Jennifer Swan

The applicant father sought unsupervised parenting time and shared decision-making responsibility for the parties' young child.

The respondent mother sought sole decision-making, supervised parenting time for the father, and a final restraining order due to a history of family violence, alcohol abuse, and coercive control.

The court found the father engaged in a relentless campaign of harassment and threatening behaviour against the mother, her counsel, and various service providers.

The court granted the mother sole decision-making responsibility, ordered the father's parenting time to remain supervised indefinitely, granted a final restraining order against the father, and ordered him to pay ongoing and retroactive child support.

The respondent mother sought an order for costs against the applicant father for breaching a prior court order that mandated all communications between the parties be through counsel or a third party, limited to child-related issues, brief, informative, courteous, and free of derogatory comments.

The applicant sent numerous emails and text messages directly to the respondent and her counsel that were derogatory, offensive, and threatening.

The court found the applicant in clear breach of the communication terms, rejected his claims of frustration and misunderstanding, and awarded costs of $5,000 for the breach and $500 for the motion to the respondent.

On a motion and cross-motion to vary a temporary parenting order under the Children’s Law Reform Act, the court found a material change in circumstances based on the moving party’s threatening, coercive and controlling communications, persistent attempts to unilaterally alter parenting terms, and broader evidence of family violence, substance abuse concerns, and dysregulation.

Applying the CLRA best-interests framework, with primary emphasis on the child’s physical, emotional and psychological safety, security and well-being, the court held that unsupervised parenting time was no longer appropriate.

The moving party’s request for expanded parenting time was dismissed, and the responding party obtained an order requiring professionally supervised parenting time, limited in frequency and duration.

The court declined to grant a formal restraining order, but imposed no-attendance and communication restrictions.

The applicant sought to set aside the spousal support terms of a 2010 Minutes of Settlement and Consent on the grounds of uncertainty, duress, undue influence, and unconscionability, and sought retroactive spousal support.

The court found that the claims to set aside the agreement were not statute-barred.

However, the court dismissed the claims on their merits, finding no evidence of duress, undue influence, or unconscionability.

The court also declined to override the agreement under the Miglin framework, finding that the agreement substantially complied with the objectives of the Divorce Act.

The respondent was ordered to pay the outstanding balance of $8,780.00 owed under the Consent.

The respondent father brought a motion to find the applicant mother in contempt of a joint custody order and to force their 11-year-old daughter to return to her previous school.

The father alleged the mother unilaterally transferred the child to a new school for a sports program without his consent.

The court dismissed the contempt motion, finding the father was aware of the proposed change and did not object until the school year began.

The court also dismissed the request to change the child's school, noting the child's excitement and happiness at the new school and the lack of contradictory evidence from the father.

Following motions regarding child access, contempt, and a publication ban, both parties sought costs.

The father had brought a motion to change access after being criminally charged, and a contempt motion which he later withdrew.

The mother had sought a publication ban and severely restricted access.

The court found divided success, noting the father's contempt motion was inappropriate and the mother's position on access was unreasonable.

Applying Rule 24 of the Family Law Rules, the court ordered that each party bear their own costs.

The respondent father sought an interim order to vary the access provisions of a final order due to criminal charges laid against him, including sexual assault and sexual interference involving children.

The applicant mother opposed the father's proposed terms, advocating for stricter, professionally supervised access.

The court found a material and exceptional change in circumstances warranting an interim variation under its parens patriae jurisdiction.

Balancing the seriousness of the unproven allegations against the father's lack of prior record and the child's need for contact, the court ordered supervised access by the father's wife, S.M., with specific conditions, rejecting the mother's request for professional supervision due to cost and the availability of an approved supervisor.

The applicant mother sought a sealing order, a publication ban, and permission to disclose a criminal bail hearing transcript to herself and the family court, following the respondent father's criminal charges.

The court applied the Dagenais/Mentuck test, balancing the open court principle with the need to protect the child from harm and prevent circumvention of the criminal court's publication ban.

The court granted a publication ban and initialization of parties and the child, finding these measures sufficient to prevent identified risks without a full sealing order.

Permission was also granted for the redacted bail hearing transcript to be provided to the mother and filed with the court.

The maternal grandparents sought full indemnity costs of $21,008.73 against the mother following a successful motion for make-up access.

The court found that the mother had acted in bad faith by deliberately obstructing the grandparents' court-ordered access and raising unsubstantiated abuse allegations.

The court rejected the mother's request to apportion costs to the father.

After reviewing the bill of costs and making adjustments for excessive claims and unrelated tasks, the court awarded the grandparents full indemnity costs fixed at $13,190.00, payable in two installments due to the mother's limited financial means.

The Catholic Children's Aid Society brought a summary judgment motion seeking Crown wardship with no access for a 20-month-old child who had been in care since birth.

The child's parents did not oppose the motion, but the maternal grandmother sought custody or access.

The court found no genuine issue for trial regarding the grandmother's plan, noting her history of child welfare involvement, substance abuse, and lack of insight.

The court granted summary judgment, finding the child in need of protection and ordering Crown wardship with no access to facilitate adoption.

In a child protection summary judgment motion under Part III of the Child and Family Services Act, the society sought Crown Wardship without access for a child who had been in care since birth.

The court held there was no genuine issue for trial as against either the mother or the maternal grandmother, finding the evidence showed ongoing concerns about domestic violence, failure to protect, instability, and the absence of a sufficiently secure and permanent kin placement.

Applying the statutory best interests factors, the court concluded that delay would be harmful and that the proposed family placements did not provide the necessary permanency.

The court also held that continued access would not be beneficial and meaningful from the child’s perspective and would likely impair future adoption opportunities.

In a status review proceeding under the Child and Family Services Act, the court considered whether five children continued to require protection and what permanent placement would serve their best interests.

The evidence established a lengthy history of child protection involvement involving severe neglect, unsafe and unsanitary home conditions, inadequate supervision, educational neglect, exposure to sexualized behaviour, and parental instability.

Both parents demonstrated significant limitations in parenting capacity, insight, and ability to meet the children’s complex developmental and emotional needs despite extensive services.

The court concluded that the children remained in need of protection and that returning them to either parent would expose them to serious risks of harm.

Crown wardship was ordered with structured supervised access to both parents and supervised sibling access.

Following a second trial in a family law matter, the court determined the costs for both the first and second trials.

The first trial had been overturned on appeal due to inadequate reasons by the trial judge.

The court declined to award costs for the first trial, finding neither party at fault for its failure.

For the second trial, the applicant was substantially more successful and had made a reasonable offer to settle.

However, the court noted that both parties had unnecessarily lengthened the proceedings.

The court awarded the applicant partial indemnity costs of $150,000 for the second trial.

In this family trial arising from a long-running marriage breakdown, the court determined the enforceability of an Islamic Mahr, child support and section 7 expenses, equalization, post-separation property adjustments, and spousal support.

The court set aside the Mahr because the parties did not read Arabic, there was no reliable evidence of negotiation or informed consent, and the court was not satisfied the husband understood the nature of what he signed.

For child support, the court accepted the applicant's accounting evidence, declined to impute additional income for intentional underemployment, imputed at least $200,000 income to the respondent due to unreliable disclosure, and ordered ongoing table support based on $500,000 income with equal sharing of specified section 7 expenses.

The court ordered the respondent to pay equalization and post-separation adjustment amounts, and dismissed the respondent's retroactive and ongoing spousal support claims for lack of compensatory or needs-based entitlement.