Still Fighting at Midnight: Why I Am Updating This Petition & Demanding Urgent Family Law Reform
Thank you to every single person who signed, shared, and stood beside us when I first launched this petition. If you have wondered why things went quiet here for so long, the honest answer is simple: surviving the family court system takes every ounce of energy a mother has left.
Today, my daughter is 31 months old (adjusted age). By day, I work full-time as a nurse on a heavy acute-care hospital unit, caring for patients and families through some of the hardest moments of their lives. When my shift ends, I come home to be the sole guardian, sole provider, and entire safe world for my toddler.
And at night - after bath time, stories, and finally getting my little girl to sleep - my second job begins. Instead of resting before my next hospital shift, I sit at my table late into the night studying case law, learning court rules, and assembling a massive Mandatory Intake Triage (MIT) court package completely on my own. After pouring more than $25,000 out of pocket into a family law industry that profits off prolonged conflict without securing our safety, I had no choice left but to educate myself and self-represent.
Why I Am Updating This Petition Right Now Over the past two years, the gaps that put sole-guardian mothers and young children at risk have become even clearer - and I have updated our petition’s core demands to reflect what needs to change right now in Alberta and across Canada:
▪ When Criminal Thresholds Fail, Family Courts Double the Harm: Across Canada, sky-high prosecutorial standards mean sexual violence and intimate partner abuse charges routinely end in stays of proceedings before evidence is ever heard at trial. Even the Department of Justice recognizes that when criminal proceedings are stayed, there is no verdict on guilt or innocence and no closure for victims. Yet family courts still treat a stay of proceedings as an excuse to erase documented abuse, ignoring their legal duty to assess child and survivor safety on a civil balance of probabilities.
▪ Biological Contribution Is Not Co-Parenting: Our laws still fail to protect sole-guardian mothers when the other party is purely a biological contributor and a psychological stranger to the child—where there was never marriage, never cohabitation, never a co-parenting relationship, and a history of abuse before, during, and escalating after pregnancy.
▪ Alberta’s Laws Are Lagging Behind Federal Coercive Control Reforms: In July 2026, Canada’s Protecting Victims Act (Bill C-16) officially made coercive control a crime under the Criminal Code. Yet Alberta’s Family Law Act and Protection Against Family Violence Act still leave non-cohabiting mothers unprotected, while new "resolution-focused" court processes force protective mothers through exhausting bureaucratic hoops against respondents who withhold child support and use court filings to harass and financially drain us.
How You Can Help Me Reignite Momentum Tonight November is Family Violence Prevention Month in Alberta. No frontline worker, no sole mother, and no toddler should have to gamble their safety - or spend midnight after midnight acting as their own lawyer - because provincial laws prioritize adult biological entitlement over a child’s stability.
a. Read our updated 5-point reform demands on the main petition page.
b. Share this petition link today with three friends, coworkers, or community groups.
c. Watch for our next update: Alongside sending these demands directly to Alberta Cabinet Ministers and MLAs this week, I am preparing an official House of Commons e-Petition to force a formal federal government response.
Every share reminds lawmakers that we are watching - and reminds mothers awake at midnight fighting for their children that we are not alone.
With deep gratitude and determination,
A Frontline Nurse, Sole Mother, and Survivor