Family and Matrimonial Law - OCJ

The Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto brought a motion for the appointment of amicus curiae for the respondent mother in a child protection proceeding.

The mother, who had previously retained and discharged three counsel, was self-represented at the time of the motion hearing.

The court found that the legal test for appointing amicus was met, considering the high stakes of the matter, the mother's demonstrated inability to participate meaningfully in proceedings, her pattern of discharging counsel, and concerns that the trial would not progress reasonably without amicus assistance.

The court appointed amicus to assist in ensuring the trial is orderly and fair, with the appointment remaining in effect even if the mother retains counsel in the future.

A motion concerning parental access to five children in the temporary care and custody of a child protection society.

The children were removed following extremely serious abuse allegations.

The respondent parents were subsequently charged criminally and released on conditions restricting contact with the children.

The court addressed the interaction between criminal release orders and child protection orders, determining that criminal court orders prevail to the extent of any conflict.

The court then assessed appropriate access under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, balancing the risks of harm from alleged abuse against the harm of complete separation from parents.

The court ordered supervised daytime access for the mother (minimum once weekly for three hours) and more restricted supervised access for the father (once weekly for maximum 90 minutes), with no access for the oldest child who disclosed the most severe abuse.

Access remains subject to criminal court release conditions.

The Ontario Court of Justice dismissed the respondent father's motion for summary judgment and addressed the issue of costs.

The successful applicant, self-represented and residing outside the region, sought costs for lost income and travel expenses totaling $2,001.48.

The respondent opposed costs, citing the applicant's unpreparedness and overestimation of lost work time.

The court applied Rule 24 of the Family Law Rules and relevant case law, including Mattina v. Mattina, to determine costs.

The court found some inefficiencies attributable to the applicant but overall reasonable conduct during the summary judgment motion.

Considering the respondent's unreasonable conduct in bringing a duplicative motion, the court awarded costs of $2,000 payable monthly, emphasizing the need to discourage repetitive litigation.

The Children's Aid Society sought leave to withdraw its child protection application concerning two children.

The Office of the Children's Lawyer (OCL) and the father opposed the withdrawal, arguing that live protection concerns and parental alienation issues required adjudication.

The court dismissed the society's motion, finding that the children's best interests required a full factual record and timely determination of outstanding issues.

The court ordered that the child protection application and the parents' Children's Law Reform Act application proceed to a combined trial, ensuring OCL involvement and preserving the option of continued society involvement.

The respondent, the biological father, brought a motion to vary interim parenting time and primary residence of his six-year-old child, seeking to have the child primarily reside with him and to eliminate the applicant's (the child's step-mother) parenting time.

The applicant opposed, asserting her significant parental role.

The court applied the best interests of the child test under the Children's Law Reform Act, finding the applicant had played a central parental role and was a stable force.

The court noted the respondent's substance abuse, violent and harassing behaviour, and his unwillingness to support the child's relationship with the applicant.

The respondent's motion was dismissed, and the existing temporary order, which provided for the child to primarily reside with the applicant and granted the respondent specific parenting time, was maintained with additional conditions.

The applicant father sought enforcement of a previous order regarding virtual parenting time and a change to his interim in-person supervised parenting time.

The court found the respondent mother in non-compliance with the virtual parenting order and imposed a monetary penalty of $250.

The court maintained supervised in-person parenting time for the father due to ongoing concerns about his substance abuse and criminal charges, prioritizing the children's physical, emotional, and psychological safety.

A new, more appropriate virtual parenting schedule was also established by consent.

The Children's Aid Society brought a motion for summary judgment seeking a protection finding for two children, A.A. and B.B., alleging risk of physical harm, sexual abuse, and emotional harm due to their mother D.C.'s failure to protect them from an abusive male adult, Y.B. The Office of the Children's Lawyer (OCL) supported the protection finding, while the mother opposed it.

The court dismissed the society's motion, finding no genuine issue requiring a trial and concluding that the children were not in need of protection.

The court determined that the risks, primarily related to Y.B., had been mitigated over time, and there was insufficient admissible evidence to establish a present likelihood of serious harm.

The decision emphasized the importance of the 'flexible approach' to the material time period for protection findings and highlighted issues with the admissibility of hearsay evidence in summary judgment motions.

A Form 14b motion brought by Brant Family and Children's Services seeking a final order in accordance with an Agreed Statement of Facts.

The court found the child continues to be in need of protection and that placement with paternal grandparents is in the child's best interests.

However, the court rejected many of the proposed access terms as overly broad and not properly tailored to harm reduction.

The court modified the order to remove conditions requiring parents to complete programming and demonstrate sobriety as prerequisites to access, while maintaining supervision and a restriction on the father's residence in the grandparents' home.

The applicant Ogwadeni:deo sought to withdraw an amended child protection application and replace it with a formal customary care agreement, despite the biological parents not having signed the agreement.

The Six Nations Band argued that its governing resolution, enabled by the new federal legislation (Bill C-92), authorized the Band to sign the customary care agreement on behalf of the parents.

The court denied the motion to withdraw the protection application, finding insufficient evidence regarding the child's welfare and best interests, and noting the lack of court oversight since the initial temporary order in 2018.

This is a voir dire ruling on the admissibility of child hearsay evidence consisting of statements made by two children during an access visit supervised by a Children's Aid Society worker.

The court applied the principled approach to hearsay admissibility, requiring both necessity and threshold reliability.

The court found that the society failed to establish necessity for admitting the children's hearsay statements, as both children were capable of testifying viva voce at trial.

The court also addressed state of mind statements and found that only one statement by one child met the criteria for admission under the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule.

The Children's Aid Society brought a motion for summary judgment seeking protection findings and a disposition order for three children in foster care.

The Society sought to have all three children removed permanently from the mother's care and placed in extended care with a plan for adoption as a sibling group, with no access to either parent.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the Society failed to meet its onus to demonstrate there was no genuine issue requiring trial on the issue of disposition.

The court found critical evidentiary deficiencies in the Society's case, including inadmissible hearsay evidence regarding drug testing and inadequate evidence regarding parenting capacity based on summarized access notes and group reports.

Two motions were heard by the respondents D.L. and T.S. in a child protection proceeding.

The first motion sought to vary the interim access order by increasing access to the children and permitting community visits.

The second motion sought an order prohibiting access by S.M.L.B. (the biological mother of one child) to J.L. The court found a material change in circumstances and granted a modest increase in access to D.L. and T.S., conditional on their participation in parenting programming.

The court rejected the motion to prohibit access by S.M.L.B., finding that supervised access was in the child's best interests and should continue.

This is a summary judgment motion in a child protection case under Part V of the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017.

The Children's Aid Society sought a custody order granting sole custody of two children to their paternal grandparents, with whom they had been placed following the death of their father.

The mother opposed the motion, arguing that the matter required a trial.

The court found that the children were in need of protection due to risk of physical and emotional harm, that ongoing court intervention was necessary, and that it was in the children's best interests to remain in the custody of the paternal grandparents.

The court granted the custody order and established a specific access schedule for the mother.

The respondent father brought a motion to set aside a default order made by Justice Nevins on January 26, 2015, granting the applicant mother sole custody of their child, a restraining order, and child support.

The father was not properly served with the original application, as the process server filed a false affidavit of service.

The court found that the father was entitled to have the order set aside because he was never properly served and had no notice of the proceeding.

The court set aside the default order and made temporary orders granting the mother custody pending a new application in British Columbia, where the child now resides, and granting the father Skype access to the child.

In a status review application under the Child and Family Services Act, the court determined that two children continue to be in need of protection and made an order for crown wardship with permanent placement in a kinship foster home with the maternal aunt and uncle.

The mother sought return of the children to her care subject to society supervision, while the father sought return to his sole custody without supervision.

The court found that neither parent could adequately care for the children due to the mother's multiple health conditions and parenting deficits, and the father's refusal to acknowledge substance abuse issues, violence, and his complete lack of contact with the children.

The court approved the society's plan for crown wardship with the children remaining in the stable kinship placement where they were thriving, while maintaining supervised access with the mother and discretionary supervised access with the father.

The father brought a motion to change a January 2012 order that granted sole custody to the mother, imposed a child support obligation of $14,953 per month based on an imputed income of $2,000,000, and prohibited the father from removing the child from Ontario.

The father sought joint custody, specified access, and a reduction in child support to $682 per month based on a claimed annual income of $75,000.

The trial proceeded over three days but was aborted when the father, frustrated during cross-examination on financial issues, disconnected from the video link and refused to continue participating.

The court dismissed the father's motion to change regarding child support and ordered supervised access only.

The court imposed stringent preconditions for any future motion to change, including payment of 40% of accumulated child support arrears and all costs.

The respondent parents brought motions pursuant to subrule 33(1) of the Family Law Rules to extend timelines for filing Answers/Plans of Care regarding two children in child protection proceedings.

The society opposed the motions and sought to note the parents in default.

The court found that both children were in need of protection based on the parents' significant mental health issues, chronic substance abuse, domestic conflict, and neglect.

The court granted a limited extension for the parents to file Answers/Plans of Care on disposition and access issues only, narrowing the scope of future proceedings.

The court found that while the parents had recently taken steps to address risk concerns, the case would proceed to trial with findings of fact already established.

Following a prior finding of contempt of a court order, the court addressed costs and sentencing.

The mother sought $15,033 in costs (or alternatively $10,880), while the father argued costs should not exceed $1,500 given his modest financial means.

The court applied the factors under the Family Court Rules and found the father's wilful breach of the court order constituted reprehensible conduct.

While considering the father's limited financial means and custody of the children, the court awarded partial indemnity costs of $10,000 payable at $800 per month.

For sentencing, the court rejected changing custody and access orders as punishment but ordered the father to submit to family counselling with a specified therapist, with the father bearing the cost of the first five sessions and thereafter sharing costs equally with the mother.

A child protection society sought an order placing two children in the temporary care and custody of their mother subject to society supervision, with the father to have access at the society's discretion.

The father opposed the motion and sought the children be returned to both parents on a week-on, week-off basis.

The court found reasonable grounds to believe the children faced risk of sexual and emotional harm based on evidence of sexually inappropriate behaviour by both parents, the father's history of sexual violence convictions in Utah, allegations of domestic violence, and the father's lack of insight into protection concerns.

The court granted the society's motion, placing the children with the mother under supervision and ordering the father's access remain discretionary pending full disclosure of his criminal and therapeutic records.

The Catholic Children's Aid Society brought a motion for summary judgment seeking a finding that a child was in need of protection under the Child and Family Services Act and a disposition of Crown Wardship with no access order.

The respondent mother opposed the motion, arguing that material issues of fact required a trial.

The court found that the undisputed evidence established that the child was in need of protection due to the mother's significant mental illness and its impact on her parenting ability.

The court granted the motion for summary judgment, finding no genuine issue for trial on either the finding or disposition, and ordered Crown Wardship with no access.