How do I get a protection order in British Columbia?

Who can apply, and against whom

A protection order is made against a family member to protect another family member. Family members are your spouse or former spouse, a person you live or lived with in a marriage-like relationship, the other parent or guardian of your child, a relative who lives with you or with one of those people, and your child.

You can apply yourself, someone can apply on your behalf, or the judge can make the order on the court's own initiative. You do not need to have any other family case under way.

What counts as family violence

The Act's definition is wide. It covers physical abuse, including forced confinement and withholding the necessities of life; sexual abuse; attempts at either; and psychological or emotional abuse, which includes intimidation, harassment, coercion and threats (including threats about other people, pets or property), unreasonable restrictions on a person's financial or personal autonomy, stalking or following, and intentional damage to property. For a child, being exposed to family violence, directly or indirectly, is itself family violence. An intent to harm is not required.

What the judge considers

The judge must look at risk factors that include any history of family violence, whether it is repeated or getting worse, whether psychological or emotional abuse shows a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour, a recent separation or plan to separate, circumstances that raise the risk such as substance abuse, money problems or access to weapons, your own sense of the risk, and anything that makes you more vulnerable, such as pregnancy, health or financial dependence.

An order can be made even if criminal charges have been or may be laid, even if the other person has temporarily moved out, even if you are staying in a shelter, and even if you have gone back to live with the person before.

What the order can say

The order can forbid the person from contacting or communicating with you, from coming near your home, workplace or school, from following you, and from having weapons. It can keep the person away from the home even if they own it. It can direct the police to remove the person from the home at once, to stand by while belongings are collected, and to seize weapons.

Urgent orders, how long they last and enforcement

An application can be made without notice to the other person. If the order is made that way, the other person can apply to have it set aside or changed.

Unless the judge provides otherwise, a protection order expires one year after it is made. Either party can apply to shorten, extend, change or end it, but the application has to be made before the order expires.

A police officer who has reasonable grounds to believe the order has been breached can act to enforce it. A protection order is not enforced through the Family Law Act itself; disobeying a court order is an offence under section 127 of the Criminal Code. If a protection order conflicts with a parenting order or another family order, the other order is suspended to the extent of the conflict.