Restraining Orders and Emergency Protection Orders in Prince Edward Island

If you are in immediate danger in Prince Edward Island, call 911. Once you are safe, the Victims of Family Violence Act lets a specially designated justice of the peace grant an emergency protection order without notice to the other person, usually within 24 hours and at no cost to the applicant, while a judge can separately grant a longer victim assistance order with no fixed time limit.

Information last verified on 2026-08-15. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Two Tools Under One Law

Prince Edward Island's family violence framework runs through the Victims of Family Violence Act (VFVA), R.S.P.E.I. 1988, Cap. V-3.2, consolidated to August 1, 2023. It creates two named order types: the emergency protection order (EPO) and the victim assistance order (VAO). Both are civil court orders, separate from any criminal charge police may also lay over the same conduct, and neither one creates a criminal record on its own. Only a conviction for breaching an order does that.

Who the VFVA Protects

The Act defines a "victim" as a person who has resided with, or is residing with, the respondent in a family relationship, or who is a parent together with the respondent of one or more children, regardless of marital status or whether they ever lived together. "Family relationship" covers people who are or have been married or have cohabited in a spousal or sexual relationship, and members of the same family. No minimum length of cohabitation is stated anywhere in these definitions.

"Family violence" under the Act includes assault, a reckless act or omission causing injury or property damage, an act or threat causing reasonable fear of injury or damage, forced confinement, threats or acts of sexual, physical or emotional abuse, and depriving the victim of food, clothing, medical attention, shelter, transportation, or other necessities of life. A respondent who encourages or solicits someone else to commit family violence is treated as having committed it directly.

A separate PEI law, the Family Law Act, has its own restraining order at section 45, but it is limited to a "spouse or former spouse," and that Act's definition of spouse requires a common-law partner to have cohabited in a conjugal relationship for at least 3 years, or to share a child regardless of duration. That 3-year test belongs to the Family Law Act, not the VFVA. It is a materially narrower group of applicants than the VFVA's family-relationship definition, which has no duration requirement at all.

Emergency Protection Orders

An EPO is granted without notice to the other person by a judicial justice of the peace specifically designated for this purpose. The justice must be satisfied that family violence occurred and that the seriousness or urgency of the situation merits an order, weighing the nature of the violence, its history and likelihood of continuing, whether there is immediate danger, and the best interests of the victim, any child, and others in the victim's care.

An EPO can, among other things: give the victim exclusive occupation of the residence for a set period regardless of who owns it; direct police to remove the respondent from the residence or to supervise the removal of belongings; restrain contact with the victim or another named person; require the respondent to stay away from a specified place; give the victim temporary custody of a child; give the victim temporary possession of specific personal property such as a vehicle, identification, bank cards, or keys; restrain the respondent from damaging property or cutting off utilities to the residence; restrain further family violence; prohibit publishing the victim's name or address; and require the respondent to keep making rent or mortgage payments on the residence. The justice can also add any other condition considered necessary for the immediate protection of the victim or other family members. No provision authorizing a weapons or firearms surrender condition was found anywhere in the Act or its regulations, which is a real gap compared with some other provinces' family-violence laws.

Duration: an EPO cannot exceed 90 days unless a judge later orders otherwise.

The Application Gap Worth Knowing About

The Act itself allows an EPO application to be made by telecommunication. In practice, however, the regulations narrow that: an application must be made in person, except when it is made by a "designated person" on the victim's behalf, meaning a peace officer or a Victim Services worker, who may apply in person or by telecommunication. That means a victim applying directly is currently expected to appear in person, while telecommunication is reserved for police or Victim Services staff applying with the victim's consent.

Those regulations were last consolidated in 2009, seventeen years before the Act's own 2023 consolidation, and no more recent regulatory update was found. Given that gap, treat this as the process most recently confirmed rather than a guarantee it has not since changed, and confirm current application steps with PEI Victim Services before relying on it.

Victim Assistance Orders

A VAO is decided by a judge, with both sides able to be heard, on a finding that family violence occurred. It can include anything an EPO can order, plus terms about access to children (with the safety and well-being of the victim and children as the paramount consideration) and any other provision the judge considers appropriate. Unlike the EPO, the VFVA sets no fixed maximum duration for a VAO; its length is left to the judge.

Confirmation and Review

An EPO does not simply stand on its own. The justice of the peace who grants it must forward the order and all supporting documentation to a judge within two working days. The judge must then review it within five working days and either confirm it, in which case it becomes an order of the court, or vary it. If the judge is not satisfied there was enough evidence, the judge directs a rehearing, at which the respondent is entitled to be heard and to cross-examine witnesses; the order can still be confirmed if the respondent does not show up. Either party can apply at any time after the respondent is served to change, extend, shorten, or revoke a provision of an order, and an order generally stays in effect while that kind of application is pending.

Fees

Under the VFVA regulations, no fee is charged to an applicant for filing or serving documents. Under the Act itself, the court may instead order the respondent to pay whatever fees would otherwise apply under PEI's Court Fees Act. So the process is confirmed free to the person seeking protection, with any fee shifted onto the other party if the court decides to impose one.

Breaking an Order

Breaching an EPO or VAO, applying for one falsely or maliciously, obstructing someone carrying out an authorized function under the Act, or publishing information the order prohibits, is an offence. A first offence carries a fine of at least $500 and up to $5,000, or imprisonment of up to 3 months, or both. A second or later offence carries a fine of at least $1,000 and up to $10,000, or imprisonment of up to 2 years, or both. Police can arrest someone without a warrant on reasonable grounds a breach occurred. Separately, the court can punish wilful contempt of its own process or orders, with a fine of up to $5,000 and up to 90 days in jail.

By contrast, breaching the narrower Family Law Act restraining order carries the same fine and jail ranges but with no stated statutory minimums, only maximums.

Orders From Other Provinces

A full read of the VFVA and its regulations found no provision addressing recognition or enforcement of a protection order issued by another province or territory. That is a documented gap in this specific law, not a full survey of every PEI statute, so it should not be read as "PEI has no mechanism at all" for any protection order from elsewhere; only that the VFVA itself is silent on the question.

How This Fits With Other Options

PEI's official Legal and Justice Help resource confirms that Victim Services can help with risk assessment, safety planning, and getting an emergency protection order, and separately points to Family Legal Aid for representation in family law and domestic violence matters and to Family Court Mediators for custody and support disputes. It does not itself walk through how a criminal peace bond compares to a VFVA order, and no PEI government source that does make that comparison could be located during research, so this page does not attempt to state PEI-specific detail on peace bonds. For the general Criminal Code peace bond mechanism used across Canada, see peace bonds in Canada; for how criminal law separately treats domestic violence, see domestic violence laws in Canada.

A VFVA order is a family violence remedy, not a general separation or custody arrangement. For those broader family law steps, see divorce in Canada, separation agreements in Canada, and parenting time and decision-making. For how PEI's common-law cohabitation threshold works outside the VFVA, see common-law relationships in Prince Edward Island and the national common-law relationships overview. If an EPO or VAO becomes part of a court file you need to locate later, see court records in Prince Edward Island. For how Prince Edward Island's approach compares to the rest of the country, see the Canada-wide restraining order ladder.

Getting Help in Prince Edward Island

In immediate danger, call 911. For an EPO or general family violence support, contact Victim Services: Charlottetown 902-368-4582, Summerside 902-888-8218. Community Legal Information Association can answer general legal questions at 902-892-0853 or 1-800-240-9798. Family Legal Aid offices: Charlottetown 902-368-6656, Summerside 902-888-8066. The Island Helpline, 1-800-218-2885, is described as free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day.

Disclaimer

This article is informational only and is not legal advice. Prince Edward Island's family violence laws and procedures can change. Two points on this page are genuinely unresolved from official sources: whether the 2009 regulations' in-person versus telecommunication application rule has since been updated, and whether any PEI law outside the VFVA addresses recognition of another jurisdiction's protection order. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For help with a Prince Edward Island emergency protection order or victim assistance order, contact Victim Services at 902-368-4582 (Charlottetown) or 902-888-8218 (Summerside).