Coercive Control: What’s Next?
It is regrettable that time ran out on Bill C-332. But the silver lining is that elder justice advocates may have another opportunity to convince lawmakers to expand the proposed crime’s scope.
When the Governor General dissolved Parliament in March 2025, this put an end to all government business, including private members’ bills like Bill C-332, which proposed to make coercive control by intimate partners a standalone offence in the Criminal Code.
At the time of dissolution, Bill C-332 had passed second reading in the Senate and had been referred to the legal and constitutional affairs committee. If federal lawmakers want to try again, a new coercive control bill will have to start from scratch.
This is disappointing, even if the bill was imperfectly drafted. While not everyone agreed, champions of the bill praised its potential to prevent the escalation of domestic violence and save the lives of women and children, since coercive control is a predictor of homicide.
Today the future of criminalizing coercive control remains uncertain. Bill C-332’s sponsor, former NDP MP Laurel Collins, is no longer in Parliament, and former NDP MP Randall Garrison, who introduced two similar bills in 2020 and 2021, retired from politics in January 2025. I have very recently reached out to the NDP to see if someone will be picking up the torch so passionately carried by their two former colleagues.
Since Bill C-332 enjoyed unanimous, all-party support in the House of Commons, it is also quite possible that another party may take a leadership role on drafting a new bill.
Given the implications of coercive control on older adults, and how some victims were left out of Bill C-332, I hope to create an ad hoc coalition of organizations over the next several months to build a stronger, collective voice about the drafting of a proposed offence.
If Parliamentarians reconsider criminalizing coercive control, they will face a choice: whether to limit the offence’s application to intimate partners, as they did in Bill C-332, or expand its scope to other relationships.
For those who follow my advocacy, you may recall that Dementia Justice prepared a Senate submission in early January that asked, “Should a proposed coercive control offence also protect elder abuse victims?” I answered “yes,” although that document was never considered by the legal and constitutional affairs committee because Parliament was prorogued a few days after I sent it in. Like some other advocates, I have argued for extending the offence to include abusive adult children and others in relationships of trust and dependency with older victims.
Throughout this process, I have tried to take care in recognizing that there are compelling arguments against using a new criminal offence to deal with elder abuse. I canvassed some of these concerns in an essay, “The political inconvenience of elder abuse victims, and also in one called “Coercive control bill should tackle familial elder abuse.” Increased awareness and police training will be crucial, among other things.
On the construction of a coercive control offence, some criminal law practitioners expressed concern about the mental element or mens rea of Bill C-332’s proposal, which would have incorporated a lower threshold of recklessness as sufficient for the offence.
This is a legitimate worry too.
It is regrettable that time ran out on Bill C-332. But the silver lining is that elder justice advocates may have another opportunity to convince lawmakers to expand the proposed crime’s scope to include relationships beyond intimate partners. Watch this space for an announcement about the coalition and its activities, including a Legislative Action Day on Parliament Hill where we can press the need for action on elder abuse in meetings with politicians and their staff. Please reach out to me if you or your organization would like to be involved in this initiative.
Together, we can be a strong voice for older coercive control victims.