By Heather Campbell Pope and Rizwan Khan ( May 26, 2026, 12:02 PM EDT) -- Canada is on the verge of closing a significant gap on how the law understands abuse. Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act, would create a standalone criminal offence for coercive and controlling conduct in intimate partner relationships, recognizing that a pattern of non-physical behaviour can be as harmful as a single act of violence. This shift reflects growing legal recognition of coercive control as a serious form of family violence, most notably in the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision in Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia, 2026 SCC 16....