Restraining Orders in Quebec: Civil Protection Orders and Peace Bonds

If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For longer term protection, Quebec's civil protection order under Code of Civil Procedure articles 515.1 to 515.4, rebuilt by Bill 73 and in force since June 4, 2025, lets a Superior Court judge order someone to stay away for up to five years, notifies police automatically, and replaces contempt of court proceedings with Criminal Code enforcement for a breach.

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

Call 911 First if You're in Danger

None of the tools on this page are a physical barrier between you and another person. A civil protection order, a peace bond, or any other court order is a legal instrument that becomes enforceable once it is granted and violated; it does not stop someone from showing up. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. Quebec's Specialized Tribunal for Sexual and Domestic Violence, a criminal-court venue covered further down this page, connects victims going through that process with the CAVAC network (Centres d'aide aux victimes d'actes criminels) for case support and accompaniment; that CAVAC role was verified specifically for the Specialized Tribunal, not for the civil protection-order process at the Superior Court described below.

How Quebec's Civil Protection Order Came to Exist

It is a common but inaccurate shortcut to say Quebec had no civil protection order before recently. The accurate history has three stages. When the current Code of Civil Procedure took effect in 2016, article 509 was originally just a definition of an ordinary injunction, with no protection order concept in it at all.

Later in 2016, an amendment added a second paragraph to article 509 creating a narrow protection order as a subtype of an ordinary injunction, available in particular in a context of violence, including honour based violence. That version capped the order at three years and, because it was just a paragraph inside the general injunction article, a breach was enforced through the ordinary contempt of court process: proof beyond a reasonable doubt, before a different judge, with a maximum punitive fine of $10,000 for an individual.

Bill 73 (2024, chapter 37) rebuilt this in 2024 and 2025. It removed the protection order language from article 509 and gave protection orders a dedicated home, Chapter I.1, articles 515.1 to 515.4. The duration cap rose from three years to five, the class of people who can apply broadened, police notification became mandatory, and contempt of court was explicitly taken off the table as the enforcement route. The tool available today is meaningfully faster and broader than the one that existed from 2016 to 2025.

What the Civil Protection Order Does Now

Article 515.1 defines a protection order as one directing a person to refrain from doing something, stop doing something, or perform a specified act, in order to protect another person who fears their life, health, or safety is threatened. The statute names honour based violence, family violence, spousal or sexual violence, intimidation, and harassment as examples, but the list is not exhaustive; the trigger is the fear itself.

This is broader than Ontario's spouse and cohabitant limited restraining order under its Family Law Act. Quebec's article 515.1 carries no relationship restriction in its text at all. The threatened person can apply on their own, and with their consent, or with the court's authorization, another person or an organization can apply on their behalf. Quebec's own applicant facing page confirms this directly: an organization or other person can apply for a protection order on someone's behalf if that person consents, or if the court allows it.

Applications go to the Superior Court, filed at the clerk's office in the defendant's judicial district. No lawyer is required. An applicant can use the Minister of Justice's form or a plain language outline of the facts, and the application is deemed to be made under oath, so there is no separate affidavit or commissioner of oaths step to arrange.

Article 515.2 builds an ex parte route directly into the law: a judge can issue a protection order for up to 10 days without the application having been notified to the other party at all. Once notice is given, the order can be extended or reissued for a longer period ahead of a full hearing. Article 515.3 requires the application to be tried and decided on an urgent basis, and sets the maximum duration at five years, renewable, extendable, or reissuable.

When a protection order is granted, article 515.4 requires the court clerk to notify the parties, anyone else named in the order, and the police force serving the applicant's place of residence, without delay. The order stays enforceable even if someone contests it or appeals, unless the court says otherwise.

When the Current Law Actually Took Effect

A specific date matters here, and it is commonly misstated. Bill 73 received royal assent on December 4, 2024, and that date circulates widely as the law's effective date. It is not. The Act's own coming into force clause sets most of its sections in force on the assent date, but carves out sections 1 to 9, the sections that amend article 509 and create the whole Chapter I.1 protection order regime, for a later date: June 4, 2025. If you see a source stating Quebec's rebuilt protection order took effect in December 2024, that source is describing the assent date of the Act, not the date the protection order provisions themselves became law.

Filing Fees Are Not Confirmed

Quebec's current court fee regulation, the Tariff of Court Costs in Civil Matters and Court Office Fees, does not clearly resolve whether a protection order application carries a fee. The regulation taxes injunctions as a paid category, but protection orders are now their own separate chapter rather than a type of injunction, and the regulation's specific no fee exemptions cover other proceedings entirely, not protection order applications. The government's own applicant page is silent on cost; it states no dollar figure and does not say the application is free.

This is genuinely unresolved, unlike Ontario, where a fee exemption for its restraining orders is explicit, or British Columbia, which states its Provincial Court process is free. Do not assume a Quebec protection order application costs nothing. Confirm the current fee, if any, directly with the Superior Court clerk's office in the relevant judicial district before filing.

What Happens If Someone Breaks a Protection Order

Article 515.4 is explicit that the Code of Civil Procedure's contempt of court provisions do not apply to a person who disobeys a protection order. That removes the enforcement route that applied to the older, pre-2025 version of the tool.

What replaces it is criminal enforcement. Quebec's own applicant guidance tells people directly that not complying with a protection order is a criminal offence, and instructs them to report a violation to police. The most likely legal mechanism is Criminal Code section 127, which makes disobeying a lawful court order an offence unless some other punishment or procedure is expressly provided by law; a protection order under article 515.1 fits that description, and its own contempt route has been expressly closed off. That said, no Quebec specific source names section 127 directly for this purpose; this is a reasoned inference from the structure of the law, not a directly confirmed citation, and it is presented here with that caveat. What is solid, from two independent sources, is the underlying fact: breaking a Quebec protection order is treated as a criminal matter for police to act on, not a civil contempt proceeding.

Peace Bonds: A Separate, Criminal Court Track

A peace bond is a different tool from a civil protection order, and it starts in a different place: a report to police rather than a Superior Court application. In Quebec, the Crown, called the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP), decides whether to bring a peace bond application forward under Criminal Code sections 810 and 810.03. For the general peace bond mechanics that apply the same way in Quebec as elsewhere in Canada, including the standard of proof, available conditions, duration, and how a breach under section 811 is prosecuted, see peace bonds in Canada.

The Specialized Tribunal for Sexual and Domestic Violence

Quebec also operates a Specialized Tribunal for Sexual Violence and Domestic Violence, created by a separate, earlier law adopted in November 2021, well before Bill 73. It is important to keep this tribunal and the civil protection order described above straight, because they are structurally different things.

The specialized tribunal is a dedicated division of the Cour du Québec, Criminal and Penal Division, the criminal court, not the Superior Court that hears civil protection order applications. It does not itself grant article 515.1 protection orders. What it changes is how criminal proceedings and, structurally, peace bond hearings arising from sexual or domestic violence are handled: trauma informed training for court staff, continuous victim accompaniment through a CAVAC caseworker, adapted physical courthouse spaces, and streamlined case management. The law creating it does not change the applicable legal tests, evidence rules, or procedure; it changes how people are treated while going through them. The government has set a statutory deadline of November 30, 2026 for the tribunal to reach every judicial district in the province; the exact number of districts already covered varies between sources and is treated here as a moving figure, not a fixed one.

Quebec's Protection Tools at a Glance

How This Fits With Other Quebec Family Law Steps

A protection order addresses safety; it does not resolve custody, support, or property questions on its own. If you are also separating or divorcing, see divorce in Canada, separation agreements in Canada, and parenting time and decision making. For couples who were never married, common law relationships in Quebec covers how Quebec treats de facto spouses differently from the rest of Canada. Criminal charges connected to family violence are addressed separately in domestic violence laws in Canada. If a protection order becomes part of a court file you need to locate later, see court records in Quebec. For how Quebec's approach compares to the rest of the country, see the Canada-wide restraining order ladder.

Disclaimer

This article is informational only and is not legal advice. Two points on this page are genuinely unresolved and should not be treated as settled: whether a Quebec protection order application carries a filing fee, and the exact Criminal Code section governing a breach, which is reasoned as section 127 by analogy rather than confirmed by a Quebec specific source. Laws and court procedures change; confirm current requirements with the Superior Court clerk's office or a Quebec family law lawyer before relying on this page. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. Quebec's CAVAC network (Centres d'aide aux victimes d'actes criminels) is available for victim support and information beyond an emergency.