Mei-Ying Allenby Chen

This is a child protection proceeding concerning two children.

The court addressed trial readiness issues and the appointment of amicus curiae for the unrepresented mother.

The mother had cycled through three lawyers and was unable to retain counsel despite having a legal aid certificate.

The court appointed amicus to assist in presenting the mother's case at trial, ensuring the proceedings could move forward without further delays and that the children's interests would be protected through a fair and organized trial process.

The Catholic Children's Aid Society brought a temporary care and custody motion in a child protection proceeding involving twin five-year-old girls.

The Society alleged the children were at risk of physical and emotional harm in their mother's care due to inappropriate physical discipline, exposure to parental conflict, school attendance issues, and allegations of sexual abuse against the father.

The mother opposed the motion and sought to maintain custody with minimal or no conditions.

The court found credible and trustworthy evidence of risk of harm and determined that the children could not be adequately protected by an interim supervision order given the mother's lack of cooperation with the Society and her pattern of refusing services.

The court granted the Society's motion, placing the children in the temporary care and custody of their father, subject to the Society's supervision and various terms and conditions, including supervised access for the mother.

A mother sought to have her two young children returned to her care under child protection supervision, or alternatively for generous access.

The children had been apprehended following allegations of physical assault by the mother.

The mother was charged criminally and subject to bail conditions prohibiting contact with the children.

The Society opposed access pending completion of a trauma assessment, citing the need to "better understand what is going on." The court ordered supervised access of a minimum of two hours twice weekly, finding that complete separation from the primary caregiver for over six months posed risks of emotional harm and that supervised access could protect the children while maintaining their only significant family tie.

The appellant, a father in child protection proceedings, appealed a Superior Court decision that upheld an Ontario Court of Justice order varying his access to children from unsupervised to supervised pending trial.

The Court of Appeal found that the Superior Court order was interlocutory in nature, dealing with interim access pending trial, and therefore the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

The court declined to transfer the matter to the Divisional Court, finding that section 19(4) of the Courts of Justice Act precluded such an appeal.

The appeal was quashed for lack of jurisdiction.

This is a costs decision following a child protection trial.

The respondent parents sought costs against the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto following a trial in which the court granted an order substantially in favour of the parents.

The father had a prior conviction for sexual assault and was diagnosed with pedohebephilia.

The Society sought an order removing the children from the home and restricting the father's contact to supervised access by someone other than the mother.

The parents sought an order permitting the father to remain in the home with supervised contact, based on expert evidence.

The court granted the parents' order with limited exceptions.

The parents claimed costs totalling approximately $24,700 each, arguing the Society acted unreasonably and unfairly in its conduct of the case.

The court dismissed the costs claim, finding that although the Society had made certain errors in judgment and failed to adequately reassess its position, the case involved complex expert evidence on which reasonable disagreement was possible, and the Society did not act in a manner that would be perceived as patently unfair or indefensible.

This is a child protection case under Part III of the Child and Family Services Act involving two children whose father, G.C., is a convicted child sexual offender with diagnoses of pedohebephilia and exhibitionism.

The Catholic Children's Aid Society sought an order removing the father from the home with only supervised access outside the home.

The parents sought to continue the existing arrangement where the father resides in the home during daytime hours but sleeps elsewhere at night, with the mother providing supervision.

The court found that the children could be adequately protected while remaining in an intact family unit with appropriate supervisory conditions, rejecting the Society's more restrictive proposal as unnecessarily disruptive to the children's best interests.

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.

The applicant sought an order for state-funded counsel under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 7, for a child protection trial where the Children's Aid Society sought a supervision order.

The applicant's section 7 rights to security of person were engaged because the proposed supervision order would significantly restrict her parental role, force her to become a single parent, and subject her family to ongoing state intrusion.

The court found the applicant was indigent and ordered the state to provide counsel, establishing that section 7 protections extend beyond cases involving loss of custody to include highly intrusive supervision orders.

This is a costs decision in a child protection matter under Part III of the Child and Family Services Act.

The mother sought trial costs of $21,919.39 against the Catholic Children's Aid Society.

The court found that while the society's overall conduct did not warrant a full costs award, the society engaged in serious unfair dealing by injecting unsubstantiated risk factors (alcohol and drug abuse, mental illness) into its risk assessment documents regarding the mother.

The court awarded partial costs of $5,000 to the mother, finding that this misrepresentation constituted a "smearing" of the parent that violated principles of fair dealing required under child protection law.

The court emphasized that child protection agencies must maintain proportionate intervention, provide fair disclosure, and avoid manipulating risk calibration through false information.

A child protection agency sought to reopen a trial after evidence had concluded and submissions had been made, but before judgment was rendered.

The agency wished to introduce a psychological assessment of the child conducted by an expert who had not testified during the trial.

The respondent mother opposed the motion.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the evidence could have been adduced during the agency's case-in-chief, that reopening would cause significant delay in a matter where timely permanency planning was critical, and that the timing of the motion suggested the agency only sought to introduce the evidence after confirming it would support their case.

The court found that allowing the motion would be unfair to the respondent and contrary to the child's best interests.

A protection application brought by the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto concerning a child (D.R.) born in 2004.

The child's parents, M.R. (mother) and C.R. (father), had not communicated since two months after the child's birth.

The society sought a finding that the child was in need of protection pursuant to clauses 37(2)(f) and (g) of the Child and Family Services Act, alleging that the mother had consistently failed to support the child's relationship with the father and had caused emotional harm through her actions.

The court found that the child was in need of protection due to emotional harm caused by the mother's interference with the father-child relationship and her rigid belief that the father had abused the child, despite investigations finding no evidence of abuse.

The court ordered that the child be placed in the father's care subject to society supervision for 12 months, with the mother's access to be at the society's discretion.

The court emphasized the need for therapeutic intervention with the mother to address her dysfunctional beliefs about the father.