The executive director of Vancouver-based Battered Women's Support Services, Angela Marie MacDougall, has told the Tyee that changes coming to the Family Relations Act could be dangerous to B.C. women.

MacDougall said that her organization and others have repeatedly voiced concerns that mediation is neither safe nor effective for spouses who have been the victims of abuse.

The Attorney General’s office issued a white paper last week detailing a proposed overhaul of family law in B.C.. Among the changes discussed is a shift of emphasis away from the courts and towards mediated dispute resolution.

According to the paper: “Substantive law should not imply that the courtroom is the primary forum for resolving family law disputes.”

"The fact that these reservations have been tabled with the government, the fact that he notes them in the white paper report and yet is prepared to proceed with them tells us that there is a definite lack of concern about women's safety in these processes," said MacDougall.

Tracy Porteous, director of the Ending Violence Association of British Columbia, agreed with MacDougall's assessment of the risks of an poorly implemented dispute resolution process and suggested precautionary measures.

"When somebody's safety is an issue, mediation or dispute resolution of any kind is never appropriate..." said Porteous, "Anybody who works in the anti-violence field would share those concerns. If this is going to be promoted as something to be streaming more people through, I think it's even more incumbent on the province to have an effective screen for violence and the ability to move people out of the process."

Despite her criticisms, Porteous feels that the proposed changes to the Family Relations Act encapsulate several "very positive" concepts, particularly a legal definition of family violence that B.C. currently lacks.

"Historically, we have a family court that isn't necessarily given the tools to systematically consider other courts' decisions," she said.

MacDougall is less sanguine about the government's responsiveness to concerns about the changes.

"The fact is, [Minister de Jong] is ignoring the concerns of anti-violence organizations. So they've named family violence in the documents, but so what?" she said, "We're doing 50 new intakes a week. We've got 100 women on our wait-list. So we're nowhere near addressing this issue and this stuff is just going to make it more difficult for us to deal with the day-to-day."

The Ministry is accepting feedback on the paper until October 8th.

Ryan Elias is completing a practicum with The Tyee.