Court File and Parties

Court File No.: FC-19-2532 Date: 2020/04/27 Superior Court of Justice - Ontario

Re: Lanny James Garrison, Applicant -and- Tanya Charmaine Cordukes, Respondent

Before: Justice P. MacEachern

Counsel: Judy Overgaard for the Applicant Ceilidh Joan Henderson for the Respondent

Heard: April 27, 2020, in writing

Endorsement

[1] The Applicant father requests an urgent motion be scheduled on the issue of interim access to the parties' child, now approximately two years of age. This request is made under the March 15, 2020 notice suspending regular operations of the Court except for urgent matters. I am the Triage Judge assigned to determine whether this matter should be scheduled for a motion due to urgency.

[2] I find that this matter is not urgent such as to warrant the scheduling of an urgent motion. I make this finding for the following reasons: a. Before the suspension of the Court's regular operations, the Applicant father had not taken steps to attempt to have this matter scheduled on an urgent basis. This is despite the parties separation on November 11, 2019, when the Respondent mother left the Applicant's home with the child, and that the Applicant has not seen the child since separation, except for one supervised visit that took place on February 21, 2020. b. A case conference has not yet been held in this matter. The first court date was scheduled to take place on February 19, 2020, but was adjourned to April 8, 2020. The April 8, 2020 date was adjourned due to the March 15, 2020 notice of suspension. I do not find that there is a basis for setting aside the need for a case conference, particularly when under the expansion of the Court operations for the East Region announced on April 2, 2020, a party may request a case conference on one or two pressing issues. c. I do not accept the father's testimony that he was an equal parent to the child before the separation. The history of events set out in his affidavit does not support this, including, in particular, the father's period of incarceration from March 4 to June 4, 2019. d. The evidence before me of the father's criminal convictions for incidents involving domestic violence perpetrated against the Respondent, in the presence of the child, provide a rational basis for the Respondent's position, before the current state of emergency, that the father's access be supervised. e. The Applicant father's main argument is that this matter has become urgent because, due to the Court suspension, his ability to bring a motion on interim access will be delayed, possibly by several months. But if the parties had the first court date on April 8, 2020, it is probable that they may have obtained a case conference date at the end of May or beginning of June, 2020. An interim motion may have followed that event – presumably by 2 to 4 weeks. I do not find on the evidence before me that this timeline would create a situation of urgency, nor is there evidence before me that a similar timeframe, or other reasonable timeline given the current state of emergency, is not available to the parties now, by requesting a case conference under the expansion of court services announced on April 2, 2020.

[3] I also comment on the parties' material filed on this request for an urgent motion. Requests for an urgent motion are administrative in nature. Requests for urgent motions are intended to be dealt with simply and expeditiously. The administrative decision as to whether a matter should be scheduled for a hearing is not a legal determination on the substantive issues. The material filed on such requests should reflect this. Filing material beyond what is required to make the administrative determination of urgency unnecessarily clogs up the triage process, consumes scarce Court and judicial resources, and consequently reduces the number of matters that the Court can process during this suspension.

[4] The Court has specifically directed parties to file limited material, so that the issue of urgency can be addressed by the Triage Judge in a summary fashion. The direction of the Ottawa Family Local Administrative Judge, issued on April 15, 2020 provides direction on what to file when requesting an urgent motion. It specifies that each party may file an (one) affidavit, not to exceed five pages plus a copy of an existing court order or relevant portions of any existing agreement. Despite this direction, the Applicant's original affidavit was 45 pages in length. It includes 40 pages of exhibits, none of which were orders or agreements. The Respondent's response affidavit was 17 pages in length, including 13 pages of exhibits, none of which were orders or agreements. The Respondent then filed two further affidavits, totalling another 43 pages, including exhibits. The material before me on this request for an urgent motion totalled 142 pages. This is not what was intended by the direction.

[5] In the future, parties may find that the Court rejects such material in its entirety and refuses to consider the request until the material that is filed complies with the directive.

Dated: April 29, 2020

Justice P. MacEachern

Released: April 27, 2020