Glen A. Cook

The children's aid society brought a status review application seeking to place the child in the permanent custody of her maternal aunt, with whom she had been living since 2018.

The mother opposed the application, seeking the child's return to her care.

The court found that the child continued to be in need of protection due to the mother's history of housing transiency, financial instability, and high-conflict relationship with the maternal aunt, which caused the child emotional harm.

The court determined it was in the child's best interests to remain in the stable care of the maternal aunt pursuant to a section 102 custody order.

The court also ordered a specified access schedule for the mother, with weekly visits left to the child's discretion.

In a family motion concerning temporary parenting arrangements, the court addressed sexual abuse allegations advanced by the mother as a basis to deny the father access.

After reviewing the chronology, the circumstances of the alleged disclosures, inconsistencies in the evidence, the lack of opportunity, and the contents of police and child protection investigations, the court was not persuaded there was any truth to the allegations and ordered reasonable access.

The court also requested the involvement of the Office of the Children’s Lawyer, made a restricted access and publication order under s. 70 of the Children’s Law Reform Act, directed production of the unredacted child protection file, and declined to permit filing of police interview videos at that stage.

Costs were awarded to the father on the main issues.

The moving party, the nephew of the respondent mother, brought a motion to be appointed as her litigation guardian and to set aside a default judgment granting a divorce and corollary relief to the applicant father.

The court found the mother was mentally incapable of representing herself due to schizophrenia and appointed the nephew as litigation guardian.

The court declined to set aside the divorce itself but set aside the corollary relief (custody, access, property) because the mother had a plausible explanation for her default, moved promptly once her nephew became involved, and had an arguable case on the merits.

Following a six-day family law trial regarding custody, access, residency, and equalization, both parties sought costs.

The applicant sought partial and substantial indemnity costs based on an unsigned offer to settle, while the respondent sought costs claiming he was the more successful party.

The court found that the applicant's unsigned offer did not comply with Rule 18(4) of the Family Law Rules.

Concluding that success at trial was almost equally divided, the court ordered each party to bear their own costs.

The respondent husband brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the applicant wife's claims for divorce, spousal support, and property equalization, arguing that their religious marriage ceremony was legally invalid because no marriage licence was obtained.

The wife argued she entered the marriage in good faith, intending to comply with the Marriage Act, and relied on the husband's representation that a licence could be obtained later.

The court dismissed the summary judgment motion, finding that the conflicting factual assertions regarding the validity of the marriage and the parties' intentions created a genuine issue requiring a trial.