Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-223, the keeping children safe act. I want to extend my thanks to the member for Hamilton Mountain for her work on this very important issue.
As the chair of the status of women committee, I heard extensive testimony on coercive control, parental alienation and family violence in Canada. In 2025, our committee released a report recognizing coercive control as a serious form of intimate partner violence, involving repeated psychological abuse, intimidation, stalking, isolation, manipulation, financial control and even cruelty to family pets, all of which undermine the autonomy, safety and well-being of women and children. The report did not just identify the problem but made 16 clear recommendations to address them. These recommendations come directly from survivors, experts and frontline organizations across our country. Therefore, I allow their testimony to inform my perspective as I speak to this legislation today.
Coercive control comes in many forms. It can include constant monitoring, threats, financial control, isolating someone from friends or family, using the legal system to intimidate a former partner and even using the children as leverage to maintain power and control, which is especially prevalent in divorce cases. As we heard, this behaviour often does not stop after separation; in many cases, it only escalates further. Too often, family courts are asked to make decisions without fully recognizing these patterns. Survivors told us that their concerns were minimized, that abuse was treated as a private conflict or that it was dismissed entirely because there was no police report or visible injury. In some cases, protective parents were even accused of alienating their children for raising legitimate safety concerns.
Bill C-223 seeks to address these failures by strengthening and amending the Divorce Act so that courts are better equipped to recognize coercive control and parental alienation.
I would like to briefly outline exactly what the amendments aim to do.
First, the bill would require family law lawyers to assess the risk of family violence and coercive control when representing a client in a divorce, and to take steps to put a safety plan in place where risks exist.
Second, the bill would give courts clearer direction on how coercive control affects parenting and child safety. Coercive control is often not visible or physical but a pattern of behaviour, of things that sometimes are difficult to see. Patterns of intimidation, isolation, threats, manipulation and financial control are things that tend to continue long after separation, and the bill would make it clear that they must be taken seriously.
Third, Bill C-223 would ensure that children's voices are heard through written evidence or in camera interviews with appropriate safeguards. Children are not property to be divided, and their views should not be dismissed simply because they are inconvenient. Children can easily be intimidated by one parent or another, so the measures in this bill would allow written testimony or video interviews, which would prevent the child from being unduly traumatized by the judicial process or being intimidated by one parent or another.
Finally, the bill would bring greater clarity to how parental alienation claims are assessed, ensuring that child safety and the evidence of family violence remain the priority.
The House has already acknowledged that our systems have failed children in the past. I had conversations with Pam Damoff, a former member of Parliament who was a great advocate, talking about Keira's law and what was needed to follow up on that. Members may remember that Keira's law followed the tragic death of Keira Kagan, who was killed by her father after her mother had repeatedly raised concerns about coercive control and family violence that were not adequately recognized in family court. Keira's law requires judges to receive training on intimate partner violence and coercive control. That is an important step, but training alone is not enough. Bill C-223 would build on that work by providing clearer guidance in the Divorce Act so that courts are better equipped to prioritize child safety and recognize warning signs when making custody and parenting decisions.
I would like to spend a bit more time on the issue of parental alienation, because it is important that everyone understands. Deliberately undermining a child's relationship with a loving, safe parent is harmful. It causes long-term emotional damage to children, and when that happens, courts must be able to recognize it and respond appropriately. No child should be used as a pawn in a custody dispute, and no parent should be cut out of their child's life without good reason.
However, our committee also heard clear evidence that allegations of parental alienation have too often been misused in cases involving domestic violence and coercive control. Survivors told us that when they raised legitimate safety concerns, they were accused of manipulating their children simply because the child expressed fear or resistance towards the abusive parent. In some cases, those allegations were accepted without proper scrutiny, and children were removed from a safe parent as a result.
Bill C-223 does not dismiss the possibility of alienating behaviours, but it rejects the idea that alienation should be assumed or used to outweigh evidence of family violence. It requires courts to look at the full context, the patterns of behaviour, power imbalances, and the children's lived experience before reaching possibly devastating conclusions. That balance matters. Protecting children requires recognizing both the real harm caused by true alienation and the very real danger of using alienation claims to silence abuse or dismiss children's fears.
Getting this wrong has serious consequences. When courts act on assumptions instead of evidence, children can be placed back into unsafe situations, causing a generational cycle of distrust in the system. However, parental alienation is not well understood. It was very helpful, when trying to get the courts to recognize coercive control, to provide a list of the types of behaviours that would be admissible to show that pattern of behaviour. I think the same is true for parental alienation. This is one area of the bill that may need some clarification or help in order to ensure that people adequately understand how to recognize true parental alienation when it is occurring.
One of the strongest messages alluded to at committee was that family law does not operate in a vacuum. Decisions made in divorce proceedings affect housing stability, mental health, education and long-term outcomes for children. When our courts miss warning signs or fail to properly assess the risk, these consequences show up in many forms. They show up in children struggling at school with anxiety and trauma that can follow them into adulthood, and in families that lose faith in the justice system that is meant to protect them. That is why it is so important that this legislation encourages courts to get these decisions right.
Clearer guidance on coercive control, stronger recognition of children's experiences and a more careful approach to highly contested concepts like parental alienation all help move family law towards decisions that are evidence-based and centred on safety. When the system works properly, it protects children and gives families the stability they need to move forward.
As this bill moves forward, it deserves careful and thoughtful study. We must ensure it genuinely strengthens child safety, respects due process and avoids unintended consequences. Family law decisions are among the most consequential decisions a court will make. They shape a child's sense of security, stability and trust for years to come.
When families are at their most vulnerable, our law must not make things worse. It must not create incentives or discourage legitimate safety concerns from being raised. Instead, courts must help examine the evidence and focus on patterns of behaviour and the lived experience of the child. Above all, our family law system must remain grounded in evidence and guided by a single clear principle: keeping the child safe. Obviously, there are issues of provincial jurisdiction, since it is provincial courts that typically administer the Divorce Act. The training of all the people involved and ensuring that it is properly executed will be very important. That means listening carefully and doing our best to make decisions that protect children from harm.
This bill is looking at keeping children safe. There has been a lot of work done to keep women safe. I think also there is work to be done to make sure that men are safe.
I do support this bill.
