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In the article, we make three claims. First, we argue that a large number of what are traditionally seen as separate torts are, at their core, all about affronts to the dignity of the victim. These include offensive battery, assault, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, invasion of privacy, some nuisances, and abuse of process (malicious prosecution). These torts do not involve direct physical harm but, rather, emotional distress from having your dignity attacked. Second, we argue that as these torts have developed inside of their own doctrinal silos, there are important differences among the laws governing them. Third, we argue that these differences are not justified and that it would be better to create a consistent tort approach to dignitary harm: tort recovery should lie for injuries resulting from wrongful conduct that is highly offensive and causes more than minor harm. This, it turns out, is the standard that currently applies in a majority of jurisdictions for privacy invasions. If more widely adopted, this standard would, for example, far more easily allow recovery for nasty verbal sexual (or other) harassment, since intentional infliction of emotional distress currently requires a much stronger showing. At the same time, it would preclude recovery for minor physical touchings that technically now qualify as offensive battery. We think this achieves the balance much better.

This article proposes a new conceptual framework for parent-child and adult relationships in the Civil Code of Québec based on the theory of relationships of economic and emotional interdependency. It puts forward a new théorie générale for relationships in Quebec civil law. It argues that the Code should concentrate on relationships of economic and emotional interdependency, irrespective of their form or of their fulfillment of formalities. Their content and qualities should be the law’s object, hence allowing for a functional account of families and personal lives. Doing so would require a recodification of economic and emotional relationships in the Code, to provide a more meaningful legal framework addressing families and personal lives. Fundamentally, the hope is to shift the normative content of family law in Quebec private law from “the family” to relationships, and to take a stance against family law exceptionalism.

How intimate partner violence (IPV) is conceptualized affects what we see when we look at situations involving IPV and what we think the solutions to the problem of IPV are—either in individual cases or in the development of broader legal and policy responses. In this article, it is suggested that while conceptualizing IPV as coercive control is an improvement over previous understandings, it does not go far enough. Coercive control must be located within a broader conceptualization of IPV as a form of social and systemic entrapment if it is not to operate in a harmful manner for victim-survivors.

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Jennifer Koshan, Janet E Mosher, Wanda A Wiegers, 2020 CanLIIDocs 3160

This article criticises the government's rejection of proposals by the Prison Reform Trust that would have extended self-defence in householder cases to victims/survivors of domestic abuse. The authors argue that the Prison Reform Trust proposals should be enacted, and further supported by novel complementary reform of the option to retreat, and the exclusion of intoxicated mistaken belief in self-defence claims. Specifically, the authors advance a statutory rebuttable presumption regarding the option to retreat in cases involving domestic abuse, namely, an assumption that the victim/survivor was not realistically able to retreat safely, unless it is proven otherwise. The authors also examine the appropriateness of the policy decision to exclude intoxicated mistaken belief in all self-defence cases and advocate for its removal. It should be replaced with a requirement that all mistaken beliefs must be reasonable regardless of the presence of intoxication. Procedural recommendations are also advanced, including amendment of the Crown Court Compendium to include judicial directions on self-defence which adopt a social entrapment approach in domestic abuse cases, and supported by the admissibility of non-medical expert evidence on the nature and impact of coercive control.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has both serious consequences for its victims and high rates of recidivism. Risk assessment measures are an integral part of preventing IPV recidivism. The use of brief IPV-specific measures is particularly relevant in settings, such as corrections, where resources are limited. The RBAC-VPI is a 15-item IPV risk assessment designed as a supplement to general risk measures, making it efficient to use in various settings. Validity was tested in a sample of 222 men in the province of Quebec, Canada convicted of a violent offence where the victim was an intimate partner. Participants were evaluated using the RBAC-VPI, a general risk assessment (RBAC-PCQ), a standalone IPV risk assessment (SARA-V3), and a psychopathy assessment (PCL:SV). The RBAC-VPI showed acceptable reliability and very strong convergent validity with the other measures, most notably with the SARA-V3 (r = .51), while containing fewer items and being quicker to administer. A Rasch model item response theory analysis further supported the validity of the measure’s items. Items showed excellent model fit and a good difficulty distribution. Only two items were identified as redundant and one as less informative. This suggests that the RBAC-VPI is both brief and highly informative.

Intimate partner violence [IPV] causes myriad and gendered harms, but Canadian law has inconsistently provided avenues of economic redress. Although tort law has evolved to allow IPV survivors to seek compensation, tort-based remedies are sought rarely and largely limited to intentional torts such as assault, battery, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress. These torts do not always encompass the harms sustained by IPV survivors, particularly those caused by economic abuse and coercive control. In Ahluwalia v Ahluwalia, a 2022 family law case, Justice Renu Mandhane responded to this gap in the law by recognizing a new tort of family violence, but her decision was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2023, and the case is now before the Supreme Court of Canada. Our paper provides a feminist analysis of the role of tort law in providing compensatory remedies for survivors of IPV. We situate tort remedies and Ahluwalia within the wider context of Canadian laws addressing IPV and feminist critiques of tort law and theory. This wider context raises issues about access to justice and socio-economic responses to IPV for members of marginalized groups in particular. We also examine how myths and stereotypes have influenced this area of law and the role of lawyers and judges in this respect, including in Ahluwalia. We conclude that recognition of the tort of family violence is an important but limited step forward in compensating the harms of IPV, and we urge governments to do more to systemically remediate these harms.

Daniel Kim, 2025 83-1 University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review 55, 2025 CanLIIDocs 1328

JurisClasseur Québec. Collection Droit civil | WorldCat.org

In recent years, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the “Charter”) has been relied on increasingly by Canadian courts to bolster common law police powers, often at the expense of due process. Ostensibly, the courts have shown more concern with the administration of the limits of policing than with the delineation of civil liberties. In this article, we trace the evolution of the interpretation of the Charter in this context, with early decisions suggesting a reluctance to create ex post facto police powers. The article then outlines the acceleration of judicial proliferation of common law police powers in Canada, cloaked in the veil of the Charter. In other words, unauthorized police conduct is legitimized by the courts on an ad hoc basis, so long as it is ultimately justifiable. We then discuss the findings of our own research into this phenomenon and comment on the possible implications that increasingly expansive common law police powers created by courts have had on due process in Canada, and the administrative role of the Supreme Court of Canada in mobilizing civil rights protections in the direction of state surveillance.