Justice K.A. Baker

A Form 14b motion brought by the respondent seeking summary judgment on custody, access, and child support matters.

The applicant, who was self-represented, had effectively abandoned the proceedings and had not seen the child for over a year.

The court found that the applicant had abdicated his parental responsibilities and granted the respondent sole custody of the child.

Access was granted at the sole discretion of the respondent.

Child support was ordered retroactively from June 1, 2019, based on an imputed income of $35,500 per annum.

The respondent was permitted to travel outside Ontario and move residence without the applicant's consent.

Issues regarding First Nations status and costs were reserved for a future return date.

In a temporary care hearing under the Child and Family Services Act, the court determined whether three children should remain in the care of the Society or be returned to their mother's care.

The central issue was whether the mother had sole charge of the two younger children prior to intervention, or whether charge was shared with the father.

The court found that the mother's poor judgment in exposing the children to a serious drug trafficking situation, combined with her lack of cooperation with the Society's investigation and her provision of false information, established a reasonable basis to believe the children would suffer harm if returned to her care.

A supervision order was found inadequate to mitigate the risks.

The court ordered the oldest child to remain in the Society's care with the maternal grandmother as kin-in-care placement, and the two younger children to remain with their father subject to supervision.

A Form 14b motion brought by Brant Family and Children's Services seeking a final order in accordance with an Agreed Statement of Facts.

The court found the child continues to be in need of protection and that placement with paternal grandparents is in the child's best interests.

However, the court rejected many of the proposed access terms as overly broad and not properly tailored to harm reduction.

The court modified the order to remove conditions requiring parents to complete programming and demonstrate sobriety as prerequisites to access, while maintaining supervision and a restriction on the father's residence in the grandparents' home.

The respondent father brought a Form 14B motion seeking production orders from non-parties, including police, paramedics, Brantford Family and Children's Services, and various hospitals, for records relating to the applicant mother's substance abuse, physical health, mental health, and fitness to parent.

The applicant cross-moved to amend the application and to schedule a settlement conference.

The court dismissed the respondent's motion for production, finding that the requests were overly broad, speculative, and not sufficiently connected to the issues in the case.

The court granted the applicant's request to amend her pleadings and scheduled a settlement conference in place of the scheduled focused hearing.

The applicant sought make-up access time with the subject child and costs following a motion to change.

The respondent had unilaterally terminated the applicant's regular weekend access during the COVID-19 public health emergency, in breach of a valid court order.

The parties negotiated a resolution to most substantive issues, leaving only the make-up access and costs issues to be determined.

The court awarded the applicant two full weekends of make-up access and costs of $1,500.00.

The applicant brought an urgent motion under section 14B regarding access to the subject child.

The parties subsequently resolved the immediate issue of time share and agreed that the urgent hearing scheduled for May 12, 2020 was no longer necessary.

The remaining issues were make-up time and costs.

The court ordered that these discrete and uncomplicated matters be resolved through affidavit evidence and written submissions rather than oral hearing, in accordance with updated Family Scheduling Memo guidelines and the primary objective of the Family Court Rules to promote active case management.

The respondent brought a motion to change a child support order, seeking retroactive adjustment of support and rescission of arrears.

The original order, made in 2014, imputed income of $130,000 per annum to the respondent based on his default in the original proceedings.

The respondent claimed a material change in circumstances due to a 2013 kidnapping that allegedly affected his income-earning capacity.

The court found that the respondent failed to establish a material change in circumstances, provided insufficient and unreliable evidence of his current income, failed to comply with disclosure obligations, and did not demonstrate that the children remained dependents.

The motion was dismissed, and support was terminated effective March 1, 2020.

The Children's Aid Society brought a motion for summary judgment seeking protection findings and a disposition order for three children in foster care.

The Society sought to have all three children removed permanently from the mother's care and placed in extended care with a plan for adoption as a sibling group, with no access to either parent.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the Society failed to meet its onus to demonstrate there was no genuine issue requiring trial on the issue of disposition.

The court found critical evidentiary deficiencies in the Society's case, including inadmissible hearsay evidence regarding drug testing and inadequate evidence regarding parenting capacity based on summarized access notes and group reports.