Christina Rorabeck

The applicant father brought a motion for primary residence and sole decision-making of the parties' twin children.

The respondent mother had a history of making false allegations of sexual abuse against the father, engaging in severe alienating behaviours, and unilaterally moving the children out of the jurisdiction in breach of a court order.

Relying on a section 30 parenting assessment that identified severe alienation and recommended a custody reversal, the court found a material change in circumstances.

The court granted the father interim sole decision-making and primary residence, and ordered that the mother have no contact with the children for 90 days, followed by supervised parenting time, to allow the children to reintegrate into the father's care.

The parties separated and the mother relocated from Kingston to Welland.

The father sought primary residence of the three children in Kingston, while the mother sought primary residence in Welland.

The court applied the best interests of the child test, including the relocation factors under the Children's Law Reform Act, and determined that the children should reside primarily with the father in Kingston to maintain stability.

The court also imputed income to the mother based on full-time minimum wage for the purpose of calculating retroactive and ongoing child support.

The respondent husband brought a motion for equal regular parenting time and holiday time, while the applicant wife brought a cross-motion seeking a different parenting schedule and retroactive child support.

The parties had previously entered into a separation agreement providing for joint custody and liberal access for the husband, which had been gradually expanded.

The court dismissed the husband's motion for equal parenting time, finding that he failed to establish a pre-separation shared parenting status quo or explain why the current arrangement should be altered on an interim basis, and instead granted the wife's proposed schedule.

The court also granted the wife's request for retroactive child support based on the husband's full income, including overtime, effective October 1, 2020.

This case involved a motion and cross-motion to change a final consent order regarding custody, parenting time, child support, and Section 7 expenses for a 4.5-year-old child.

The court maintained joint custody, denying the mother's request for a final say in decision-making and the father's request for immediate 50/50 parenting.

Instead, a gradual increase in the father's parenting time was ordered, leading to a 2-2-3 shared parenting schedule after the 2020/2021 school year.

Specific holiday schedules, rules for exchanges, passport/travel, extended health benefits, and communication protocols were established.

The court also addressed child support arrears, adjusting the father's payments retroactively and ordering monthly payments towards arrears.

A prohibition on the child's contact with the father's brother, who faced child pornography charges, was also ordered.

On competing family law motions concerning child access, relocation, grandparent contact, and proposed reunification therapy, the court found that the child's serious illness and the family's relocation to southwestern Ontario constituted a material change in circumstances.

The court declined to terminate the father's supervised access or the grandparents' access, granted the mother's request to relocate, and granted the father's request to amend his pleadings to seek custody.

Limited supervised in-person access in the London area was ordered together with telephone and written contact, while the therapy request was dismissed without prejudice because the evidentiary record lacked necessary particulars.

Costs were awarded primarily to the moving party for the earlier successful attendance, with no costs order as between the main parties for the later hearing.

A mother sought leave to appeal an interim order granting temporary access between children and their paternal grandparents in a family law proceeding.

The moving party argued that the motion judge failed to properly consider the children’s views and preferences under s. 64 of the Children's Law Reform Act, declined to interview the children despite their request, and did not wait for a report from the Office of the Children’s Lawyer.

The court found that the motion judge had already ordered observational visits specifically to obtain independent evidence of the children’s views and preferences, which was available on the motion.

The decision not to personally interview the children was a discretionary choice given the evidence before the court.

The court held that the correctness of the interim order was not open to very serious debate and did not raise a matter of public importance warranting appellate review.

The parties separated in 2006 and shared parenting of their 10-year-old child.

After the mother planned to relocate, the father obtained an interim without prejudice order for week-on/week-off shared custody and prohibiting the child's relocation.

The mother subsequently brought a motion to vary the interim order to implement the access recommendations of a newly released Office of the Children's Lawyer report, which recommended primary residence with the mother.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the OCL report did not mandate immediate action and that maintaining the existing week-on/week-off arrangement provided stability and was in the child's best interests pending trial.