Jennifer Nicole Blackwood

This endorsement implements a direction from the Court of Appeal for Ontario, which remitted the matter back to the Superior Court of Justice to alter a final parenting order.

The court ordered that the father may request a review of the parenting time provisions, including supervised access terms, within 12 months of February 24, 2025.

This review will proceed via a Motion to Change under the Family Law Rules without requiring the father to demonstrate a material change of circumstances.

Any subsequent requests to vary the parenting time orders will require demonstrating a material change of circumstances, sensitive to the fact that the case involves an adult child who cannot withdraw from parental charge.

The appellant father appealed a final parenting order regarding his adult child with Down Syndrome.

The trial judge had ordered that the father have no unsupervised parenting time, and that supervised parenting time occur only at the respondent mother's discretion.

The Court of Appeal admitted fresh evidence confirming the child's views could not be easily ascertained, satisfying the presumption of capacity framework.

However, the Court found the trial judge erred by failing to include a review mechanism in the order, given that the adult child would never 'age out' of it.

The appeal was allowed in part and remitted to the trial judge to structure a built-in review mechanism to allow the father to seek unsupervised parenting time in the future.

The applicant mother brought an urgent motion for the immediate return of her two children, who had remained with the respondent father after March break during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The father had unilaterally withheld the children, alleging physical abuse by the mother, which was investigated and closed by child protection authorities without finding imminent concerns.

The court found the father's actions to be a "self-help remedy" contrary to the rule of law and granted the mother's motion for the children's immediate return, along with a modest request for costs.