-risk offenders and require recognition of lethality risk indicators during bail hearings.

Common law and judicial rulings (process indicators)

Process indicators are a subset of human rights indicators that measure the scope of the State’s effort to make women’s human rights effective. These are both quantitative, such as budgetary commitments, and qualitative, including judgments and rulings. The judicial finding would fall under process indicators in the framework of human rights indicators (HRIs).

A landmark judgment by the Supreme Court of Canada recognized coercive control as a new tort (unfair harm) in the case of Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia on May 15, 2026. “Best understood, it is not confined to conduct that inflicts physical or psychological injury but includes all abusive conduct by which one intimate partner coerces and controls the other, thus depriving them of their autonomy. This includes egregious acts of physical and psychological violence, as well as tactics of isolation, manipulation, humiliation, surveillance, economic abuse, sexual coercion, and intimidation that can control and entrap intimate partners.”[xviii]

One may wonder how a court can make this ruling before the new legislation of Bill C-16 had taken effect. The answer is ‘common law’, which in this context refers to the legal findings of other nations, and it is widely used in human rights law. According to the Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Wagner and Justices Kasirer, Martin, O’Bonsawin and Moreau “Common law jurisprudence in Canada reveals a largely settled method for how and when novel causes of action in tort should be recognized. Incremental change in the common law is warranted where necessary to clarify a legal principle, resolve an inconsistency, or ensure the law remains in step with the evolution of society.”[xix] Legal precedents are often used where there is no appropriate written legal code, in the applicable Constitution, for the case at hand.

Canada’s new tort of coercive control represents crucial progress in the advancement towards substantive gender equality domestically, while setting legal precedent for foreign nations to follow.

Canada’s work ahead in legislation

There are several legislative acts that were introduced in 2025 and 2026, before Parliament passed for the summer break, that remain to be passed. These acts would complement existing ones to advance women’s human rights in Canada by mitigating gender-based and intimate partner violence.

In March of 2026 the United Nations Human Rights Committee published its seventh periodic report on Canada. The Committee’s Concluding Observations included principal matters of concern and recommendations on human rights; they addressed gender equality, violence against women and domestic violence. The Committee noted that these issues are particularly prevalent in remote areas and disproportionately affect

“women and girls from Indigenous Peoples or from racial or ethnic minorities and 2SLGBTQI+ persons”[xx]. The Committee specified that it is concerned by “limited availability of shelters and legal aid services, as well as by the obstacles victims face in reporting violence and accessing justice, such as the lack of trauma-informed policing practices, lengthy and adversarial legal processes and inadequate coordination among police, courts and social services. The Committee received reports raising concerns about the lack of transparency, oversight and clarity of implementation processes related to the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence (arts. 2, 3, 6, 7 and 26).”[xxi]

Bills S-236 and S-242 would give legal effect, in part, to the Committee’s recommendations.

Bill S-236: Canadian Victims Bill of Rights

An Act to amend the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights and to establish a framework for implementing the rights of victims of crime

Sponsored by the Honourable Senator Leo Housakos
First reading: October 1, 2025

Amendments to the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights will provide greater transparency to victims of crime about the investigation and proceedings of their cases, and information about the accused or offenders. This bill may have saved Bailey McCourts life, had she been informed that her abusive ex-husband had been released from police custody earlier that day. While it maybe too late for her, it may save the lives of other victims of intimate partner violence.

The Act also adds important support to the victims of crime by adding “13.1 Every victim has the right to have access to legal, social, medical and psychological services that are suited to their needs and circumstances”. This would aid in addressing the many human rights violations that are consequences of intimate partner violence.

Article 7 of the Belém do Pará Convention requires States Parties to (g.) “establish the necessary legal and administrative mechanisms to ensure that women subjected to violence have effective access to restitution, reparations or other just and effective remedies”.[xxii] Section 16 of the Victims Bill of Rights would be amended with:

The right to an effective remedy is a core component of international human rights law. This follows from the duty that States have to give legal effect in the domestic legal order to the rights of certain conventions, such as the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. (See General Comment No. 9; CESR Committee) Ensuring the right to an effective remedy is in the best interest of the State and of the individual. Before an individual or group of individuals may submit a formal complaint to a human rights body at the international level, they must first exhaust all remedies at the domestic level. This provides the State with the opportunity to rectify a situation and avoid accusations or findings of human rights violations at the international level.

It is not imperative, however, that the domestic remedies be judicial; the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights provides for a non-judicial mechanism in Section 25 of the Act.

Complaint to authority

(2) Every victim who has exhausted their recourse under the complaints mechanism and who is not satisfied with the response of the federal department, agency or body may file a complaint with the authority designated by the Governor in Council to review complaints in relation to that department, agency or body.[xxiii]

Non-judicial mechansims aid in reducing court backlogs and in administering justice more efficiently to victims.

Having access to an effective remedy unfortunately does not prevent nor protect from human rights violations. Protections must be found in the law itself through the adoption of legislative measures and their effective implementation, adherence and policy evaluations. These measures often rely on budgetary commitments and other limited State resources, which are measurements of process indicators. And while State resources may be limited, a recent report by YWCA BC – The Cost of Inaction: Measuring the Economic Impact of Gender-Based Violence in BC – estimates that gender-based violence costs BC $1.12 billion annually. [xxiv] Alternatively, prevention is much less costly.

YWCA BC – The Cost of Inaction: Measuring the Economic Impact of Gender-Based Violence in BC
(click arrow to drop Figure 1: infographic of annual costs)

Unfortunately, Bill S-246 has not proceeded since its first reading in the Senate on October 1^st, 2025. It must proceed to bring legal effect to Canada’s international legal obligations.

Bill S-242: Georgina’s Law

An act respecting national action for the prevention of intimate partner violence

Sponsored by the Honourable Senator Fabian Manning
Third reading in the Senate: February 24, 2026
First reading in the House of Commons: May 27, 2026

As per Article 3 of the Belém do Pará Convention “Every woman has the right to be free from violence in both the public and private spheres.”[xxv] Furthermore, under Article 8 (h.) the Convention requires States “to ensure research and the gathering of statistics and other relevant information relating to the causes, consequences and frequency of violence against women, in order to assess the effectiveness of measures to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women and to formulate and implement the necessary changes”.[xxvi] Bill S-242 would implement those obligations into the domestic legal order.

Bill S-242 recognizes that the efforts in protection from intimate partner violence must be continued. In 2014 Georgina McGrath nearly lost her life to intimate partner violence due to the severity of her injuries. To protect others from such violence she has been fighting to change the laws since 2017, along with Senator Fabian Manning. Bill S-242 provides for the continuation of national action for the prevention of intimate partner violence and femicide, led by the Minister for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE). The Act, known as Georgina’s Law, is centered on annual engagement between the WAGE Minister and federal and provincial ministers responsible for the status of women, as well as regular engagement with Indigenous partners, victims, survivors, and stakeholders with respect to “the adequacy of current programs and strategies aimed at preventing intimate partner violence and at protecting and assisting victims of intimate partner violence”[xxvii], as well as other considerations.

This Act would require that the WAGE Minister publish a report every two years on the progress and action taken to prevent and address IPV. This report would provide a necessary assessment of the collective efforts to eliminate IPV and in turn create accountability.

In the Senate debate on December 11, 2025, Senator Manning noted that since he introduced the first inception of this bill in 2018, “close to 1,500 victims, almost all of them women, have died by the hands of their intimate partner.”[xxviii] Bill S-242 passed in the Senate where it was introduced, on February 24, 2026; it is now under consideration in the House of Commons with the hope that it will soon reach Royal Assent.

“Close to 1,500 victims, almost all of them women, have died by the hands of their intimate partner.”

Senator Fabian Manning; February 24, 2025

Conclusion

Ultimately, the true measure of a State’s progress with respect to human rights is not revealed by its intent on paper (structural indicators), nor of its efforts, such as the creation of programs, initiatives or the allocation of funds (process indicators), but rather in the results (outcome indicators). These can be qualitative or quantitative, as in the example of statistics. They should measure the real-life impacts on citizens.

It is a tragic reality that despite the progress that nation States like Canada are making in combating intimate partner violence, there is still much work to be done. The legislative acts mentioned here are not exhaustive; there are other forms of discrimination, exploitation, and violence against women by intimate partners that overlap with other human rights abuses. They include sexual exploitation, trafficking and technology-facilitated violence, which can merge together, or with other forms of abuse. To that effect, the CEDAW Committee acknowledged the prevalence of “new and emerging forms” of gender-based violence, which require constant vigilance in all areas – public, private and online. Addressing gaps in our laws that allow intimate partner violence to continue requires the adoption of new laws to create criminal offences and legal consequences that will serve as deterrents for would-be offenders, thereby potentially saving lives.

Advancing women’s rights is not the sole task of one entity – it requires coordination and commitment from international human rights organizations and domestically, by the executive, legislative, judiciary and of course, the hundreds of non-profit women’s advocacy groups and the determined individuals who fight for progress and provide support services on the front lines of violence against women.

Sadly, backlash has been escalating for the past decade and more political will is required to protect against gender-based violence, particularly as technology facilitates the perpetuation of regressive attitudes and new forms of harm. But progress in one nation State can inspire hope and inform progress in other States.

(September, 2026)

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Call to Action

After reviewing the text of a bill, there are two options to participate in the process of supporting it.

Bill S-236: Canadian Victims Bill of Rights
Bill S-242: Georgina’s Law

Write a letter to your Member of Parliament (recommended for everyone):

• Expressing your opinions, personal experiences, recommendations, or legal arguments for or against a bill
• Find your MP here: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/search
• Your contact information must be included, as this determines your riding and legitimizes your communication
  

Write a letter to a Senator that represents your province:

• Expressing your opinions, personal experiences, recommendations, or legal arguments for or against a bill
• Find your provincial Senators here: https://sencanada.ca/en/senators/  
• Your contact information must be included, as this determines your riding and legitimizes your communication

Submit a brief to a Senate Committee

(recommended for organizations and knowledgeable individuals):

“Senate committees regularly invite individuals, experts, groups and organizations, lobbyists, public servants and ministers of the Crown to appear before them as witnesses to receive information relevant to a bill they are considering or a special study they are undertaking. There are two ways to participate in a committee’s study: by giving oral evidence (testimony) or by submitting a brief (written evidence).”

Click to access cmtes_how-to-participate-in-a-senate-study_final_2021oct_en.pdf

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