Erika M. Young

The father appealed from the dismissal of his appeal from four family law orders relating to custody and access of three children.

The lower court orders had modified the father's access from unsupervised to supervised, citing concerns about the father's conduct in disparaging the mother to the children and the sporadic nature of his visits.

The father failed to obtain required transcripts for the appeal hearing and insisted on proceeding without them.

The appeal judge dismissed the appeal as having no merit.

The father appealed, arguing denial of procedural fairness and inadequate reasons.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no procedural unfairness and confirming that the appeal had no merit based on the materials before the lower court judge.

This trial addressed complex parenting arrangements, child support, and spousal support following a high-conflict separation.

The court ordered joint custody with equal parenting time for the two young children, implementing a hybrid parallel parenting regime where specific decision-making authorities were divided between the parents (mother for medical health, father for religion and dental health, extracurriculars rotated yearly).

A Parenting Coordinator was appointed to manage ongoing conflict.

Child support arrears owed by the father were set off against time-limited spousal support payable to the father by the mother.

Ongoing child support was ordered based on a set-off of their respective Table amounts.

The matrimonial home was transferred to the mother, and no equalization payment was ordered.

The respondent father brought an urgent motion seeking an order for equal time sharing of the child, preventing the applicant mother from removing the child from the jurisdiction, and the appointment of the Office of the Children’s Lawyer (OCL).

The applicant mother opposed the urgency of the motion, except for the OCL appointment.

The court dismissed the father's request for an urgent motion regarding the parenting schedule and daycare, finding these issues were not urgent enough to bypass a case conference.

However, the court found the potential flight risk and abduction concerning the mother's stated intention to move to Halifax with the child to be urgent, and ordered that the child not be moved from Ottawa's jurisdiction without the father's consent or further court order.

The OCL involvement was reserved for the case conference.