Karmel Sinclair

The parties, who separated in 2019, engaged in a high-conflict parenting dispute regarding their two children.

The father sought a shared parenting schedule and split decision-making responsibility, while the mother sought primary residence and sole decision-making responsibility.

The court found that the father had engaged in family violence by weaponizing the mother's past involvement in sex work against her and had acted manipulatively regarding parenting arrangements and child support.

The court rejected the Office of the Children's Lawyer's recommendation for shared parenting, finding it would increase conflict and destabilize the children.

The mother was granted primary residence and sole decision-making responsibility, with the father maintaining alternate weekend and Tuesday parenting time.

The court also fixed child support arrears at $19,187.90 and ordered the parties to share section 7 expenses equally.

The father brought a second motion to change parenting time, seeking increased time, changes to communication methods, and transfer locations.

The mother sought dismissal.

The court first addressed whether a material change in circumstances had occurred, finding that the termination of a restraining order and alleged visit cancellations by the mother did not constitute a material change.

Despite this, the court proceeded to analyze the child's best interests, giving significant weight to the child's expressed views and preferences from a Voice of the Child report, which indicated the child's stress from ongoing litigation and desire for the current schedule with flexibility.

The court dismissed the father's motion to change, maintaining the existing parenting order with minor amendments to allow for flexibility and direct communication between the child and either parent.

Following a three-week family law trial regarding parenting time and decision-making responsibility, both parties sought costs exceeding $200,000.

The court found that the parties achieved equal success at trial and that both had engaged in unreasonable behaviour that unnecessarily protracted the litigation.

Considering the parties' limited financial means and the best interests of the child, the court ordered that no costs be payable by either party.

The applicant father sought joint decision-making and expanded parenting time, including overnights, for his four-year-old child.

The respondent mother sought sole decision-making and supervised parenting time, raising concerns about the father's alcohol use and unverified allegations of abuse.

The court awarded sole decision-making to the mother due to the parents' high conflict and poor communication.

The court granted the father expanded parenting time, including overnights and summer access, finding it in the child's best interests to have a meaningful relationship with him.

However, the father was ordered to complete an alcohol abuse program and use a breathalyzer device before and during his parenting time until completion.

The Applicant Father sought to exclude private investigator surveillance evidence obtained by the Respondent Mother, arguing she failed to provide complete disclosure of the investigators' files despite multiple court orders.

The Mother sought leave to admit the evidence under Rule 53.08 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The court found that the Mother's failure to disclose the complete file prejudiced the Father's ability to assess the evidence and prepare for trial.

Given the highly prejudicial nature of the videos, the lack of full disclosure, and the inability to cross-examine the investigators, the court excluded the surveillance evidence in its entirety, including for the purpose of impeachment.

The parties separated after a 28-year marriage and disputed the equalization of their net family property.

The main issues were whether the respondent's 50% titled interest in her mother's home should be included in her net family property, and whether the applicant could deduct a $250,000 contingent liability for an estate claim against the matrimonial home.

The court found the respondent held her interest in her mother's home on a resulting trust, excluding it from her net family property.

The court attributed a nominal value of $25,000 to the applicant's contingent liability due to the low risk of the claim succeeding.

The applicant was ordered to pay an equalization payment and costs.

The Children's Aid Society of Toronto brought a motion to transfer a child protection application to the York Region Children's Aid Society.

The respondent mother opposed the transfer, seeking to maintain the application in Toronto where she claimed to have community supports and was planning to establish residence.

The court granted the transfer, finding that the York society's four-year involvement with the mother and her other children, combined with the overlap of evidence and protection concerns between the current child and a sibling already before the York courts, made transfer appropriate in the best interests of the child.

The court rejected the mother's arguments regarding her Toronto residency plans and community supports as insufficiently substantiated.

The father brought a motion to change a child support order dated September 29, 2015, which required him to pay $508 monthly for two children based on an imputed annual income of $35,000.

The father sought to reduce or eliminate support based on his actual income, claiming he was on social assistance.

The mother and the City of Toronto (assignee of child support arrears) opposed the motion.

The court found no change in circumstances warranting modification.

The father remained intentionally unemployed, having pursued education instead of employment, restricted his job search to welding positions despite admitting he could find other work, and maintained a lifestyle inconsistent with social assistance income alone.

The court dismissed the motion and upheld the imputed income, ordering arrears payments of $200 monthly.

Two competing motions to change a final custody and access order.

The father sought specified unsupervised access to two children; the mother sought supervised access, change from joint to sole custody, and child support.

The court found a material change in circumstances based on escalating parental conflict, the father's campaign to discredit the mother's parenting, and the mother's de facto assumption of sole custodial responsibilities.

The court varied the joint custody order to sole custody to the mother, expanded the father's access to the younger child to unsupervised time, and maintained supervised access to the older child with a graduated transition plan.

Child support was affirmed based on the father's disclosed income.

The paternal grandmother brought a motion to set aside or change an order placing an 11-year-old child in the care of her parents, K.S. and A.H., who had a long-standing addiction to crystal methamphetamine and other drugs.

The motion was brought on an urgent basis after the grandmother learned that the mother had tested positive for crystal methamphetamine on October 11, 2016, but this information was not disclosed to the grandmother until November 28, 2016.

The court applied the test under subsection 64(8) of the Child and Family Services Act, which requires that a child remain in the care of the person having charge unless the court is satisfied that the child's best interests require a change.

The court found that the parents failed to meet their onus to demonstrate that a change in custody was necessary.

The court granted the motion and ordered that the child remain in the temporary care and custody of the paternal grandmother, with weekend access to the parents subject to conditions including random drug testing and restrictions on discussing court proceedings with the child.

This is a costs decision following a two-day family law trial concerning custody, access, and child support of a minor child.

The applicant sought joint custody and shared parenting, while the respondent sought sole custody and retroactive child support.

The respondent was largely successful at trial.

The court awarded costs to the respondent on a full recovery basis in the amount of $7,459.95, finding that the applicant's positions on all issues were unreasonable, he failed to provide adequate financial disclosure, and the respondent's offer to settle was as good as or more favourable than the final order obtained.

A child protection agency sought a temporary order placing a child in society care following disclosures by an older sibling of prolonged sexual and physical abuse by the stepfather and allegations of physical assault against the younger child.

The mother denied the allegations and sought the child’s return under a supervision order after the stepfather left the home.

The court accepted the sibling’s detailed allegations and the younger child’s disclosure of choking as credible at the temporary stage and considered the family’s history with child protection authorities.

It concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe the child would suffer harm if returned to the mother and that supervision conditions would not adequately mitigate the risk.

Temporary society care with controlled parental access was therefore ordered pending the protection application.

A temporary care and custody hearing under Part III of the Child and Family Services Act wherein the applicant society sought to place a child in its care and custody with access at the society's discretion.

The respondent mother sought an order placing the child in her care subject to society supervision.

The child's counsel supported the mother's position.

The court found reasonable grounds to believe the child would likely suffer harm if returned to the mother's care based on the mother's history of involvement with child protection agencies, her failure to protect children from relationships with men posing risk, and her lack of insight into protecting her children.

The court determined that a supervision order would be inadequate to protect the child given the mother's past non-compliance and her strongly held belief in the alleged perpetrator's innocence.

The court ordered the child placed in the temporary care and custody of the society.