The Saskatchewan government has introduced legislation to protect more victims of domestic violence and abuse.
The Cyberstalking and Coercive Control Act is aimed at helping victims escape dangerous situations sooner and more often, providing more options to report interpersonal violence.
“This will clearly identify that cyberstalking and coercive control are forms of abuse,” says Saskatchewan Justice Minister Tim Mcleod.
Coercive control includes behaviours like depriving someone of their basic needs, closely monitoring someone’s activities, and isolating someone from their family and friends.
“The research has, for the past couple of decades, really been focusing on coercive control as a precursor to physical violence, because by the time something gets to physical violence, and it’s highly dramatic like that, a great deal of damage has already been done,” said University of Saskatchewan social justice studies professor Marie Lovrod.
The other aspect of this legislation, cyberstalking, is a growing form of abuse.
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“We’re seeing more forms of cyberstalking with apps and geospatial trackers, things like that. Those are our pieces of technology that are capable of being used inappropriately,” said Mcleod.
Lovrod says this legislation will help raise awareness needed to create change.
“It’s important to recognize that coercive control, that is behaviours that are conditioning the family connections, the opportunities for financial independence, all those kinds of things, very seldom have been recognized as criminal themselves and as precursors to other kinds of violence,” says McLeod.
The province’s 2025 Domestic Violence Death Review Report found Saskatchewan has one of the highest rates of domestic violence and domestic homicide in Canada.
Statistics in the report show 91 per cent of cases had a pattern of escalating violence by the perpetrator, 45 per cent of perpetrators continued to have access to the victim following a formal risk assessment, and 55 per cent of perpetrators were once victims of abuse themselves.
“We all have a lot of work to do in our society in making meaningful support for people who are enduring these kinds of issues. When we think about things like access to housing, if there’s no safe place to go when you report, are you going to report?” asked Lovrod.
Mcleod says this is one in a series of bills to come which provide more options available to victims of domestic violence.
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