Mathieu Perron

The Ontario Court of Justice dismissed a motion seeking disclosure of Batchewana First Nation band representative records related to a child custody dispute involving the maternal great-grandparents and the child's parents and paternal grandparents.

The court found that the First Nation and its band representative are not mandated or trained to assess child protection risks and do not hold investigatory powers akin to child welfare agencies.

The records sought were deemed irrelevant to the family law proceeding, which is distinct from a child protection case.

The court emphasized that the child protection agency, Nogdawindamin Family and Community Services, is the appropriate body tasked with assessing risk and providing relevant records, which were ordered produced by consent.

This decision addresses a motion concerning contact between paternal grandparents and their grandchild, Asher Krauter-Maki, in the context of a complex family situation involving a Voluntary Service Agreement (VSA), child protection concerns, and supervised parenting time.

The court considered the best interests of the child under section 24 of the Children’s Law Reform Act, the history of supervised parenting time, and the involvement of child protection agencies.

The court restored the status quo on a temporary basis, granting the paternal grandparents weekend contact with the child, with supervised presence of the father, and set directions for future proceedings including costs and further evidence.

The respondent father brought a motion to vary a temporary order to increase his parenting time and allow for unsupervised access.

The applicant mother opposed, arguing no material change in circumstances and citing the father's recent assault conviction against their daughter.

The court found that the filing of the OCL report and the conclusion of the father's criminal trial constituted a material change.

Considering the children's best interests, the father's rehabilitation efforts, and the OCL's positive observations of his interactions with the children, the court granted the father's motion, establishing a progressive schedule for unsupervised parenting time and ordering the mother to pay costs.

This family law trial concerned decision-making responsibility, parenting time, and child support for the parties' 6-year-old son.

The mother sought sole decision-making and a specific parenting schedule, along with child support arrears and prospective support.

The father sought shared decision-making and equal parenting time, and a lower arrears amount.

The court granted the mother sole decision-making responsibility, established a parenting time schedule that maintained the child's primary residence with the mother while increasing the father's time, and calculated child support arrears and prospective support based on the father's actual income, declining to impute additional income.

The father's claims for a restraining order and a mutual non-disparagement order were dismissed, as was the mother's claim for the father's employer income record.