This bill adds a statutory definition of “stalking” to the Protection Against Family Violence Act, explicitly including repeated electronic conduct that causes a reasonable fear for safety and that is carried out without lawful authority and with knowledge or recklessness. It makes stalking a recognized ground for emergency and regular protection orders and gives the RCMP limited power to disclose the identity (and identifying details) of a person reasonably believed to be stalking an applicant, subject to Privacy Act conditions.
The Act also creates a civil tort for stalking where the stalker has or had certain family, intimate, care, or parental relationships with the victim and allows plaintiffs to sue without proving damage. The changes expand the class of people who can apply for protection orders (including grandparents and care-relationship parties), add a presumption of fear for minors and persons not mentally competent, modernize gendered language, and leave commencement to the Commissioner by order.
These are practical changes to how victims can obtain protection and pursue civil remedies, and to how police can assist identification — each with privacy, evidentiary and procedural consequences for courts, police and litigants.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill inserts a definition of stalking into the Act, expressly lists stalker conduct examples (including electronic tracking), and adds stalking as a basis for protection orders. It creates a civil tort of stalking for persons in specified relationships and permits RCMP disclosure of an alleged stalker’s identity when the member reasonably believes stalking occurred, subject to Privacy Act limits.
Who It Affects
Survivors of family and intimate violence (including children and dependent adults), people in care relationships, potential respondents to protection orders, territorial courts and lawyers handling protection orders and civil claims, and the RCMP when asked to identify alleged stalkers.
Why It Matters
The bill aligns territorial protection law with contemporary stalking risks (social media, electronic tracking), widens who can seek relief, and introduces a no-damage civil claim that could increase litigation. It also creates an operational path for police to disclose identities — raising privacy-compliance and intergovernmental coordination issues.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The Act now defines stalking as repeated conduct that, in the circumstances, reasonably causes someone to fear for their safety, and that is done without lawful authority and with either knowledge or recklessness that the conduct will harass, intimidate or threaten. The definition explicitly covers electronic means and gives five concrete examples — following, contacting, watching a residence or workplace, threatening conduct, and using electronic tools to observe or track.
That combination of elements sets a civil threshold that is behavior-focused (repetition and reasonable fear) while also drawing on the stalker’s state of mind (knowledge or recklessness).
On remedies, the amendments add stalking to the list of harms that justify emergency protection orders and regular protection orders under the Act. The Act also expands the roster of people who may apply: beyond spouses and intimate partners it now names parents who share parentage, grandparents and parents of the respondent or related parties, anyone with a family relationship, and people in care relationships.
The bill also includes a provision deeming fear present for people who would reasonably fear for their safety but do not express fear because they are minors or lack mental competence, which removes an evidentiary obstacle where the person cannot testify to feeling afraid.At the interface with policing and privacy law, an RCMP member who reasonably believes a person is stalking an applicant may disclose the stalker’s name and other identifying information to the applicant, but only where the disclosure is consistent with how the RCMP obtained the information, falls under a federal-territorial agreement per paragraph 8(2)(f) of the federal Privacy Act, or the RCMP head (or delegate) decides public interest clearly outweighs privacy invasion. That means RCMP assistance is permitted but circumscribed by federal privacy rules and discretion at the RCMP leadership level.Finally, the Act creates a civil tort of stalking: a person who stalks another with whom they have (or had) the enumerated relationships is liable in court, and an action can proceed without proof of damage.
The bill also updates English text to gender-neutral phrasing in several provisions and leaves commencement to the Commissioner by order, so certain operational details and timing will be set administratively.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill’s stalking definition requires repetition, reasonable fear for safety, lack of lawful authority, and the stalker’s knowledge or recklessness — and explicitly includes electronic behaviour.
Stalking is added as a listed ground for protection orders, and the definition’s examples (following, contacting, watching locations, threats, electronic tracking) are included in the Act.
A new clause deems fear present where a person would reasonably fear for their safety but does not express fear because they are a minor or not mentally competent.
The RCMP may disclose the name and other identifying information of a person reasonably believed to be stalking an applicant, but only where the disclosure fits federal Privacy Act conditions or the RCMP head finds public interest outweighs privacy.
The Act creates a civil tort of stalking for persons in the specified relationships (spouse, intimate partner, shared parentage, family, grandparent/parent, care relationship) and expressly allows suits without proving actual damage.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
New definition of 'stalking' and expansion of listed harms
The bill inserts a detailed definition of 'stalking' into the Act’s definitions and appends stalking to the catalogue of conduct that can ground protection orders. The definition couples objective and subjective elements: conduct must be repeated and reasonably cause fear for safety, yet the actor must lack lawful authority and act with knowledge or recklessness. Practically, this sets a mid-level civil standard that captures persistent threatening behaviour while requiring some culpable mental state, which will guide judges assessing whether protective relief is justified.
Enumerated examples of stalking conduct (including electronic acts)
The Act lists five non-exhaustive examples — following, communicating with, besetting or watching places associated with the person, threatening conduct, and electronic observation or tracking — to illustrate stalking. Those examples will guide police, advocates and courts when assessing complaints and drafting protection orders, and signal that digital surveillance and tracking are explicitly on the statute’s radar.
Presumption of fear for minors and persons lacking competence
The new deeming provision addresses situations where a victim would reasonably be afraid but cannot articulate that fear due to minority or mental incapacity. In practice, this reduces a potential evidentiary barrier for vulnerable people seeking protection: decision-makers must treat such persons as having the fear required to trigger protection order eligibility, shifting focus to the alleged conduct rather than the victim’s testimony about subjective fear.
Expanded definitions of relationships and broadened list of applicants
The bill tightens and expands relationship definitions — family relationship, intimate personal relationship and care relationship — and adds a new subsection (1.1) listing who may apply for emergency or regular protection orders. The named applicants now include spouses/former spouses, intimate partners, shared parents, parents/grandparents of respondents or related parties, anyone with a family relationship and people in care relationships. That change enlarges standing and may let grandparents and caregivers initiate proceedings on behalf of affected children or dependent adults.
RCMP disclosure power subject to Privacy Act constraints
New subsections let an RCMP member disclose the name and identifying details of a person reasonably believed to be stalking an applicant, but only if the disclosure is compatible with the RCMP’s original use of the information, occurs under a formal federal–territorial arrangement (para. 8(2)(f) of the federal Privacy Act), or the RCMP head concludes public interest clearly outweighs privacy invasion. This creates an operational pathway for disclosure while tethering it to federal privacy law and leadership-level discretion — meaning access to identity information will vary depending on records, agreements and internal RCMP decisions.
Civil tort of stalking and no-damage cause of action
The Act now creates a statutory civil tort for stalking where the stalker has or had one of the enumerated relationships with the victim. Courts can award relief in actions brought under this provision without the plaintiff having to prove actual damage. That lowers procedural barriers for civil litigation and could produce a wave of lawsuits seeking injunctions or other remedies based on stalking alone; it also raises questions about remedies, evidence thresholds and potential insurance exposure for defendants.
Gender-neutral language and commencement
Several English-language provisions are updated to replace gendered pronouns with gender-neutral terms — a drafting modernization that avoids interpretive ambiguity. The Act’s coming-into-force date is left to a Commissioner’s order, allowing phased or administrative commencement but leaving the timing and sequencing of transfers, training, or operational agreements (for example with the RCMP) to executive decisions.
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Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Victims of stalking within family, intimate, parental or care relationships — they gain an express statutory definition, an explicit route to protection orders based on stalking, and a new civil cause of action that does not require proof of damage.
- Children and persons lacking mental competence — the deeming of fear removes a hurdle where they cannot or do not state subjective fear, making protective relief and applications more accessible through family members or caregivers.
- Advocates and family-law practitioners — the expanded applicant list and explicit examples of stalking provide clearer standing rules and evidentiary signposts for seeking emergency and regular protection orders.
Who Bears the Cost
- Alleged respondents — people accused of stalking in family or care contexts face both protective order exposure and a new civil tort claim that can proceed without damage evidence, increasing litigation and reputational risk.
- RCMP and territorial administrators — the RCMP must apply Privacy Act exceptions and possibly enter agreements with the territory to permit disclosures, creating administrative work and judgment calls about privacy vs safety.
- Territorial courts and legal aid systems — judges and counsel will see new protection-order grounds and no-damage civil claims, likely increasing caseloads, evidentiary disputes and demand for legal assistance.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill trades broader and faster protective pathways for victims (expanded standing, an explicit stalking definition, RCMP identification assistance, and a no-damage civil remedy) against risks to privacy, procedural fairness and evidentiary clarity — protecting safety may require intrusions and lower civil thresholds that can produce inconsistent disclosures, contested liability without demonstrated harm, and increased demands on courts and police.
The amendments create useful tools for victims but raise practical and legal tensions. First, the RCMP disclosure route sits inside federal privacy law: disclosures require compatibility with the RCMP’s original use of records, a federal–territorial information-sharing agreement, or an exercise of leadership discretion weighing public interest against privacy.
That raises the possibility of inconsistent access across cases and a dependence on intergovernmental agreements that must be negotiated and maintained. It also creates risk that victims will assume identity information is readily available when it may not be.
Second, the civil tort’s no-damage rule lowers the bar for plaintiffs but imports difficult evidentiary and remedial questions. Courts will need to decide what remedies flow from a tort finding absent proven loss (injunctions, nominal or punitive damages, costs), and how to balance the Act’s reasonable-fear standard against competing rights such as freedom of expression or lawful contact.
The combination of mental-state language (knowledge or recklessness) and a relatively low civil threshold (reasonable fear) could produce closer disputes about intent and about whether innocuous but persistent contact amounts to stalking.
Finally, expanding standing to grandparents, family and care relationships and deeming fear for minors or those lacking competence simplifies access but may create third-party tensions — for example, competing applications by different family members or disputes about who best represents a vulnerable person’s interests. Those practical points will put pressure on court processes, duty counsel and the territorial administration to clarify procedures, evidence standards, and when and how RCMP disclosures are appropriate.
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