Study, review, repeat: Canada’s response to elder abuse
If further refinement to the proposed coercive control offence in Bill C-16 is required, Parliament can and should make amendments now.
Yesterday in the House of Commons, Justice Minister Sean Fraser was asked whether the government would table a bill on coercive control of older adults by those who are close to them. The question arose during the report stage on Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act, after the Justice Committee declined to extend the proposed offence beyond intimate partners to include family members, such as adult children. The Committee instead endorsed a five-year review of the provision—one that would not begin until at least 2031.
While acknowledging a genuine interest in the issue, the Minister said: “I did not think it appropriate to copy and paste protections that were developed very specifically for the purpose of combatting intimate partner and gender-based violence when it came to coercive control.” That characterization is difficult to accept. If further refinement of the provision is required, Parliament can and should make amendments now.
Canada is not navigating uncharted territory. England and Wales, for example, have had a coercive control offence that applies to both intimate partners and family members since 2015. If drafting is the concern, legislative precedent exists.
The government’s response was familiar: more study, more review, and more consultation. Although the Minister noted that “elder abuse certainly is a problem in this country,” the proposed five-year statutory review, or even a parliamentary committee study that happens sooner, effectively relegates a grave societal problem to a distant procedural consideration rather than present-day legislative action.
Notably, the discussion comes just days before World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD), marked annually on June 15 in communities across Canada and the globe. Indeed, this year is the 20th anniversary of WEAAD, reminding us that elder abuse is hardly an emerging issue. At some point, the question ceases to be whether more study is warranted and becomes whether there is sufficient political will to act on what is already known. There will always be another study that can be undertaken, another consultation that can be held, and another report that can be written. For older adults experiencing coercive control today, promises of future review offer little comfort.
Taken as a whole, the government’s position reads less like a principled objection to extending Bill C-16’s coercive control protections and more like a gradual accumulation of rationales for not doing so. First, the elder abuse context appears to have been an unintentional blind spot in the original framing of the offence. Then it was suggested that it fell outside the scope of the bill. Then the justification shifted to the need for police and the justice system to get ready. Now it is framed as “copy and paste” policymaking. Each explanation carries some logic, but together, they add up to inaction.
Given the impact of coercive control on the lives of older adults, the government’s position is becoming difficult to sustain. While the singular focus on violence against women and children is understandable, it may also reflect an underlying concern that expanding the offence could dilute its original focus. Indeed, this argument has appeared in other jurisdictions, where it has been claimed that broader application could weaken the perceived seriousness of the offence.
While the experiences of older adults tell a different story, the point is not to draw an equivalence among victims. Rather, the issue is whether the criminal law should recognize that coercive and controlling conduct also occurs outside intimate partnerships, including in relationships involving adult children and others where trust, dependency, and power imbalances are often present. That question should not be deferred.