Emergency Protection Orders

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What is an emergency protection order?

An Emergency Protection Order (EPO) protects you by ordering that your partner/parent/child (“the Respondent”) not contact you, not come around you, and may remove your partner the Respondent from the family home. EPOs can also apply to your family members if they are named in it.

 
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Definition of Family in Alberta includes anyone:

  • Related to you by blood, marriage, or adoption (including in-laws).

  • You are (or were) in an intimate relationship with them (lived with, in an adult interdependent relationship with or married to).

  • You have children together.

  • You have legal guardianship over.

 

An Emergency Protection Order (EPO) is a protection order specifically designed to provide safety in cases of family violence. An EPO can order that the family member using abusive behaviors (“the Respondent”) not contact you, not come around you and may remove the Respondent from the family home. EPO’s can also apply to your family members if they are named on it.

The order will be granted if the Provincial Court Judge or Justice of the Peace decides that by “reason of seriousness or urgency” immediate protection is needed as a result of family or relationship violence. Once you file the order, the police will serve the EPO on your partner. At that time, the conditions of the order may be enforced by the police. A higher court, the Court of Queen’s Bench, will review the EPO within nine working days.

 
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An Emergency Protection Order can be used to:

  • Keep the Respondent away from a home, workplace, school or anywhere else family members might be present.

  • Prohibit the Respondent from making contact or communicating with certain family members.

  • Grant exclusive rights to live in the home to certain family members for a specified period.

  • Direct the police to remove the Respondent from their home and supervise them as they remove their personal belongings.

  • Direct the police to seize and store weapons.

  • Specify any other provisions for the immediate protection of family members.

 

At the review that is scheduled within nine working days of the original EPO being granted, the Respondent is given the opportunity to give their side of the story. The Court of Queen’s Bench may:

  • Confirm the EPO.

  • Revoke (cancel) the EPO.

  • Direct that an oral hearing be held.

  • Issue a new order.

An EPO can be in place for up to one year and may be extended for further one-year periods.

It is important to remember that it is illegal to make false claims. Anyone who does so can be charged with public mischief under the Criminal Code of Canada.

For more information, visit www.cplea.ca

Communications Specialist