Court File and Parties
Newmarket Court File No.: FC-16-51947-01 Date: 20200706 Superior Court of Justice - Ontario
Re: Kaspars Zvirbulis, Applicant And: Yana Peregudina, Respondent
Before: The Honourable Mr. Justice D.A. Jarvis
Counsel: Kaspars Zvirbulis, Self-Represented Alexandra Abramian, Counsel for the Respondent
Heard: In Writing
Ruling on Urgent Motion
[1] The respondent (“the mother”) has brought a 14B motion seeking leave to proceed with an urgent motion dealing with daycare arrangements for the parties’ four and a half year-old child who primarily resides with her pursuant to a final Order I made (on consent) on June 5, 2019 (“the Order”). The parties share joint custody. The mother has also brought a Motion to Change the Order, seeking sole custody.
[2] The issue involves full-time daycare for the child. When the applicant (“the father”) is working his mother cares for the child and so the child does not attend daycare: when the mother works (she has just been recalled to work outside of her home as of July 6, 2020) the child attends subsidized daycare (KI). The mother’s evidence is that the subsidy will be lost if the child misses approximately thirty days a year attendance. There is also a risk that the child’s daycare placement may be canceled in favour of a child attending full-time. The parties share a 2/2/3 parenting schedule. The father prefers a different daycare from the one that the child was attending earlier this year until the COVID-19 crisis closed that facility.
[3] In early June 2020 the mother contacted the father to confirm that the child would reattend KI when it re-opened. In a text exchange between the parties the father wrote that the child did not wish to attend KI: the father proposed another daycare that the child had attended the previous year.
[4] Effective June 26, 2020 the requirement of demonstrating urgency or an issue of pressing importance before leave to proceed with an urgent motion would be granted was rescinded pursuant to a Notice to the Profession and Family Law Litigants. The mother tried to discuss the daycare issue with the father before bringing her motion. In my view, the issue of the child’s full-time daycare attendance has been made urgent as a result of the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although served by email on June 26, 2020, the father has not responded.
[5] The mother is entitled to the relief sought in her motion. It is not necessary for leave to be granted. While paragraph 30 of the Order directs the parties to engage a parenting co-ordinator to assist them in resolving any parenting dispute, the issue of daycare needs to be addressed now.
[6] Accordingly,
(a) An Order shall issue as per paragraphs 1-3 of the Notice of Motion dated June 26, 2020; (b) The father shall pay to the mother her costs of this motion in the amount of $1,000, such costs to be enforceable as a support Order; (c) A Support Deduction Order shall issue.
[7] Costs have been awarded because of the absence of a response from the father. There is no acceptable explanation why the child should not be returned to KI and attend there with sufficient regularity so as to avoid his placement, and the mother’s daycare subsidy, being lost. In light of the parenting-co-ordinator direction contained in the Order it would be prudent for the parties to explore that approach to resolving the Motion to Change.
[8] In the circumstances of the COVID-19 emergency, this Order is operative and enforceable without any need for a signed or entered, formal, typed Order. Approval is dispensed with. The parties may submit a formal Order for signing and entry as soon as that can be facilitated by court services.