Mary Marshman

In a child protection status review involving eight children, the court considered whether the children should remain in the care of the Children’s Aid Society pending trial and whether certain children required independent legal representation.

Applying the Child and Family Services Act, the court determined that three of the older children should receive legal representation under s. 38, while younger children were too young to meaningfully instruct counsel.

The court found that the Society established ongoing protection concerns including inadequate supervision, poor school attendance, domestic violence exposure, and the caregiver’s inability to manage the children’s needs.

Proposed placements with family members and the return of several children to the mother’s care were rejected due to insufficient information and unresolved risk factors.

All children were ordered to remain in the Society’s care on an interim basis with access arrangements for family members.

The father brought a motion seeking unsupervised access and a return of the children to his care, while the mother sought continuation of supervised access and termination of telephone contact.

The court reviewed extensive materials and prior orders finding that the father had engaged in ongoing parental alienation and continued to raise adult issues with the children during access.

The court determined that the father had not demonstrated behavioural change or progress through counselling sufficient to justify unsupervised access.

Concerns also remained regarding the potential risk of international removal of the children.

The court ordered permanent supervised access and terminated regularly scheduled telephone access except in limited circumstances where weekly in‑person access does not occur.

The applicant sought to adjourn a family law custody and access trial until after the resolution of related criminal charges, arguing that proceeding with the family trial first would prejudice his criminal defence by requiring disclosure of facts relevant to the allegations.

The respondent opposed the adjournment, asserting that delay would prejudice both her and the parties’ child.

The court considered statutory protections under the Ontario Evidence Act, the Canada Evidence Act, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that protect witnesses from self‑incrimination in subsequent proceedings.

Applying the discretionary principles governing adjournments and emphasizing the best interests of the child, the court held that an indefinite delay pending completion of criminal proceedings would not serve the child’s interests.

The request to adjourn the trial pending the criminal trial was therefore dismissed, though other potential adjournment issues were left to the trial management judge.