CRIMINAL LAW IS NOT THE PANACEA FOR ALL OF OUR SOCIAL ILLS – It seems imprudent to develop a new criminal offence of “coercive control” when we can’t define what that means. “The submission points out several concerns about the bill, with the first being that there is no uniform definition of coercive control. If you look at the academic literature, there’s one review study that has found 22 different definitions. It’s not like everybody is crystal clear on what we mean by coercive control,” says Mosher.