Bradley Franklin Berns

This decision addresses a child protection application under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017, involving two young children found to be in need of protection due to risks of physical harm and exposure to family violence.

The court carefully analyzed the mental health challenges of the mother, the domestic violence between the parents, and the suitability of placement with the maternal aunt.

The court found the mother lacked insight and compliance with treatment, and the father had a history of family violence.

The children were placed in the care of the maternal aunt with supervision by the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, and access orders were made for the parents with conditions.

The judgment also provides a detailed roadmap for the parents to address the protection concerns and work towards reunification.

This is a costs endorsement following a two-day trial on the respondent father's motion to change a child support order.

The applicant mother sought $12,000 in costs, while the father requested no costs.

The court found the mother to be the overall more successful party, noting the father's unreasonable conduct in providing late and incomplete financial disclosure and unreliable evidence.

Despite some divided success on child support termination dates, the father's main request for retroactive reduction was dismissed, and the mother was significantly more successful on the issue of claimed support credits.

The court awarded the mother $7,500 in costs, payable in installments, and ordered them to be enforceable as an incident of support by the Family Responsibility Office.

The respondent father brought a motion to change a 2016 child support order, seeking termination of support and rescission of outstanding arrears, or alternatively, imputation of minimum wage from 2016.

The applicant mother opposed.

The court found a material change in circumstances due to the father's age and medical issues, but rejected his claim of non-service of the original application.

The court imputed income to the father from February 1, 2021, and adjusted child support accordingly.

However, the court refused to rescind arrears, citing the father's blameworthy conduct (abandoning children, failing to make payments or provide disclosure) and lack of full financial disclosure, ordering the arrears to be paid monthly.

The Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto brought a motion to place a 12-year-old child, B., in the temporary care of his mother, subject to supervision.

The father brought a cross-motion seeking temporary care of B. or increased access.

The court applied a flexible, contextual analysis for varying temporary care orders under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act.

The court found that the father lacked insight into B.'s long-standing hygiene, social, and mental health issues, and had not adequately addressed protection concerns.

In contrast, the mother demonstrated significant commitment and a concrete plan to address B.'s needs.

The court dismissed the father's cross-motion and granted the society's motion, placing B. in the mother's temporary care with society supervision, while crafting an access order to foster B.'s connection with his father.

The mother brought a summary judgment motion seeking final custody of two children (ages 10 and 5), the ability to obtain government documentation and travel with the children outside Canada without the father's consent, and a prohibition on the father applying for or renewing government documentation.

The father, who had moved to Nigeria to work as a professor, opposed the custody motion seeking joint custody.

The mother also sought temporary orders for supervised access and child support.

The court granted final custody to the mother and made temporary orders for supervised access with passport deposit requirements and child support based on the father's stated income of $54,936 annually.

The court dismissed the mother's summary judgment motion regarding government documentation and international travel, finding genuine issues requiring trial on those issues.

The respondent (mother) sought spousal support from the applicant (father) following their divorce.

The central issue was whether the Ontario Court of Justice had jurisdiction to make a spousal support order, which required determining whether the parties were still spouses when the mother filed her claim.

The applicant obtained a divorce judgment on October 20, 2017, but the divorce did not take effect until November 20, 2017 (31 days later).

The mother filed her spousal support claim on November 10, 2017, while the parties were still technically married.

The court held that the parties remained spouses until the divorce took effect and therefore the court had jurisdiction to hear the spousal support claim.

This is a costs decision following an eight-day trial concerning parenting and child support arrangements for a six-year-old child.

The respondent (father) sought costs of $20,377, while the applicant (mother) requested no costs be ordered.

The court found the father was substantially successful on custody, incidents of custody, and child support issues, with divided success on access issues.

The court awarded costs of $15,000 inclusive of fees, disbursements and HST, payable at $250 per month starting July 1, 2018, with $3,000 designated as support enforceable by the Family Responsibility Office.

The court considered the father's reasonable behaviour, the mother's unreasonable conduct including breaches of court orders and failure to pay child support, and the mother's ability to access significant litigation funding despite claiming financial hardship.

This was a motion to change a custody and access order following a material change in circumstances.

The mother sought a parallel parenting arrangement with final decision-making authority over medical and religious matters, while the father sought sole custody with supervised access for the mother.

The child, who has autism, had been transferred to the father's care in January 2016 after the mother engaged in a pattern of unfounded allegations against the father and breached court orders.

The court found that the mother had made significant gains in insight and conduct since the custody transfer, but that a joint or parallel parenting arrangement remained unworkable due to poor communication, lack of trust, and the mother's ongoing credibility issues.

The court granted sole custody to the father with gradually increasing unsupervised access to the mother, subject to specific conditions designed to protect the child from exposure to parental conflict and false allegations.

This was a motion to change a custody and access order following a material change in circumstances.

The mother sought a parallel parenting arrangement with final decision-making authority over medical and religious matters, while the father sought sole custody with supervised access for the mother.

The child, who has autism, had been transferred to the father's care in January 2016 after the mother engaged in a pattern of unfounded allegations against the father and breached court orders.

The court found that the mother had made significant gains in insight and conduct since the custody transfer, but that a joint or parallel parenting arrangement remained unworkable due to poor communication, lack of trust, and the mother's ongoing credibility issues.

The court granted sole custody to the father with gradually increasing unsupervised access to the mother, subject to specific conditions designed to protect the child from exposure to parental conflict and false allegations.

The Catholic Children's Aid Society brought a motion for summary judgment seeking a finding that a newborn child was in need of protection and should be made a crown ward with no access for adoption purposes.

The parents opposed the motion.

The court found that there was no genuine issue requiring a trial regarding the child's need for protection, based on the parents' history with their first child and ongoing protection concerns including mental health issues, cognitive impairments, poor access attendance, and limited cooperation with the society.

However, the court found that there were genuine issues requiring a trial regarding the appropriate disposition, as the parents had demonstrated some improvements in their parenting abilities and mental health stability since the apprehension.

The court dismissed the summary judgment motion on disposition and ordered a structured trial to determine whether the child should be returned to the parents' care under a supervision order or made a crown ward.

A child protection trial under the Child and Family Services Act involving two young children (K.P., born 2013, and A.P., born 2014) where the applicant society sought findings of need of protection and Crown wardship without access.

The respondent parents, both with significant cognitive disabilities (father with FASD and frontal lobe damage; mother with intellectual disability), opposed the application and sought various supervision orders.

The court found the children in need of protection based on actual physical harm, risk of physical harm from pattern of neglect, and failure to address developmental delays.

The court rejected all proposed supervision orders due to the parents' lack of insight, poor judgment, inability to self-regulate, and demonstrated unwillingness to cooperate with the society.

Crown wardship without access was ordered as being in the best interests of the children.

Two children who were Crown wards brought motions for temporary openness orders to maintain contact with their biological mother following their placement for adoption with their maternal grandmother and her partner.

The mother also brought applications for openness orders.

The court dismissed the children's motions for temporary openness orders, finding that while the children desired contact with their mother, such contact was not in their best interests given the mother's demonstrated inability to support the adoption placement, her undermining behaviour toward the adoptive family, and the destabilizing effect visits had on the children's emotional well-being and school behaviour.

The court emphasized that openness orders must prioritize the security and stability of the child in the adoptive home.

The applicant father sought the involvement of the Children's Lawyer to ascertain the views and preferences of three children (ages 15, 14, and 10) regarding a motion to change a final access order that had denied him access for over three years.

The respondent mother opposed the involvement of the Children's Lawyer, asserting the children did not wish contact with their father.

The court granted the motion, finding that given the ages of the children and the significance of the access decision to their lives, credible evidence of the children's wishes from a neutral source was necessary before deciding the summary judgment motion.

In a status review application under the Child and Family Services Act, the court considered whether a child should be made a Crown ward for adoption or returned to parental care.

The Society sought Crown wardship without access based on concerns about the mother's alcohol consumption.

The court found that while the mother had consumed alcohol excessively during the relevant period, the risk could be adequately managed through an order placing the child in the legal custody of the non-biological father (who had acted as the child's father since birth) under Society supervision, with strict conditions regarding the mother's abstinence and monitoring.