A. Green

The parties separated after a 16-year marriage.

Most parenting issues were resolved prior to or during the trial.

The remaining issues for the court were the equalization of net family property and who should hold the children's passports.

The court ordered the applicant mother to hold the passports for the two children in her primary care, and the respondent father to hold the passport for their special needs child.

On equalization, the court found the applicant did not own a plot of land or a school in Pakistan, and that the wedding jewellery was jointly owned.

The respondent was ordered to pay an equalization payment of $63,981.73.

Following a 14-day trial where the applicant father successfully resisted the respondent mother's application to relocate their child to Michigan, the court determined the issue of costs.

The court found that neither party beat their respective offers to settle and that neither party engaged in bad faith.

Applying a 60% partial indemnity rate to the father's reasonable costs and considering the mother's ability to pay, the court awarded the father $65,000 in costs, payable in monthly installments of $380.

The mother sought permission to move the primary residence of the parties' eight-year-old child to Michigan to live with her fiancé.

The father opposed the move and brought a motion to change the existing parenting schedule to expand his parenting time and adjust child support.

The mother also sought a declaration that the father is a vexatious litigant.

The court found that the proposed move constituted a material change in circumstances but concluded that relocating to Michigan was not in the child's best interests, as it would disrupt the child's strong bonds with the father and extended family in Ontario.

The court dismissed the mother's request to relocate, dismissed the vexatious litigant claim, and adjusted the parenting schedule and section 7 expenses.