Child protection

A temporary care and custody motion under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act concerning four children with developmental, emotional, medical and educational needs.

The Children's Aid Society sought to maintain custody of the children after they were brought into care on December 18, 2019, due to protection concerns arising from the father's mental health crisis, controlling behaviour, and refusal to cooperate with services.

The mother, who had been subject to the father's domination, sought the return of the children.

The court found that while protection concerns existed, a supervision order placing the children with the mother was appropriate, provided she lived separately from the father and his contact with the children was supervised by the CAS.

This is a status review application concerning a child in the care of the Children's Aid Society of Toronto.

The child was apprehended at birth due to the mother's history of substance abuse and failure to engage in prenatal care.

The mother sought return of the child to her care, while the Society sought an order for extended Society wardship with a view to adoption by the child's foster mother.

The court found that while the mother had made significant progress in maintaining sobriety and demonstrating parenting capacity during supervised visits, she had not yet demonstrated the ability to parent the child full-time without supervision.

The court ordered extended Society wardship but granted the mother monthly unsupervised access to maintain the relationship.

The Children's Aid Society sought findings of risk of physical harm, emotional harm, and emotional harm with treatment not provided under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act regarding two children.

The mother had a history of inappropriate physical discipline, verbal abuse, and failure to engage with professional services.

The father did not participate in the proceedings.

The court found that both children were in need of protection and ordered them into interim Society care for six months with access to the mother at the Society's discretion.

This is a voir dire ruling on the admissibility of hearsay evidence consisting of statements made by a child during a school interview by child protection workers.

The court considered whether the statements met the twin requirements of necessity and threshold reliability under the principled approach to hearsay admissibility.

The court found that threshold reliability had not been met due to multiple weaknesses in the interview process, including lack of recording, absence of specific questions, unclear temporal information, and the child's behavioral difficulties.

The hearsay statements were excluded from trial evidence.

A child protection application concerning a nine-month-old child born to parents with histories of substance abuse and incarceration.

The society sought extended society care with no access.

The father sought continuation of weekly supervised access.

The court considered whether an access order would be in the child's best interests under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, applying the holistic best interests test.

The court found that while the father's visits were positive in quality, they were inconsistent in frequency and timing.

Critically, a prospective adoptive family willing to adopt the child with her half-sibling was prepared to do so only without an access order.

The court determined that no access order was in the child's best interests, balancing the benefits of maintaining biological connection against the certainty of immediate permanent placement with a racially and culturally matched family.

The Children's Aid Society brought a motion for production of hospital records from Sault Area Hospital relating to the father in a child protection proceeding.

The father opposed the motion on Charter grounds and argued the request was overly broad.

The court found that mental health records may be relevant to the child protection issues, including allegations of sexual abuse and concerns about the father's mental health.

The court rejected the Charter challenge, finding no evidentiary basis for a breach.

The court ordered production of records from January 1, 2006 to present, but elected to review the records itself before releasing them to the Society to balance the father's privacy interests against the Society's investigative needs.

The Office of the Children's Lawyer brought a motion seeking permission to file a late Answer and Plan of Care on behalf of three children in a status review proceeding.

The Children's Aid Society opposed the motion, arguing that children do not have the right to file an Answer in child protection proceedings and that permitting such filing would circumvent established jurisprudence regarding counsel's ability to articulate children's views and wishes.

The court granted the motion, finding that children with legal representation have participatory rights that include the right to file an Answer and Plan of Care, and that it was in the children's best interests to permit late filing given the age-appropriate maturity of the children and the significant lifetime consequences of the proceeding.

This is a costs decision in a child protection matter under Part V of the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017.

The Children's Aid Society brought a protection application and subsequently moved for summary judgment, which was denied by the court.

The respondent parents sought costs against the Society, alleging unreasonable and unfair conduct.

The court dismissed the costs requests, finding that while the Society was unsuccessful on the summary judgment motion, the threshold for awarding costs against a child protection agency in such circumstances had not been met.

The court applied the established framework requiring a showing that the Society acted in a patently unfair and indefensible manner, which was not established on the facts.

The accused pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography contrary to section 163.1(4) of the Criminal Code, with 76 pictures found on his computer.

The Crown and defence jointly submitted for six months custody.

The court addressed two issues: (1) the parameters for enhanced pre-sentence custody credit for harsh jail conditions, and (2) the scope of a section 161 order.

The court declined to award credit exceeding the statutory 1.5:1 ratio but considered harsh conditions through collateral consequence analysis.

The court imposed a comprehensive section 161 order restricting the offender's access to children, public spaces, employment, and digital communications for ten years, based on the absence of a risk assessment and the serious nature of child pornography possession.

The Children's Aid Society brought a motion to add the paternal grandparents as party respondents in a status review application under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act.

The grandparents had been caring for the two children for seventeen months under a child protection order.

The father consented to adding the grandparents as parties and sought a deemed custody order in their favour.

The mother opposed the motion and sought return of the children.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the grandparents had sufficient participatory rights under the statute without requiring party status.

This is a costs decision in a child protection proceeding under Part V of the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017.

The maternal grandmother sought costs of $16,528.92 against the father and paternal uncle following a successful motion to terminate the paternal uncle's overnight access to the children and restrict him to day access only.

The court dismissed the motion for costs, finding that although the maternal grandmother was successful on the motion, the circumstances of a child protection proceeding warranted no costs award.

The court held that parents should be entitled to vigorously defend themselves in child protection proceedings without fear of cost sanctions, and that costs should only be awarded in rare and exceptional circumstances.

Paternal grandparents brought a motion to be added as parties to a Status Review application under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act.

The grandparents had care and custody of their grandson by court order and sought full party status to participate in the proceeding.

The Children's Aid Society and Children's Lawyer consented, but the mother opposed.

The court found that the grandparents were statutory parties under section 79 of the CYFSA as they had lawful custody of the child, and therefore the motion was redundant.

The court granted the order recognizing their party status and set timelines for service and filing of materials.

The Children's Aid Society of Algoma brought a motion to determine whether a child born in 2018 is a First Nations child and, if so, whether the child identifies with the Batchewana First Nation.

The motion also sought orders to add the Batchewana First Nation as a party respondent and to transfer conduct of the proceeding to Nogdawindamin Family and Community Services.

The court found that the child is a First Nations child based on the father's self-identification as an Aboriginal person with Batchewana First Nation heritage and his maternal grandfather's Aboriginal ancestry.

The court granted the motion, adding Batchewana First Nation as a respondent party and substituting Nogdawindamin Family and Community Services as the applicant.

A child protection application brought by the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto seeking to find an 8-month-old child in need of protection.

The central issue was whether the child qualified as a First Nations, Inuk or Métis child under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017.

The court determined that the child met the threshold for identification as a Métis child based on information from the maternal grandmother and great-grandmother, despite the lack of identified Métis communities in provincial regulations.

The court found the child in need of protection and ordered interim society care with a kinship assessment to proceed.

In this child protection status review application, the Children's Aid Society sought final orders placing two young children (ages 2 and 4) in the sole care and custody of their mother, with no access or contact for the father, and a restraining order prohibiting the father from contacting either the mother or the children.

The father did not participate in the proceedings and was noted in default.

The mother consented to all relief sought.

The court granted all orders requested, finding that the children's best interests were served by placing them in the mother's care, that the father posed a significant risk due to his history of domestic violence against the mother, and that a restraining order was necessary to protect both the mother and children.

This is an appeal from a Superior Court decision dismissing an appeal from an Ontario Court of Justice order making a Crown wardship order with no access by either parent.

The child was apprehended at eight weeks old along with three older siblings due to expressed fears of violence by the appellant's then partner.

The child had been in the custody of prospective adoptive parents for approximately four years at the time of appeal.

The appellants sought to challenge the Crown wardship order and the no-access provision.

The appellants effectively abandoned the Crown wardship challenge and focused on the access issue.

The Court of Appeal admitted fresh evidence including a CAS worker's affidavit and video recordings of access visits, but also admitted an affidavit from Dr. Kathy Keefe regarding open adoption, though with reservations about its foundation and timing.

The Court upheld the no-access order, finding that the appellants failed to meet the statutory test requiring that the relationship be meaningful and beneficial to the child and that access would not impair future adoption opportunities.

A child protection application brought by the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto against parents E.S. and F.S. regarding three children (N., M., and A.) who had been exposed to domestic violence during the marriage.

The respondent father brought a motion to dismiss the protection application, arguing that the Society had failed to establish grounds for protection and that the application constituted an abuse of process.

The court dismissed the father's motion and granted the Society's motion for temporary supervision with conditions, including that the father's access to the vulnerable child M. be subject to the child's wishes, while allowing unsupervised access to the younger child A. pending a full protection hearing.

A motion for temporary care and custody of three young children apprehended by the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto.

The father sought placement of the children in his care, while the society sought to maintain temporary custody.

The court found that despite the father's efforts and family support, the children could not be adequately protected in his sole care due to longstanding concerns regarding domestic violence, inadequate home conditions, failure to meet developmental needs, poor school attendance, inability to arrange appropriate services, and the parents' intellectual limitations.

The court ordered that the children remain in the temporary care and custody of the society with supervised access to both parents.

A child protection trial concerning three children where the Children's Aid Society sought protection orders.

The central issue was determining who had "charge" of the two younger children immediately before intervention.

The mother had legal custody but the father had provided full-time care for approximately 66.6% of the ten months preceding the apprehension.

The court found the father had charge of the younger children and made custody orders accordingly, placing the eldest child with the mother and the two younger children with the father, with reasonable access provisions for both parents.

This is a child protection trial concerning three children (K.M.1, A.M.1, and M.M.) who were apprehended in March 2008 due to neglect and inadequate supervision.

The mother, L.M., had a history of transience, poor home conditions, truancy issues with her older children, and inability to meet the special needs of her younger children.

The maternal grandmother, B.D.1, sought placement of the children with her.

The court found the children were in need of protection under the Child and Family Services Act and made them Crown wards, rejecting all family-based plans due to the mother's deep-seated personality issues, the grandmother's health limitations and credibility concerns, and the inadequacy of the proposed plans to meet the children's high needs.