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Police disciplinary documents and compelled testimony are inadmissible in family trial, but underlying facts remain provable.
The respondent mother brought a motion at the opening of a family law trial to determine the admissibility of evidence regarding the applicant father's professional misconduct as a police officer.
The father argued that the Police Services Act created an absolute privilege over all information related to his disciplinary proceedings.
The court held that while documents prepared for the disciplinary process and testimony from those involved are inadmissible and non-compellable, the underlying facts of the misconduct, the charges, and the outcome are provable facts at trial.
The court also rejected arguments that the father had waived privilege or that the Divorce Act paramountcy overrode the provincial statute.
Interim family orders revised to reflect jurisdiction under the Divorce Act rather than provincial legislation.
The parties submitted a proposed order incorporating terms from a previous endorsement.
The court revised the order to specify that the interim child support and reunification counselling orders are made under the Divorce Act alone.
The court noted that applications under the Family Law Act and Children's Law Reform Act are stayed once a divorce action is commenced.
The court granted the mother temporary primary residence of the children after the father unilaterally withheld them and defaulted on a motion to change.
The Applicant mother brought an urgent motion regarding timesharing for the parties' four children after the Respondent father refused to return them following March break, citing COVID-19 concerns, and then unexpectedly moved back to the Ottawa area, seeking to revert to an old timesharing schedule.
The court found the father in default of the mother's prior motion to change the final order and rejected his interpretation of the existing order regarding homeschooling during school closures.
The court granted temporary orders for the children to primarily reside with the mother during the regular school year, with the father having alternate weekend access, reflecting the status quo since September 2019.
The father was allowed time to file a response to the mother's motion to change.
