Court File and Parties
COURT FILE NO.: FS-15-405707 DATE: 20160919 SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - ONTARIO
RE: Ora Dina Haboura, Applicant – and – Shimon Yehuda Sitzer, Respondent
BEFORE: F.L. Myers J.
COUNSEL: Evelyn Kohn Rayson, for the Applicant Mark Greenstein, for the Defendant
READ: September 17, 2016
Endorsement
[1]
Overview
The respondent was more successful on the motion than the applicant. The applicant sought to require that all access be supervised and be of very short duration. I granted unsupervised access for the duration sought by the respondent. The applicant sought custody and deletion of a number of orders made by Chiappetta J. Instead, I granted her limited rights for a brief period, not on the merits, but as a result of the respondent’s absence from Toronto.
[2]
Analysis
The parties’ behaviour in upcoming access visits will be very telling as to how this proceeding will play out.
3I was particularly struck by two facts.
4First, the applicant sought to use access as a negotiating lever. She expressly made demands as a condition to allowing the respondent to exercise access. She plainly was exercising her power as the residential parent to try to improve her position in these proceedings. Similarly, I have now learned that although the applicant sought to require supervision of all access during the motion, in her offer to settle the applicant offered to agree to unsupervised access. The arguments that the applicant made in court concerning the respondent’s lack of fitness to exercise unsupervised access therefore were tactical and were not sincerely believed.
5Access is a right of the child. It is not a personal right of one parent to be bartered or withheld so as to prevent the child from developing a meaningful relationship with the other parent. The custody and access issues are not a commercial negotiation. Parents should not be thinking of custody and access as win-lose proposition. The child wins by obtaining an equal relationship with both parents unhampered by distress and ugly emotions. There is no “winning” on these issues other than providing the child with the healthiest upbringing available. This type of negotiation is not in the best interest of the child and must stop.
6The second important fact was the degree of acrimony that seems to be emanating from the parties’ parents. While it appears on the material that was before me that the respondent’s family was particularly aggressive, demanding, and difficult, I do not have enough of a picture to find that all of the blame lies on one side. Given the applicant’s tactical gamesmanship described above, I suspect that both sides could benefit from re-thinking their roles. The parties are relatively young. They are lucky to have caring, involved families. Their parents play important roles in their lives and in the life of the baby. But there is no room for a feud in which one family attacks or beats the other. The parties need their parents for support and to love and support their baby. They do not need generals managing a war.
7The families are now related through the baby. They will be engaged with each other for the rest of their lives. I do not doubt the sincerity of the hurt feelings, anger, and other emotions at play on all sides. But it is time to focus all efforts on reducing distress and creating a mutually supportive environment in which the parties can raise their child to be healthy and happy and bring naches and joy to all.
[8]
Costs
This is not a case for costs.
F.L. Myers J.
Date: September 19, 2016