Pembina Valley Online: When home feels like a hostage situation: New law targets coercive control
(right to left) Jamie Small, domestic violence response coordinator with Child & Family Services of Central Manitoba, and Sally Marsolais, supervisor of CFS programming.
By Kylee Bailey, PembinaValleyOnline.com
Content warning: This story contains discussion of domestic violence, coercive control, and gender-based violence.
It may start with tracking one’s phone, limiting grocery spending, or asking a partner not to hang out with a certain group of friends, but over time, it can compound into a pattern of behaviour that leaves its survivors feeling powerless, unsure, and even trapped.
This is coercive control, and recently, reforms to Canada’s Criminal Code designed to combat intimate-partner violence and femicide have criminalized the pattern in intimate relationships.
The changes have also made it illegal to share sexual deepfakes and have categorized femicide and murder as the result of coercive control as first-degree murder.
According to Jamie Small, the domestic violence response coordinator with Child & Family Services (CFS) Central, the reforms, which address an abuse pattern that has not previously been reflected in legislation, have been “a long time coming” in some ways.
A gradual type of abuse
Small’s role with CFS, which was established a year ago, places him on the frontlines of domestic abuse in the community.
His responsibilities include working directly with families, coaching staff, facilitating the Caring Dads program, and providing training in the Safe & Together Model, a domestic abuse–informed approach to helping families.
Based on that experience, he defines coercive control as “a pattern of behaviour, especially in the context of an intimate partner relationship, where one person is exerting or coercing control over another.”
He said coercive control can take many forms and often centres on manipulation. Over time, seemingly isolated behaviours combine into a broader pattern of abuse.
Under Canada’s new legislation, the following behaviours can form part of that pattern and are included in the legal definition of coercive control:
Violence or threats of violence against an intimate partner, their children, other people close to them, or animals in their care
Coercing or manipulating an intimate partner into sexual activity
Monitoring an intimate partner’s location, actions or social interactions, including through a cell phone
Controlling parenting decisions
Controlling education or employment
Controlling finances or property
Controlling spiritual, cultural beliefs, or language
Controlling gender expression
Controlling diet, access to medication, or health services
Threatening suicide or self-harm to control an intimate partner
Being held hostage in one’s own home
An important aspect of coercive control, according to Small, is that it does not always include physical violence or threats of physical violence, which can be the first behaviour that comes to mind when one imagines domestic abuse.
“Coercive control or coercive and controlling behaviour is kind of a broader term,” he explained. “People who have written about it [say it’s] kind of akin to being taken hostage in their own home—this idea of having their own autonomy and their ability to make choices about their own life taken away from them. A lot of survivors express that it was so much more than just the physical abuse, and there’s lots of situations where there isn’t physical abuse.”
Isolation is also a hallmark of coercive control, which Small said can “look like a handful of different practical things.”
“It could [be] a person not having a cell phone anymore and they say, ‘Oh, you know, just call [my partner] instead,’ or it could be the partner interfering with who they're talking to, constantly questioning them about who they're talking to, or a constant sense of jealousy,” he said.
Legislating a pattern
The changes, which are a part of the Protecting Victims Act, Bill C-16, received Royal Assent and became law on June 18, 2026.
In Small’s view, they officially recognize a pattern of abuse that has long existed in intimate-partner violence but has not previously been addressed as a distinct offence under the Criminal Code.
“In the past, if somebody was abusive, there were only so many categories. There was no domestic abuse or coercive control or intimate partner crime—it was just assault or stalking or threats,” he explained. “While those things may be present, it doesn’t really capture the whole picture of the wrong that’s being done. Somebody can assault somebody or threaten somebody or stalk somebody without being someone who's abusing their partner.”
A sometimes-hidden reality
The domestic violence response coordinator also noted that in the new legislation, the court will look at whether the victim was in a position of vulnerability and if the perpetrator manipulated the intimate partner by targeting their vulnerabilities.
“[This] really recognizes that dynamic of control and manipulation, this power imbalance, that happens in these situations,” he said. “[This] is something that we see all the time, and I’m glad it’s being recognized as criminal.”
He continued that the reforms now reflect the reality that some people (most often women) experience: an entrenched pattern of violence that goes beyond individual instances.
Small said the legislation also takes into account the survivor’s psychological safety.
“It’s recognizing that the impact isn’t just about cuts and bruises, but that all this type of controlling—this being taken hostage at home behaviour—has significant psychological [and emotional] impacts,” he said. “It’s about the bigger picture. It’s not just about the threat, it’s about the control.”
‘I think, in some ways, it’s a long time coming’
Canada’s coercive control legislation follows similar laws in the UK and Australia, which have also criminalized the pattern of abuse.
Small said he’s curious to see what impact the legislation will have because, as a pattern-based law, it’s “really unique.” He added that there is still some uncertainty about how it will apply to instances of coercive control that began before the law came into force but continue today.
Even so, he is glad to see the changes.
“I think, in some ways, it’s a long time coming,” he said. “If you talk to a lot of women who experienced this, this is very obviously their experience, so ... this is legislation catching up to what systems who have worked with these survivors and victims for a long time have already known.”
Hopes for the future
Moving forward, Small hopes the law will help prevent domestic violence by giving the legal system an opportunity to step in earlier.
“In a lot of the most extreme situations where women are killed by their partners, there was a long, long pattern of coercive control before that ever happened,” he said. “I think some of the hope is that we can avoid some of these tragedies by intervening sooner.”
In the coming days, visit PembinaValleyOnline for more with Small on how the new legislation may impact families.
Original Article: https://www.pembinavalleyonline.com/articles/when-home-feels-like-a-hostage-situation-new-law-targets-coercive-control