Family Violence

A National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence was announced by the federal government in November 2022. The province of Alberta signed a bilateral agreement with the Minister of Women and Gender Equality in July 2023 and is now engaged in the development of a 10-year strategy to end gender-based violence and support survivors. This is timely, as between April 2022 and March 2023, the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters received their highest number of requests for assistance in over a decade. Notably, women accounted for nearly 99% of those who accessed domestic violence shelters during that timeframe, and women and girls comprised 78% of the victims of intimate partner violence in 2022. 

JD students registered in the Clinic worked with Faculty of Law Professor Jennifer Koshan, the University of Calgary’s Research Excellence Chair in Family Violence, to prepare a submission to the Government of Alberta in response to the development of the new 10-year strategy to end gender-based violence. The submission urges the government to implement reforms in several key areas of the law and legal procedures on family violence in Alberta.

Specifically, the submission recommends that the Government of Alberta:

1. Amend the definition of “family violence” in the Family Law Act to align with the definition of “family violence” in the Divorce Act;  
2. Remove the exemption of “reasonable force” for the purpose of corrective action as currently outlined in section 18(3)(a) from the definition of “family violence” in the Family Law Act;
3. Amend the definition of “family violence” in the Protection Against Family Violence Act to be consistent with the definition in the Family Law Act as per recommendations 1 and 2; and
4. Establish Unified Family Courts in Alberta to support the specialization of the judiciary in family violence matters and to enhance access to justice.

The Alberta Minister of Arts, Culture, and Status of Women has indicated that the team’s recommendations will be included in the analysis that is ongoing as part of the strategy’s development.

This matter is ongoing.