When the Framework was reviewed by the Department of Justice Monitoring Committee in 1999, the Committee recommended that the Department of Justice coordinate a focused consultation with key community and justice system stakeholders to review the experience of provincial jurisdictions which have enacted provincial/family violence legislation and to determine, in light of the results obtained from the Framework for Action, whether the adoption of such legislation would benefit victims of spousal/partner violence and their children.(4)

In the jurisdictional comparison and literature review done as part of this review, we looked at the legislation that exists in six Canadian jurisdictions and at reviews done of this legislation, and we questioned stakeholders in those provinces about their views on the value of the legislation.(5)

Evaluations and discussions with other jurisdictions demonstrate that victims appreciate the immediacy of protection and the practical remedies of exclusive occupation of the home and temporary care and custody of the children. Five years after the adoption of the Framework, it may be time to reconsider the decision not to enact civil domestic violence legislation and to look more seriously at the additional range of remedies provided under the legislation in other provinces.