This blog post follows “Lawyers Play an Important Role in Addressing Coercive Control,” published on February 18, 2025.

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Understanding Post-Separation Coercive Control

 

In our last blog post for CIAJ, we discussed the role that lawyers and courts can play in understanding and identifying coercive control. We argued that lawyers are uniquely positioned to identify coercive control, and indeed the 2021 Divorce Act amendments provide a framework with which to address coercive and controlling behaviour through safe parenting arrangements. Briefly,

[c]oercive control captures the reality that through tactics of isolation, manipulation, humiliation, surveillance, micro-regulation of gender performance, economic abuse, intimidation, and threats, abusive partners instill fear, control, and entrap their victims. The metaphor of a cage is often used to describe coercive control, with the various tactics used by perpetrators forming the bars that entrap the target, denying her liberty and autonomy. [1]

As our last post noted, coercive and controlling behaviour may be a risk factor for lethality, especially around the time of separation.[2] In a bid to maintain control over their partner, a person who uses coercive controlling behaviours may also harm their children.

For this reason, Parliament passed Keira’s Law, amending the Judge’s Act at s 60(2)(b) to:

… (b) establish seminars for the continuing education of judges, including seminars on matters related to sexual assault law, intimate partner violence, coercive control in intimate partner and family relationships and social context, which includes systemic racism and systemic discrimination.

Lawyers are an important support for victims of coercive control after separation, helping to:

• screen for coercive control
• connect families to community resources
• create and advocate for safe, structured parenting plans.

Because intimate partner violence has for so long been equated with physical violence, there remains a longstanding myth that the separation of partners ends the risk of violence.

However, as indicated by the Supreme Court of Canada, “abusive dynamics often do not end with separation — in fact, the opposite is often true”.[3]

 

How Post-Separation Coercive Control Manifests

Recently, in her decision of JMM v CRM, Chappel J. commented that, “…[A] pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour is particularly concerning because it is easier to inflict in its various forms post-separation than other types of family violence”. [4]

In the case of ES v MS,[5] Cromwell J. varied a shared parenting arrangement to grant the mother sole decision-making and limit the father’s parenting time on the basis of the father’s post-separation coercive and controlling behaviour. The “significant sustained increase” of such behaviours, including abusive and misogynistic communication toward the mother, were found to constitute a material change in circumstances since the issuance of the initial parenting order.

Cases have found a variety of post-separation tactics designed to instill “fear, control, and entrap” former partners that may be present in an overall pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour including:

• Threats and harassment including using parenting arrangements to continue threatening and harassing behaviour
• Financial abuse
• Failing to abide by court orders
• Using the legal system, including immigration, child protection, criminal, civil and family justice systems, to exert out power and control.

Some cases have identified litigation abuse as one potential tactic of post-separation coercive and controlling behaviour

In the BC case of LDB v ANH,[6] the Court of Appeal explained that a party’s conduct amounts to litigation abuse and may constitute family violence when they use the legal system “to control, intimidate, or harass the other spouse”. For example, in the recent case of PNR v MYR,[7] “The Father’s contempt motion was a form of litigation abuse because the primary goal was to inflict financial and emotional harm on the Mother”.[8]

 

Assessing post-separation coercive control in the best interests of the child

A trilogy of cases out of Ontario sheds light on the importance of understanding and identifying coercive and controlling behaviours, including post-separation coercive and controlling behaviour, and its impact on the best interests of the child.

The decision in S v S,[9] provides a helpful overview of how to identify the subtle actions that over time, together can create a power imbalance and keep one partner in fear and entrapped. During the parties’ relationship these actions included restricting the mother’s access to the home, monitoring her diet, restricting her access to family and friends, and controlling her medical decisions.

In this case, the judge allowed the mother’s relocation, in part, based on a finding that the father’s coercive and controlling behaviour continued after separation and contributed to a “power and control struggle.”

Examples of post-separation coercive and controlling tactics included:

• limiting the mother’s access to funds in a joint account
• failing to make support payments knowing the mother had limited access to funds
• delaying responses to requests related to the child’s travel or health for the purpose of controlling these decisions
• being inflexible with parenting time.

The father further turned routine issues and decisions about the child in relation to a dental exam or eye infection, for example, into what appeared to be a bid for control.

In her decision, Sah J. remarked that each incident in isolation could be seen as a “common disagreement,” however a closer analysis that viewed the relationships as a whole, revealed a “long-standing pattern” of the father exerting control in a manner harmful to the child. 

 

It’s been 5 years since the Divorce Act amendments aimed at addressing family violence were passed.

It is clear that in the last several years, some courts have gained a more nuanced understanding of coercive control and the resulting need for structured parenting arrangement to address such concerns. 

As the court recognized in AJK v JPB,[10] in reviewing the impetus for the Divorce Act amendments, “While a court order cannot stop a bullet, a knife or a fist, it can give [a parent and child] a chance to make a safety plan to avoid the [abuser’s] violence and keep them safe.”[11]

Where coercive and controlling behaviours has been found to exist, courts have allowed relocation applications [S v S, 2025 ONSC 3210], and ordered:

• sole decision-making [J-B-S v MMS, 2022 NBQB 18]
• primary care [M v M, 2022 ONSC 6688]
• supervised parenting time [KB v AT, 2023 NSSC 125; B v R, 2021 ONSC 3352]
• communication restrictions [SC v NC, 2024 SKKB 170].

Key to this safety is the ability to recognize and address family violence, including coercive and controlling behaviours, in parenting arrangements.

 

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[1] Mosher et al., “Submission to Justice Canada on the Criminalization of Coercive Control” (October 30, 2023) online: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/reports/240/, cited in D v M, 2025 SCC 20, L v R, 2025 ABKB 131 [NOTE: We have anonymized cases throughout this blog post].
[2] Desmond Ellis, Managing Domestic Violence: A Practical Handbook for Family Lawyers (Markham: LexisNexis Canada, 2019).
[3] B v G, 2022 SCC 22 at para 184 citing Jaffe, Peter G., Claire V. Crooks and Nicholas Bala. “A Framework for Addressing Allegations of Domestic Violence in Child Custody Disputes” (2009), 6 J. Child Custody 169; Neilson, Linda C. Responding to Domestic Violence in Family Law, Civil Protection & Child Protection Cases, 2nd ed. Ottawa: Canadian Legal Information Institute, 2020, 2017 CanLIIDocs 2 (online: https://canlii.ca/t/ng; archived version: https://www.scc-csc.ca/cso-dce/2022SCC-CSC22_1_eng.pdf).
[4] 2025 ONSC 3067 at para 287.
[5] 2025 NSSC 263.
[6] 2023 BCCA 480.
[7] 2025 ONSC 1802.
[8] At para 93.
[9] 2025 ONSC 3210.
[10] 2022 MBQB 42.
[11] At para 24.

 

 

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