NAWL submits recommendations to strengthen Bill C-16 and better protect survivors of gender-based violence

Anishinaabe Territory / Ottawa, March 23, 2026 – The National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) has submitted a brief to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, outlining critical recommendations to improve Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters.

NAWL’s brief identifies gaps and proposes targeted amendments to ensure the bill meaningfully strengthens protections for survivors, while avoiding unintended harm within the criminal justice system.

Bill C-16 presents an important opportunity to improve Canada’s criminal law framework, but without key changes, some provisions risk reinforcing harmful stereotypes, failing to protect survivors, or even criminalizing those they are meant to support.

Key Recommendations

NAWL’s main recommendations include:

• Regarding coercive control: ensure the offence does not backfire against survivors who are wrongly identified as perpetrators of coercive control based on myths and stereotypes about family violence;
• Regarding firearms: ensure domestic abusers lose access to firearms, regardless of their occupation, and close a loophole in the Firearms Act;
• Regarding non-consensual intimate images: criminalize the creation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes and broaden their definition;
• Regarding constructive first-degree murder: recognize the gendered nature of femicide to avoid the offence backfiring against women survivors who kill their abuser in self-defence;
• Regarding the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights: grant actual rights and remedies to victims of crime.
• Regarding publication bans: prevent the criminalization of survivors who breach a publication ban on their own name by sharing their story.

Ensuring the law works for survivors

NAWL emphasizes that criminal law reform must be approached with caution and grounded in an understanding of systemic inequalities. Criminalization strategies generally run the risk of revictimizing survivors. Additionally, the criminal justice system disproportionately targets and impacts Black, Indigenous and racialized people, as well as disabled, trans, and poor people.

“If coercive control is criminalized, specific attention must be paid to avoid the risk of backlash against survivors. Abusers are skilled at manipulating justice system actors and presenting themselves as victims. Women who are victims of coercive control may themselves be charged or threatened with criminalization, especially given the cultural stereotype that women engage in more ‘psychological violence’ than men,” said Suzanne Zaccour, Director of Legal Affairs at NAWL.

At the heart of NAWL’s recommendations is a clear principle: laws intended to protect survivors must not inadvertently harm them.

Read NAWL’s brief here.