Stalking Statistics Canada [2026]

Statistics Canada 2024 recorded 30,201 police-reported criminal harassment incidents in Canada in 2023 — a rate of 75 per 100,000, up 6% from 71 in 2022. Self-reported data from the 2014 General Social Survey puts the true scope far higher: approximately 1.9 million Canadians had been stalked in the five preceding years. This post covers prevalence, gender and age breakdowns, cyberstalking, and criminal justice reporting rates across Canada. See the abuse research hub for broader context.

What counts as stalking in Canada

In Canadian law, stalking is the Criminal Code offence of criminal harassment, defined in s. 264. It requires repeated conduct (following, communicating, watching, or threatening) that causes the victim to reasonably fear for their safety. The accused must know or be reckless as to whether they are causing harassment. The offence covers both in-person and electronic behaviour, per Justice Laws 2026.

A single overtly threatening incident can also qualify as criminal harassment; no established pattern of prior contact is required. In R. v. Kohl, 2009 ONCA 100, the Ontario Court of Appeal addressed the scope of threatening conduct under s. 264(2)(d) in the context of non-verbal conduct.

The four prohibited types of conduct under s. 264(2) are set out in the Department of Justice Canada’s Handbook for Police and Crown Prosecutors on Criminal Harassment:

• Repeatedly following the person or anyone known to them
• Repeatedly communicating with them directly or indirectly
• Watching or besetting the places where they reside, work, or carry on business
• Engaging in threatening conduct directed at the person or their family

The maximum sentence on indictment is 10 years’ imprisonment under s. 264(3). When the accused was subject to a court order at the time of the offence, s. 264(4) requires courts to treat this as an aggravating factor.

How common is stalking in Canada: national prevalence and trends

Statistics Canada 2024 recorded 30,201 criminal harassment incidents in 2023, up from 27,553 in 2022; the police-reported rate rose 6% (from 71 to 75 per 100,000) in a single year. The longer historical trend ran in the opposite direction: the police-reported rate fell 19% between 2006 and 2016, per Statistics Canada Juristat 2018. That decade-long decline has since reversed, with UCR data showing rates climbing from 2019 onward.

Statistics Canada 2018 found approximately 1.9 million Canadians aged 15 and older had been stalked in the preceding five years, representing 6% of the population, down from 9% in 2004. The 2014 GSS remains the most recent dedicated stalking self-report survey. The 2025 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces, published by Statistics Canada in March 2026, covers gender-based violence broadly but does not provide stalking-specific prevalence figures.

Criminal harassment ranked fourth among intimate partner violence offences reported to police in Canada in 2022, at 20 per 100,000. Physical assault led at 253 per 100,000, followed by sexual assault (24) and uttering threats (23), per Statistics Canada 2023.

Who is most at risk: gender, age, and relationship breakdowns

Women made up 62% of all stalking victims, while 74% of stalkers were male, according to Statistics Canada 2018. A peer-reviewed analysis of the same 2014 GSS data found women faced 44% higher odds of stalking victimization than men, per PMC 2020. Young adults bear disproportionate risk: 48% of all victims were aged 15 to 34, per Statistics Canada Juristat 2018. Women in that age group alone accounted for 31% of all victims.

Relationship to perpetrator is a critical variable. The table below shows the breakdown from Statistics Canada Juristat 2018:

Seventy percent of stalking victims knew their stalker. Only 27% were targeted by a stranger. Intimate partner stalking was the only stalking type that did not decrease between 2004 and 2014. Women comprised 74% of intimate partner stalking victims, and 60% of those victims were aged 15 to 34, per Statistics Canada Juristat 2018.

Separation dramatically increases risk. Statistics Canada’s multivariate analysis found separated or divorced individuals had seven times the odds of intimate partner stalking compared to those in ongoing relationships. Receiving threatening online messages was the strongest single predictor of stalking victimization. Those who had been cyberbullied or received threatening electronic messages were 556% more likely to also be stalked (odds ratio 6.556), per PMC 2020.

Certain groups face elevated risk beyond the general population. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual Canadians reported a 14% stalking prevalence rate, more than double the 6% rate among heterosexual Canadians. People with a learning disability had a 21% prevalence rate; people with a mental or psychological disability, 19%. Indigenous Canadians reported a 10% rate, compared to 6% for non-Indigenous Canadians, per Statistics Canada Juristat 2018.

For the broader pattern of intimate partner violence in Canada, domestic abuse statistics Canada provides the full gender, age, and provincial breakdown of police-reported IPV data through 2024.

Cyberstalking in Canada: technology-facilitated criminal harassment

Approximately 2.5 million Canadian internet users, 7% of those aged 15 and older, experienced cyberstalking in the five years before 2014, per Statistics Canada Insights 2018. Women faced higher rates than men (8% versus under 6%). Young women aged 15 to 24 reported the highest rate at 14%.

Technology has reshaped how stalking occurs. Unwanted digital contact (emails, text messages, and social media) was reported by 28% of stalking victims in 2014, up sharply from 6% in 2004, per Statistics Canada Juristat 2018. Statistics Canada attributes this 22-percentage-point increase to the expansion of smartphones and social media over that decade.

Among internet users aged 15 to 29, 17%, approximately 1.1 million young people, reported experiencing cyberbullying or cyberstalking in the five years before 2014. Of those victimized, 33% experienced cyberstalking only, 36% cyberbullying only, and 31% experienced both, per Statistics Canada Insights 2016.

The mental health impact is measurable. Women who experienced cyberstalking rated their mental health as “very good” or “excellent” at 56%, compared to 75% of women who had not been cyberstalked, per Statistics Canada 2017.

Online conduct is subject to the same criminal standard as in-person stalking. R. v. Elliott, 2016 ONCJ 35 was Canada’s first criminal harassment prosecution based solely on Twitter activity. An Ontario court confirmed that online messages must satisfy the subjective knowledge element of s. 264: the accused must know or be reckless as to whether the recipient is harassed. The accused was acquitted because the Crown did not prove he knew the complainants feared him, as reported by CBC News 2016. That acquittal shows how high the subjective knowledge bar sits, not that Twitter messages cannot constitute criminal harassment.

For court-admissible documentation of online stalking and digital harassment, social media and internet investigation services can preserve digital evidence before platforms delete content.

How stalking is reported and prosecuted in Canada

Reporting rates (2014 GSS)

• Only 39% of stalking victims in Canada reported the most recent incident to police, per Statistics Canada Juristat 2018
• Intimate partner stalking victims reported at a higher rate (47%) than victims of stranger stalking (37%)
• Of cases reported to police, only 21% resulted in charges against the alleged offender
• When charges were laid, the most common were assault (38%), criminal harassment (27%), and uttering threats (24%)
• Restraining or protective orders were obtained by 25% of victims who reported to police
• 41% of those protection orders were subsequently violated by the offender, per Statistics Canada 2018

Sentencing and court orders

Under s. 264(3) of the Criminal Code, criminal harassment is a hybrid offence. Prosecuted by indictment, it carries a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment; on summary conviction, a lesser penalty applies. Under s. 264(4), if the accused was subject to a court order at the time of the offence, courts must treat this as an aggravating factor. They must also provide written reasons if they decline to apply it, per Justice Laws 2026.

Section 810 of the Criminal Code allows any person who fears on reasonable grounds that another will commit a criminal offence to apply for a peace bond. A peace bond is a court order requiring the respondent to keep the peace for up to 12 months. Courts may impose conditions including no-contact provisions and firearm prohibitions. Breaching a peace bond can result in up to 12 months’ imprisonment, per Justice Laws 2026.

Criminal harassment convictions carried a median probation length of 720 days in Canadian adult criminal courts as of 2020–2021. That figure ranks among the longest probation terms of any violent offence category, alongside sexual assault and attempted murder, per Department of Justice Canada 2023.

What these statistics mean for stalking victims and their families

The data above documents a pattern with a clear escalation risk. Stalking is an established predictor of lethal outcomes, not only a serious offence in its own right.

Between 1997 and 2009, criminal harassment preceded homicide in 68 Canadian cases — an average of five stalking-linked deaths per year. One documented pattern across those cases involved a woman stalked by a recently separated intimate partner before being killed, per the Department of Justice Canada Handbook 2023. Between 2000 and 2011, 25 known cases involved a male ex-spouse accused of criminal harassment before the victim’s death. That represents 15% of ex-spousal homicide cases where a prior offence was known, per Department of Justice Canada 2021.

The emotional burden on victims is substantial. Among stalking victims in Canada, 34% feared for their lives, including 37% of women and 28% of men, per Statistics Canada Juristat 2018. Thirty-five percent reported fear as their primary emotional response. Physical violence accompanied stalking in 18% of cases, and threats or intimidation in 32%. Among intimate partner stalking victims, 33% experienced physical attacks and 42% feared for their lives.

The 41% protection-order violation rate from the 2014 GSS underscores the limitation of court orders as a safety mechanism without documentation. A victim whose stalker violates a peace bond needs a record of the violations — dates, methods, and pattern — before the Crown can act on the breach.

As licensed PIs operating across the GTA, we see stalking cases most often when a client fears for their safety but lacks a documented incident record. Without it, a restraining-order application is much harder to support. That gap between what victims experience and what police records capture is exactly where documented surveillance evidence becomes valuable to legal counsel. Early, systematic documentation of dates, locations, and conduct types is more useful than a single account given after the fact.

Domestic violence investigations at +1 (888) 680-0036 — Licensed · Insured · Bonded — provide court-admissible surveillance documentation for stalking and criminal harassment situations. For the full data on intimate partner violence escalation and homicide in Canada, domestic homicide statistics Canada covers the complete lethality record.