Bill C-223 is not in the best interest of Canadians

By Bijan Rafii, Brian Ludmer and Alexandra Lysova*

Recently, Bill C-223—titled Keeping Children Safe Act—was introduced as a private member’s bill seeking to amend Canada’s Divorce Act. While the title suggests a focus on child welfare, the proposed legislation contains several sweeping provisions that threaten to undermine the very stability it claims to protect. Most notably, the Bill would render claims of parental alienation—where one parent manipulates a child to reject the other—inadmissible in family court. Furthermore, it would prohibit court orders that reverse custody in response to extreme alienation, ban reunification therapy efforts of the child with the alienated parent, and remove the requirement for corroborative evidence when claiming intimate partner violence (IPV). Additionally, the Bill would significantly reduce barriers for a custodial parent to relocate without the consent of the non-custodial parent.

The impetus behind this bill is the premise that parental alienation is a non-existent phenomenon, often characterized as a tactical tool used by men to cover up the abuse of their former partners. This perspective assumes that a custodial parent would never intentionally harm a child’s relationship with the other parent except as a justified protective measure. Underpinning this logic is a belief that the legal system must prioritize popular notions regarding the prevalence of IPV during parental separations above all other considerations, effectively creating a hierarchy of harms where psychological manipulation is dismissed. Contrary to these assumptions, parental alienation behavior is widely recognized within a vast body of peer-reviewed, quantitative, and ideologically neutral scholarship. It is supported by extensive data from population studies, surveys, and counselling service providers, as well as decades of established case law. In our professional opinion, parental alienation behaviour is a pervasive form of family violence and child abuse. It subjects both the targeted parent and the child to profound, lasting psychological trauma. By rendering this behavior legally invisible, Bill C-223
ignores a well-documented form of emotional maltreatment.

There is also a common misconception that parental alienation is primarily a “fathers’ issue”. However, findings from a 2024 national Nanos survey of 1,000 Canadian adults indicate that gender differences are relatively modest. Specifically, 6.3% of Canadians reported that their mother tried to damage their relationship with their father, compared to 4.5% who reported that their father did so. These findings highlight that parental alienating behaviors should be understood as a broader family violence issue affecting both parents. Furthermore, this Bill seeks to impose a solution on a problem that has already been addressed in existing law. The family violence provisions of the Divorce Act and provincial legislation were amended in 2021 to offer robust protection and prioritization of those concerns. The family law community was not asking for further radical change; the system needs time to implement the current protections effectively.

The Bill risks exacerbating parental conflict in a way that will inevitably hurt children. By effectively lowering the evidentiary threshold for claims of IPV, the legislation creates a framework that could incentivize strategic false allegations as a means of gaining a tactical advantage in custody disputes. Rather than de-escalating tension, this shift encourages high-conflict dynamics and adversarial positioning to the detriment of the children involved. Any meaningful discussion requires an accurate understanding of the problem. According to the latest (2019) General Social Survey (GSS) on victimization, 3.5% of Canadians had experienced IPV within the previous five years, 1.2% in the past year. Notably, IPV rates have been in a steady secular decline, sitting at roughly half the rate recorded in 1999. Although one victim is too many, we must ask whether a Bill which risks empowering one parent to unilaterally sever the other’s bond with a child is a proportionate response to these trends and the risk of escalating conflict.

There is a more constructive way to address family conflict. Jurisdictions that have implemented equal parenting legislation, with exceptions for demonstrable abuse, have seen remarkable results. For example, Kentucky reported about a 50% reduction in domestic violence cases within five years of implementation, a similar decline to Spain which also saw significant drop (8%) in intimate partner homicide following the introduction of shared parenting frameworks. While the Divorce Act is certainly in need of reform, Bill C-223 is the opposite of the reform actually needed. It creates an unlevel playing field and, far from protecting children, encourages harmful parental behaviors. Instead of adopting measures that deepen the divide between parents, we should look toward international best practices that prioritize the well-being of the child and reduce conflict between parents through balanced, evidence-based legal frameworks

*Bijan Rafii, M. Sc. Executive Director, Canadian Centre for Men and Families-York Region, an agency which supports victims of parental alienation

Brian Ludmer is a family law lawyer, with a practice focusing on cases of parental alienation

Alexandra Lysova, PhD, is a Professor of Criminology at the Simon Fraser University with a research focus on intimate partner violence.