R. Lee Akazaki

At a case conference, the applicant mother sought temporary orders for sole decision-making, child support, and spousal support.

The respondent father did not file a brief or attend.

The court interpreted subrule 17(8) of the Family Law Rules, finding it confers jurisdiction on a case conference judge to grant substantive interim relief, provided notice is given.

The court granted the requested temporary orders, including $7,734 in monthly child support and $12,852 in monthly spousal support, placing the burden on the non-participating father to bring a motion to set the order aside.

The parties separated after a 10-year marriage.

The wife sought equalization of net family property, including the value of a multigenerational home registered to the husband and his father as tenants in common.

The court found the husband held his interest in trust for his siblings and himself upon his mother's death, meaning he had no beneficial interest to equalize at separation.

The court imputed income to both parties and ordered the husband to pay an equalization payment of $5,691, retroactive spousal support of $6,000, and ongoing spousal support of $462 per month for 10 years.

The wife was ordered to pay net child support of $17 per month.

This decision concerns the costs award following a trial where the applicant's request to relocate the child from Toronto to Ireland was dismissed.

The court had previously ordered compensatory spousal support for the applicant to facilitate her Canadian optometry registration.

The respondent, successful on the main relocation issue, sought significant costs.

The court awarded the respondent $70,000 in costs, inclusive of disbursements and HST, but deferred payment until the applicant achieves self-sufficiency, specifically by December 31, 2026, or three months after obtaining full-time employment as an Ontario Doctor of Optometry.

The court considered the applicant's strategic allegations of abuse and the need to avoid frustrating the primary judgment's purpose.

The court issued supplementary reasons for judgment regarding support calculations and parenting time, following an earlier trial decision.

The key issues were the inclusion of the respondent's severance income for spousal support, imputation of income to the applicant, and the appropriate Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (SSAG) range.

The court ruled that the respondent's severance income would not be included for spousal support calculations, declined to impute income to the applicant, and confirmed the spousal support award at the middle of the SSAG range, with the respondent also responsible for 50% of the applicant's future educational expenses.

The applicant sought a declaration that his ex-wife, the respondent, was an absentee under the Absentees Act and that he be appointed as the committee of her joint interest in a property.

The respondent had returned to India and ceased communication, causing the applicant difficulty in refinancing their jointly held mortgage.

The court found that survivorship was not an available remedy as there was no evidence of death.

Interpreting the Absentees Act remedially, the court declared the respondent an absentee pursuant to section 8 and appointed the applicant as the committee of her estate in Ontario, granting him power to manage, encumber, sell, or otherwise deal with her interest.

The court emphasized adapting statutory interpretation to modern globalized society and protecting the interests of those left behind.

The applicant mother brought two motions: to suspend the father's parenting time pending a psychiatric assessment and to find him in contempt of court.

The motions arose from an incident where the mother intervened to prevent the father from exercising his court-ordered parenting time at the child's school graduation event, leading to a verbal altercation.

The court found that the mother had breached a prior court order by denying the father parenting time and that her allegations of the father's unfitness, based on his political views and the incident, were unsubstantiated.

The court dismissed both of the mother's motions, maintained the existing parenting schedule, clarified summer parenting time, and ordered the mother to pay costs to the self-represented father.

The decision emphasized the importance of parental cooperation and the child's best interests over parental conflict.

The court issued supplementary reasons for judgment regarding the parenting schedule following a trial.

The Respondent's motion to reopen the trial to submit fresh evidence was denied, as the court found discussions between counsel should be a safe space and post-trial conduct should not lead to a never-ending trial.

The Applicant sought a phased-in, unequal parenting schedule and a stay of any immediate substantial change pending her appeal of the relocation decision.

The court rejected the Applicant's arguments, finding her reliance on the "status quo" disingenuous and her appeal not a basis to tailor the trial judge's remedy.

The court ordered an accelerated transition to the Respondent's proposed "2-2-3" equal parenting schedule, effective June 4, 2023, and denied the stay request.

This was an uncontested divorce trial where the applicant sought divorce, sole decision-making responsibility for the children, and child support.

The respondent had relocated to Nigeria and did not participate in the proceedings.

The court granted the divorce and sole decision-making authority to the applicant.

A key issue was the imputation of income for child support, with the court rejecting the default minimum wage approach in favour of a higher, median-based imputation, considering the respondent's non-disclosure and relocation.

Retroactive child support was awarded, along with costs to the applicant.

The applicant mother brought a motion seeking temporary orders for sole decision-making authority regarding the children's education, increased child and spousal support, and production of text messages between the respondent father and her ex-boyfriend.

The court dismissed the motion in its entirety, finding that the proposed private school enrollment was not in the child's best interests, the existing voluntary support payments were adequate, and the requested text messages were irrelevant to the proceedings.

The respondent husband brought a motion seeking $74,651 from the applicant wife's share of the proceeds from the sale of their matrimonial home, representing half of the post-separation carrying costs and child support.

The wife sought $72,900 in occupation rent as a set-off.

The court denied the wife's claim for occupation rent, noting her exclusion from the home was due to her own violent assault against the husband.

The court also denied the husband's claims for maintenance and child support credits, but awarded him $41,042.88, representing half of the mortgage payments made between separation and the sale of the home.

This divorce proceeding involved an applicant father, a 69-year-old physician with Parkinson's, and a 46-year-old self-represented respondent mother, concerning their 6-year-old son diagnosed with severe autism.

The mother's non-cooperation, including refusing consent for government funding, school assessments, and vaccinations for their son, and her general abusive and delaying tactics, led to the trial proceeding largely uncontested.

The court addressed decision-making authority for the child, child support, spousal support, and equalization of net family property.

The father was granted final decision-making authority for the child's care.

The court ordered that the mother's equalization payment and spousal support entitlement be offset by the costs awarded to the father, prioritizing the child's best interests and the father's financial capacity to meet the child's significant needs.

The applicant mother sought to relocate with the parties' three-year-old daughter to Ireland, arguing she needed to return to her home country to practice optometry and escape the respondent father's alleged coercive control.

The father opposed the relocation.

The court dismissed the relocation application, finding the mother's allegations of abuse lacked credibility and her economic rationale was flawed, as she could upgrade her degree in Canada.

Instead of permitting relocation, the court ordered the father to pay compensatory spousal support to fund the mother's professional requalification in Ontario, and ordered joint decision-making for the child.

The respondent husband brought a motion to vary interim child support and parenting orders due to alleged material changes in circumstances.

The court dismissed the motion to vary child support, finding no actual change in circumstances that would warrant revisiting the interim order before trial.

However, the court granted the motion to increase the father's parenting time and establish joint parental decision-making, emphasizing the best interests of the children and the material change in circumstances due to the withdrawal of criminal charges against the father and the passage of time.

The applicant father brought a contempt motion against the respondent mother for her failure to comply with a November 2, 2022, court order regarding the resumption of his parenting time with their daughter.

The daughter, now eleven, resisted visits, and the mother's efforts to facilitate them were deemed insufficient.

The court found the mother in contempt, emphasizing the parental duty to encourage the child's relationship with the other parent and rejecting the child's reluctance as a valid excuse for non-compliance.

The applicant and respondent, both self-represented, proceeded to trial on issues of net family property equalization and child support.

The applicant sought to impute an income of $104,000 to the respondent based on his start-up business, while the respondent argued for $40,000.

The court imputed the respondent's income at $55,000 per annum and ordered retroactive and ongoing child support.

The court also ordered the respondent to pay $33,233.90 in equalization, payable in quarterly instalments, and required annual disclosure of his corporation's financial statements.