Bill C-16: Why the Law Is Not Enough on Its Own

In December 2025, the federal government introduced Bill C-16 — the Protecting Victims Act. If passed, it will formally recognize femicide in the Canadian Criminal Code for the first time. Murder committed against a woman in the context of coercive or controlling conduct, sexual violence, or gender-based hate would be classified as first-degree murder.

This is meaningful. It is also incomplete.

What the Bill Gets Right

For years, advocates across Canada have called for the legal system to name what it has long refused to name. Femicide — the killing of women because they are women — is not random violence. It follows patterns. It has context. It happens overwhelmingly at the hands of intimate partners, overwhelmingly in private spaces, and overwhelmingly in circumstances that institutions had opportunities to interrupt. Bill C-16 also creates a new criminal offence prohibiting patterns of coercive and controlling behaviour toward an intimate partner. This is significant. Coercive control is the architecture of abuse — and until now, it has largely been invisible to the law.

What the Bill Cannot Do Alone

Legislation changes what courts can do after a woman is dead. It does not train the teacher who notices warning signs. It does not equip the HR manager handling a disclosure. It does not change the institutional culture that allows controlling behaviour to go unchallenged for years before it becomes lethal. The Sahra Bulle Foundation Centre for Learning and Teaching exists in that gap — between what the law says and what institutions actually do. Legal reform without trained people, funded organizations, and accountable systems does not protect women. It documents what happened to them.

What 2026 Tells Us

The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability has confirmed that 30 women and girls have been killed in Canada already in 2026. Italy, with 60 million people, recorded 10 femicides in the same period. Canada, with 40 million, recorded three times as many. Bill C-16 is an opening. The Sahra Bulle Foundation's work is what fills the space between that opening and real, community-level change.

What You Can Do

Learn: Understand what coercive control looks like and how institutions can recognize it early. Visit sahrabullefoundation.ca for resources and training.

Advocate: Contact your Member of Parliament and express support for Bill C-16 — and for the community education funding that must accompany it.

Speak: Share this post. The conversation about femicide in Canada needs more voices, not fewer.

Silence is Not Protection. The law is moving. Now institutions must move with it.

To learn more about the Sahra Bulle Foundation Centre for Learning and Teaching, visit sahrabullefoundation.ca or contact us at info@sahrabullefoundation.ca.