P. MacEachern

The parties separated in 2017 after a 17-year marriage.

The mother sought a divorce, sole decision-making, primary residence, retroactive child support, and a restraining order.

The father sought gradually increasing parenting time and claimed his income was zero due to a car accident.

The court granted the mother sole decision-making and primary residence, limiting the father's parenting time to monthly calls due to his coercive controlling conduct and lack of boundaries.

The court imputed an income of $30,000 to the father due to his failure to provide financial disclosure and ordered retroactive child support to January 2018.

A restraining order was also issued against the father.

The respondent father sought leave to bring a motion to change a 2012 final order regarding parenting and child support.

The father had a long history of bringing meritless motions and had accumulated over $13,000 in unpaid costs awards.

The court applied the two-part test for granting leave, finding that the father failed to establish an arguable case on the merits for any of his claims, which included adjusting historic child support and increasing parenting time.

Furthermore, the court found that allowing the motion would result in an abuse of process given the father's failure to pay outstanding costs and his vexatious litigation conduct.

Leave was denied and costs of $2,000 were awarded to the mother.

The Children's Aid Society brought a motion under s. 130 of the Child, Youth and Family Services Act for the production of third-party medical records relating to the mother's mental health.

The mother opposed the motion, arguing she had been incorrectly diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that the records were irrelevant or their disclosure would cause harm.

The court found the records met the threshold of being potentially relevant to the child protection proceedings and ordered their production, limited to records from April 1, 2019 onwards that specifically relate to the mother's mental health.

Following a motion to change where the parties had divided success on parenting and child support issues, both parties sought costs.

The court reviewed the parties' respective offers to settle under Rule 18 and found that neither party achieved a result as favourable or more favourable than their offers.

Given the divided success and the factors under Rule 24, the court ordered that each party bear their own costs.

Following a four-day trial regarding child support, parenting time, and decision-making, the successful applicant sought costs of $30,000.

The court found the applicant was presumptively entitled to costs, beat her offer to settle, and acted reasonably, while the respondent acted unreasonably and delayed proceedings.

The court awarded the applicant $30,000 in costs, with 50% enforceable as support by the Family Responsibility Office.

The parties separated in 2011 and have one child.

The mother sought retroactive and ongoing child support, sole decision-making, and supervised parenting time for the father.

The father sought unsupervised parenting time and opposed the child support claims, arguing undue hardship and that support was not payable while the child was homeschooled.

The court found the father engaged in blameworthy conduct by ceasing support payments and ordered retroactive child support to November 2017.

The court granted the mother sole decision-making due to the father's abusive conduct and lack of insight.

The father's parenting time was ordered to remain supervised pending the outcome of an ongoing reunification counselling process.

Following a trial on parenting issues where the respondent mother was entirely successful, she sought costs of $13,217.06.

The applicant father opposed the costs, arguing the respondent's conduct was unreasonable and claiming financial hardship.

The court found the respondent was the successful party, had made multiple reasonable early offers to settle, and that her legal fees were highly reasonable.

Conversely, the court found the applicant's conduct unreasonable, noting he pursued aggressive and unsupported allegations at trial.

The court ordered the applicant to pay costs fixed at $13,000, representing close to full indemnity.

Both parties brought motions for interim relief in a family law proceeding.

The applicant sought disclosure and costs for the respondent's failure to attend questioning, while the respondent sought to reduce or terminate an existing interim spousal support order.

The court ordered the respondent to pay $650 in costs for failing to attend questioning without notice.

The court dismissed the respondent's motion to vary interim spousal support, finding no substantial change in circumstances to justify a variation prior to trial.

Following the final hearing of an application regarding child support, the successful respondent sought costs of $5,000.

The court found that while the respondent's offer to settle did not strictly meet the requirements for full recovery costs due to a release-like clause, the applicant's unreasonable conduct throughout the proceedings warranted a higher costs award.

The court ordered the applicant to pay the respondent's costs fixed at $5,000.

The applicant mother and respondent father separated after a 19-year religious marriage.

The mother sought sole decision-making, child support, and spousal support, while the father sought joint decision-making and parenting time.

The court awarded the mother sole decision-making due to the father's history of family violence, limited involvement, and poor communication.

The father was granted parenting time on Sundays.

The court imputed the father's income at $42,589 due to voluntary underemployment and ordered table child support.

The mother was found entitled to spousal support, but only a nominal amount of $1 per year was ordered because child support took priority.

The applicant father sought retroactive adjustments to child support and section 7 expenses for the parties' two adult children for the years 2016 to 2022.

The respondent mother argued that child support should be determined based on the children's actual expenses and contributions since turning 18, but noted the father's failure to provide necessary disclosure.

The court dismissed the father's claims, finding he failed to provide sufficient evidence of the children's incomes, expenses, and ability to contribute, and that his conduct in the proceedings was frustrating and wasteful.

The court declared that no further child support was owed and neither child remained eligible.

The respondent father brought a motion for additional interim parenting time on a graduated schedule leading to equal time.

The applicant mother opposed, proposing a slower schedule.

The court considered the child's best interests under s. 16(3) of the Divorce Act, noting concerns about both parents' mental health, the father's history of absences due to military deployments, and allegations of family violence and coercive control against the father.

The court ordered a graduated schedule of unsupervised in-person parenting time for the father, but declined to order overnight parenting time at this stage.

The applicant father brought an interim motion seeking sole decision-making authority to have the parties' two children vaccinated against Covid-19.

The respondent mother opposed the vaccination, citing concerns about side effects.

The parties had a 2018 Separation Agreement providing for joint decision-making.

The court declined to take judicial notice that the children's weight made them particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 and found the mother's concerns were reasonably held.

The court dismissed the motion, holding that there was no compelling reason to change the joint decision-making arrangement on a temporary basis before a full trial.

The respondent father brought a motion seeking expanded interim parenting time with the parties' 3.5-year-old child and the use of Our Family Wizard for communications.

The mother agreed to the communication app but disputed the father's request for unsupervised parenting time, proposing instead that visits be supervised by the paternal grandmother.

The court found that it was in the child's best interests to move the father's parenting time outside of the supervised exchange centre to allow for a more natural relationship to develop.

The court ordered unsupervised weekly visits, initially limited to two hours and then expanding to three hours, with exchanges to occur at the exchange centre.

The parties brought cross-motions regarding interim parenting time, decision-making, and child support for their two-year-old child.

The father sought equal parenting time on an eight-week rotating schedule based on his work, while the mother sought primary care, sole decision-making, and child support.

The court found it was in the child's best interests to remain primarily in the mother's care with the mother having sole decision-making authority, given the child's young age and the high conflict between the parties.

The father was granted specified parenting time and ordered to pay temporary table child support of $835 per month.

The applicant mother brought a motion to change child support for the parties' 21-year-old disabled daughter.

The court set aside a 2019 consent order because the applicant failed to disclose that the child was receiving ODSP benefits.

Finding that the table amount was inappropriate given the child's ODSP income, the court ordered the respondent father to pay $321 per month, representing his proportionate share of the shortfall in the child's day-to-day expenses.

The court also ordered retroactive adjustments based on the father's historical income and required both parties to maintain life insurance to secure their support obligations.

The respondent sought costs on a substantial or full indemnity basis following a successful motion for the sale of the matrimonial home and increased parenting time.

The applicant argued for divided success and that the parties should bear their own costs.

The court found the respondent was the successful party on the main issues and acted reasonably, while noting the applicant's failure to serve an offer to settle was an aggravating factor.

The court ordered the applicant to pay the respondent's costs fixed at $5,000.

The parties attended a Trial Management Conference for a motion to change a U.S. parenting and child support order.

The court found the parties were unprepared for trial, having failed to confer, prepare a joint Trial Scheduling Endorsement Form, or address significant jurisdictional issues regarding the adult disabled child and the foreign divorce.

The court ordered a further TMC and directed the parties to exchange will-say statements, requests to admit, and research on jurisdiction.

The parties submitted a proposed order incorporating terms from a previous endorsement.

The court revised the order to specify that the interim child support and reunification counselling orders are made under the Divorce Act alone.

The court noted that applications under the Family Law Act and Children's Law Reform Act are stayed once a divorce action is commenced.

The parties submitted a consent order on a Motion to Change child support and parenting terms.

The court required clarification on whether the order was made under the federal Divorce Act or provincial legislation, as the new Family Law Rules Form 25 requires the legislation to be specified.

After reviewing the historical pleadings and previous orders, the court determined that the original 2013 final order was made under the Family Law Act and Children's Law Reform Act because it predated the divorce order.

The court amended the 2013 order nunc pro tunc to reflect this and signed the new consent order specifying the provincial legislation.