COURT FILE NO.: FC173/17

DATE: September 29, 2025

ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

FAMILY COURT

BETWEEN:

ADAM MICHAEL COUSINS

Applicant

• and -

SARAH RACHEL HEALEY

Respondent

BEFORE: T. PRICE, J.

COUNSEL:

• Rebecca Coyne & Leanna Simpson, for the Applicant
• David Pentz, for the Respondent, until January 8, 2025; Brianne Kostal, between March 11 and April 14, 2025
• Respondent, self-represented between January 8 and March 11, 2025, and after April 14, 2025

HEARD: November 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, December 2, 4, 5, 6, 2024; January 2, 3, 8, 16; April 4; May 2, 2025

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Introduction

[1] This matter began in 2017 as an application by Adam Michael Cousins, (hereinafter, "Adam") seeking an order confirming the parenting time he was to have with their two children, upon which he and his estranged spouse, the Respondent Sarah Rachel Healey (hereinafter, "Sarah") had agreed in a separation agreement.

[2] By the time it proceeded to trial, seven years later in 2024, it had evolved into a request by Adam for an order pursuant to Family Law Rule 1(8) temporarily removing the children from Sarah's primary care due to her alleged failure to meaningfully participate in the reconciliation therapy to which they had agreed, the terms and parameters of which were embodied in a series of orders.

[3] In the interim, the children, now aged 17 and 14, have grown increasingly resistant to having any contact with their father, despite several court orders and the efforts of multiple therapists to help them address the cause(s) of their resistance.

Background

[4] Adam and Sarah were married on September 8, 2007 and separated in May 2014. Their children are C., age 17, and N., age 14.

[5] Adam married his current wife, Wilma, in 2021. Sarah has been cohabiting for approximately 6 years with Greg Lammiman.

Parenting after the Birth of C.

[6] While Adam was working at the time of C.'s birth, he took a week's leave when she was born.

[7] The parties agreed that after C. came home from the hospital, Adam was involved in her care as much as possible. He took a week's leave of absence. At the time, he was working the night shift. Not long thereafter, he received a promotion which allowed him to work the afternoon (3 p.m.-11 p.m.) shift.

[8] Sarah struggled with nursing. As a result, feeding time was lengthened because she used a device which she had obtained from the local Health Unit. Consequently, Adam also got up at night with Sarah while she nursed C. After the feeding was completed, Sarah returned to bed for some sleep while Adam put C. down to sleep. If she did not fall asleep in short order, he walked, read, or sang to her until she did so.

[9] Sarah described being frustrated, stressed, and anxious because of her nursing difficulties. If others were present when C. was to be fed, she often had to remove herself to accomplish the task. At those times, Adam often assisted her.

[10] Apart from nursing, Adam and Sarah also shared other parenting duties, including the changing of C.'s diapers, which he continued to do until she was no longer wearing them. During the day, he and Sarah took C. to participate in different activities. These included drop-in programs at the Early Years Centre, grocery shopping, and neighbourhood walks. They also spent time at home, where he played with C. and she slept on his chest while he laid on the couch.

[11] By the time C. was about six months of age, Adam continued to play with her before he went to work in the afternoon. Photos of Adam interacting with C. as an infant were entered into evidence at the trial.

[12] At this time, C. did not object to being carried by Adam and she showed no resistance to his changing her or feeding her when she began to eat solid foods.

[13] Before C. was a year old, Sarah and Adam agreed that Sarah did not need to return to work, particularly because staying home with C. was important to her.

[14] According to Sarah, while C. was generally a happy baby, she was also prone to periods of frequent crying. When she was 2-3 months of age, C. manifested signs of stranger anxiety, including toward members of Adam's family, who had infrequent contact with her. Later, C.'s stranger anxiety was said to have lessened, only to be replaced by separation anxiety. Adam agreed with Sarah about C.'s separation anxiety if she was not with Sarah. Adam became unable to console C. when she was upset and crying. Instead, she reached out for Sarah to comfort her.

[15] According to Adam, Sarah's response to his expressed concerns about C. turning to her for comfort when upset was that it was his problem. Sarah, on the other hand, spoke of Adam being frustrated at C.'s rejections of him when he tried to pick her up. She testified that, as the rejections continued, she told Adam that it was inappropriate for him to be upset about C.'s reaction, suggesting that he take his cues from C. instead. While Adam denied Sarah's version of events, it became clear that, over time, C.'s preference for Sarah's comfort over that of Adam became a sore spot between the parties.

[16] From Adam's perspective, by the time of C.'s first birthday, he was providing little primary care for her, largely because he was required to leave for work by about 2:00 p.m. most days, but also because Sarah placed herself in the position of being C.'s primary caregiver when both parties were at home. Sarah challenged Adam's claim that she would not allow anyone else to provide childcare for C. around the time of her first birthday, citing instances of her regularly leaving C. in Adam's care when she played volleyball, an activity that Adam claimed he did "not recall."

[17] Whatever the frequency that Adam provided primary care to C. I find that, by the time that she was one, he was far less involved in C.'s care than Sarah, even when he was not working. This situation developed from a combination of Sarah being home full-time while Adam worked, C. being a child who strongly favoured her mother's time and attention, and Sarah being a mother who was only too willing to give them to her, often without regard to Adam's role as C.'s other primary caregiver.

[18] Unfortunately, this issue was never cooperatively resolved. This is partly because Adam described himself as being "conflict avoidant" in their relationship, while Sarah was much more willing to engage about issues. This led, usually, to him deferring to Sarah when they had differences.

[19] A further point of contention between the parties related to C.'s resistance to physically interacting with her paternal grandmother and paternal step-grandfather, who were less involved with her. The parties argued about whether C. should be somehow encouraged to be physically affectionate with them. Adam was of the view that such encouragement should be provided because his mother and stepfather were "close relatives" of C.

[20] The parties' relationship continued to deteriorate in the year preceding C's second birthday. Both expressed the view in their evidence that they felt as if they were drifting apart. They were interacting and going out as a couple less often. To resolve some of their issues, including that related to C. becoming upset if Sarah was not around her, Adam asked Sarah if she would agree to seeing a counsellor. Sarah declined, repeating that the issue about C.'s reactions was his, not hers.

[21] Notwithstanding these troubles, by the time of C.'s second birthday, Sarah was pregnant with N. and the parties had moved into their second residence. By the time of N.'s birth, the parties were sleeping in separate bedrooms.

Parenting after the Birth of N.

[22] Adam testified that, after N.'s birth, the day-to-day routine was as it had been for C., and that he had plenty of one-on-one time with N., doing many of the same things that he did with C. as an infant. He also attended medical appointments for the children with Sarah when he was not working.

[23] Sarah, on the other hand, testified that Adam was less involved with N. than he had been with C. She pointed, in particular, to him getting up less often to help her at night while she nursed N., or tended to the children, despite him having continued to work the afternoon shift, which allowed him to be home overnight. Adam did not disagree about his occasional reduced assistance during the night, testifying that he sometimes slept through without assisting Sarah.

[24] During the day, when both parties were home with the children, Adam tended more to N. because Sarah continued to respond to C.'s claims for her attention. Sarah also continued not to allow him to console C. if she showed signs of distress, instead stepping in herself to provide the consolation.

[25] Adam acknowledged that, as time passed, Sarah's continuing tendency to take over with the children hurt his feelings. While he denied that he became angry, he said he would sometimes withdraw from a situation when he did not know how to address his frustrations with Sarah.

[26] I find that, while Adam continued to work the afternoon shift, he participated in the care of the children. His involvement was mainly, but not exclusively, with N. because of C.'s temperament and obvious preference for Sarah.

[27] One event which occurred in the summer of 2012, when C. was three, demonstrated, however, that C. was not irretrievably resistant to being in Adam's care, even when she was upset.

[28] Adam's friend, who was taking his daughter to Marineland, asked Adam if he wanted to go, bringing C. along. Sarah was opposed to C. going, at least partly because she had not been invited to accompany them. As she testified, this added to whatever insecurities she was struggling with at that time.

[29] Despite Sarah's opposition, Adam took C. to Marineland. Acknowledging that C. was distraught as they departed, he said that she recovered quickly, and they had a great time.

Adam's Involvement with Jiu-Jitsu

[30] When Sarah was pregnant with N. Adam, who acknowledged having no hobbies or outside activities at the time, apart from his employment, attended a jiu-jitsu class in London at the suggestion of a friend. He enjoyed it and signed up for classes. Adam quickly took to the sport because it gave him both a physical outlet and offered social connections.

[31] At the outset of Adam's involvement, while he was still working afternoons, he attended his classes on the weekend. In April 2012, when C. was 3 and a half years old and N. was one, Adam resumed working the night shift. When that occurred, he began to attend some of the midweek classes, which occurred between 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Instead of returning to St. Thomas after his classes ended, a drive of about 40 minutes, he remained in London until the commencement of his shift. He returned home to sleep the next morning after working through the night.

[32] While the parties disagreed about how long Adam slept after returning in the morning and was, thereafter, available to help care for the children, I find that, on those days when he awoke earlier in the afternoon, he continued to participate in caring for the children. However, on days when he slept longer, he focused on eating his dinner and hurriedly departing for jiu-jitsu. Parenting took on a lower priority for Adam on those days.

[33] As his involvement with jiu-jitsu grew, he began to attend additional classes, both during the week and on weekends. This led to a further deterioration in the parties' relationship. As that deterioration accelerated, his involvement with jiu-jitsu increased even more. Adam's involvement with jiu-jitsu became akin to a negative feedback loop.

[34] When he, Sarah and the children went to Sarah's parents' house for dinner they often drove two cars because he would leave early to go to jiu-jitsu. He also participated in a one hour podcast every couple of weeks, the production of which required two to three hours of his time on Sundays. He attended full day weekend jujitsu tournaments one a month, usually in Brampton. He stayed there twice overnight.

[35] On one occasion in 2012, with little notice to Sarah, he prioritized attendance at a jiu-jitsu tournament over a family outing arranged by her. On another, in 2014, which Adam claimed not to recall, he skipped going out for pizza with Sarah, her mother and the children after C.'s release from the hospital after some minor day surgery, because he wanted to go to jiu-jitsu.

[36] The deeper Adam became involved with jiu-jitsu, the more his attention was also diverted to other activities associated with it. When he was not working, he dined out and partied with his jiu-jitsu friends - always without Sarah - on Friday or Saturday nights.

[37] While the parties did not agree on how many times per week Adam was absent from their home due to jiu-jitsu-related activities toward the end of their marriage, it appears that they preoccupied many of his non-working hours.

[38] As a result, tension grew between the parties, Adam spent less time with the children, and the parties ended up living nearly separate lives.

[39] There were other consequences. According to Sarah, in the year or two prior to the parties' separation, the relationship between Adam and C. was not good. He had become totally frustrated at C.'s lack of affection and positive responses to his efforts to interact with her. At the same time, N. was increasingly indifferent to Adam because he had not been around much due to the combination of him working nights and regularly attending jiu-jitsu activities.

[40] Sarah also claimed that the gradual drifting apart of the parties and Adam's reduced presence with the children left her feeling both uncared for and of the lowest priority.

The Parties' Separation

[41] In the fall of 2012, Adam had become involved in an 18-month, on-again, off-again extra-marital relationship with a woman who also attended jiu-jitsu. He testified that they often met after the end of their jiu-jitsu classes before he went to work. Adam had also testified that, in this period, he drove to his place of employment after the completion of his midweek jiu-jitsu classes and slept in his car before starting his shift.

[42] Sarah learned of Adam's relationship in May 2014 and confronted him about it. While admitting his infidelity, he also saw this as the end of the marriage. After the confrontation, Adam left the parties' home and did not return for two weeks. When he did, the parties spoke. It was clear that their relationship was over. At the time, C. was six and N. was three.

Parenting After the Parties' Separation

At the Matrimonial Home

[43] Despite their separation, Adam continued to reside in the matrimonial home for two or three weeks after his return, then moved into a house that he had rented from a friend.

[44] It was during the period between Adam moving out and the commencement of his visits with the children that Sarah told them about the separation. According to her, they were not distressed when told. Although it is unclear if Adam also spoke to them about it, the parties never jointly discussed their separation with the children.

[45] Similarly, there was little discussion between Adam and Sarah about what Adam's parenting time with the children would look like following the separation. Despite this and the parties not agreeing about how much time passed between Adam moving out of the matrimonial home and his first visit with the children, once visits began, they occurred once per week, after school on Fridays, in the matrimonial home. While Sarah was also present in the home at these times, she did not interfere.

[46] The parties disagreed about how they settled on the matrimonial home as the location for Adam's early post-separation visits with the children. Sarah said that it was a mutual agreement that also took into account work that Adam had to complete before the matrimonial home was to be sold. Adam, however, claimed that the visits occurred there because Sarah's position was that the children were not ready to transition between the two homes. Citing his tendency to be conflict avoidant and passive, Adam claimed that he reluctantly yielded to Sarah because he did not want to argue the issue with her.

[47] While it is probable that the decision about where the initial visits occurred reflected the factors cited by each, I find that the key factor was Sarah's lack of support for the children visiting with Adam away from the matrimonial home because of what she regarded as his failure to spend meaningful time with them in the year or two prior to the separation.

[48] According to Sarah, despite being at home, the children were resistant to playing with Adam during his visits. Adam disagreed and said that he had "great visits" in the matrimonial home. Despite his dissatisfaction with the visits occurring in the matrimonial home, Adam was of the view that his interactions with the children were the same as they had been prior to the separation.

[49] I find support for Adam's description of the visits in the evidence of both parties that they typically ended after one and a half or two hours, with Sarah adding that Adam's departure was usually his choice because she never told him that he had to leave. That suggests that the children were not as resistant to Adam's involvement with them as Sarah suggested.

While the Children Attended Swimming Lessons

[50] Not long after Adam's Friday, in-home visits with the children began, visits on Wednesdays were added. They did not last long, however. Before the parties separated, Sarah had begun taking the children to swimming lessons weekly, on Thursdays, while Adam attended jiu-jitsu. At some point after the separation, the swimming lessons were shifted to Wednesdays. When Sarah informed Adam of the change, he agreed to substitute attendances to watch the children swim on Wednesdays for his in-home visits that day, while maintaining those that occurred on Fridays.

[51] The Wednesday visits were not meaningful for either the children or Adam. While the lessons were only about 30 minutes in length, because of his work commitments, Adam often arrived after they had started. He sometimes used his cell phone while there. He neither sat with Sarah nor did the parties speak with one another. He sometimes left before the lessons ended. By leaving early, he was unavailable to assist the children in the changing rooms. Moreover, he missed ceremonies where the children were graded on their progress and might receive a badge or other award.

Library Visits

[52] When the matrimonial home sold in either late 2014 or early 2015, Sarah and the children moved in with her parents. The parties settled on Adam's visits with the children occurring at the public library, once per week, commencing at 4:00 p.m. As at the time of separation, C. was six years of age and N. was three.

[53] While Sarah sometimes left the library to work in her mother's nearby real estate office while Adam and the children visited, more often she sat at a table elsewhere in the library, out of the children's sight, for the duration of the visits. She reported that, at those times, she engaged in activities such as studying for her ECE diploma, completing assignments, or doing research.

[54] The library visits continued for at least five years until the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, including after the commencement of this litigation in 2017.

[55] At the outset, the library visits were approximately 90 minutes in duration, usually ending because of the children's schedules and their need to go home for dinner.

Separation Agreement – December 2015

[56] The parties signed a separation agreement in early December 2015. Each had legal representation.

[57] The agreement provided that the parties would have "joint custody" of the children, who would reside primarily with Sarah.

[58] Adam was to have "access" a minimum of twice per week, at times and locations upon which the parties would mutually agree. Additionally, Sarah agreed to not unreasonably withhold her consent to Adam having additional access at his request.

Adam's Spurned Requests to Expand Parenting Time – April 2015 to November 2016

[59] Adam testified that his hope was to expand his parenting time once the visits were away from the matrimonial home. To that end, Adam was making written requests to Sarah for expanded parenting time as early as April 2015, before the parties signed their separation agreement.

[60] Sarah's responses were at direct variance with the terms to which she later agreed in the separation agreement. A good example of her attitude about his requests, and her rationale for refusing them, is evidenced in a series of text messages between the parties on N.'s fourth birthday in April 2015. In them, Adam suggested that he spend about one hour with N., initially over lunch. Sarah rejected that proposal, indicating that she had lunch plans for the children. When Adam suggested that he spend time with N. later, at the library, Sarah unleashed a tirade against him, indicating that she would not agree to his requests because the children were not interested in spending time with him. She suggested that he speak with N. because she had and she "knows how he feels…" When Adam pointed out that N. was only four, Sarah responded, "What does that mean? He still has an opinion. And I'm sure as heck not forcing him. Not on his fourth birthday." She also described the children as "los[ing] their shit" at any suggestion that they spend time with Adam.

[61] After lengthy, unproductive, texted debate between the parties about Adam's request for time with N., Sarah set out what became her mantra throughout the trial, and a prophecy, writing: "What was best [for the children] was being involved over the last 5 years. You set the groundwork. Be proud of yourself. And I guarantee when they learn everything one day you'll be dealing with it all over again." Not surprisingly, Adam received no additional parenting time that day.

[62] Similarly, on November 9, 2015, less than a month before the separation agreement was signed, when Adam again suggested that he spend time with the children away from the library, Sarah wrote that "getting them to the library or a park [to see Adam] is a nightmare most of the time." She again expressed her true feelings for Adam, blaming him for the situation with the children, writing, "You did this," and "You think that you can fuck around for 5-6 years and just pick up wherever you want, whenever you want."

[63] Clearly, the terms of the pending separation agreement were not likely to change Sarah's position about Adam or his parenting time. In fact, she continued to express negative views of him and maintain her resistance to him having additional time with the children in text exchanges on December 30, 2015, March 24, 2016, and November 5, 2016. She did not agree with Adam having additional parenting time in responding to any of those requests, always taking the position that the children were the ones who would decide if they wanted to see Adam, reporting that they did not, and laying the blame on him for having abdicated his parental role early in their lives. She was always blameless, in her view.

Adam's Library Parenting Time

[64] Notwithstanding what Sarah was telling him in her early text messages about the children's views of visiting with him, according to Adam, the children were happy to see him and engaged positively with him at the outset of their library visits.

[65] That changed, however, as the children engaged less with Adam. According to Sarah, he sometimes either texted or called her, telling her that the children wanted nothing to do with him.

[66] Over time, the visits became an unfulfilling, repetitive exercise in frustration for the children and the parties. Notwithstanding, Adam continued to attend the library for his visits and Sarah transported them to him.

[67] Acknowledging this, Sarah was asked why she did not agree to the location of visits being changed. Her response was that she was "not sure," before suggesting that the cause might have been her and Adam's inability to communicate well with each other.

[68] She also claimed that Adam had not pushed for a change in visiting location. However, when confronted with Adam's texts requesting changes to the location and an expansion of his parenting time and her responses, she claimed not only not to recall any of the exchanges, but she also refused to even acknowledge that she had written the responses they contained.

Other Issues About the Library Visits

[69] Apart from the diminishing quality of the library visits, they were also affected by:

a) Adam sometimes arriving late for visits because his job had moved out of London for a period, and he had not told Sarah because it was "none of her business." On these occasions, the children would be waiting for him to arrive, because Sarah did not know of the reason for his lateness and had not been asked to change the visit start times;

b) Adam sometimes missing visits - as many as 10, by Sarah's estimate - between 2014 and 2020, including for a vacation in Cuba and a business trip and concert in Toronto, both of which occurred in February 2015, and one in 2017 when he was stuck in traffic. As to the latter, Adam failed to explain or apologize to the children for failure to arrive, a move he claimed that he regretted; and

c) Adam sometimes leaving visits early, usually on holiday weekends, to drive to Orillia to visit his mother, an action for which Adam could not provide a reason for not having delayed his departure in order that he could have a complete visit with the children.

[70] Another consequence of Adam's late arrivals was that the duration of his visits with the children was reduced from one and a half hours to one hour weekly. The pattern of reduced visiting time continued when the children became more involved in extracurricular sports activities. At those times, instead of Adam arriving late for the visits, Sarah and the children would leave early.

Finding About the Visits

[71] I find that Adam more likely than not missed or was late for more visits and activities than he acknowledged. Of those, he did not always inform Sarah in advance that he would not be arriving, resulting in her taking the children to the library either early or unnecessarily, or to the local park unnecessarily.

[72] However, given the number of years that Adam had his visits with the children either at the library or in the local park, the percentage of total visits that he missed was not so great as to appreciably tarnish his evidence that he was dedicated to trying to see the children as regularly as possible after the visits moved from the former matrimonial home.

[73] That noted, one also cannot ignore the likely effect on the children of the combination of missed visits, late visits, and early departures over the years.

Adam Attending the Children's Sports Events but Maintaining a Low Profile

[74] Sarah generally tried to keep Adam informed about the children's sports events after the parties separated. He tried to attend the events but did not always do so. He acknowledged that he likely missed some of N.'s soccer games and the sports activities in which C. was involved during the spring and summer of 2016.

[75] On those occasions when Adam did attend, he generally stood apart from Sarah - the parties not speaking with each other - watching the children from a distance. Because of where he positioned himself to observe the children, it was possible, as Adam conceded, that the children were not even aware that he had attended because they would not have seen him.

[76] He also tended not to remain to speak with the children when the events were finished. By the time these events were occurring, the children had made it clear to Adam that they were not interested in speaking with him in any event.

[77] As was the case with respect to other missed visits, Sarah claimed that Adam missed many more of the children's sports events than he allowed in his evidence, and that he often provided no explanation for his absences. Other times, she claimed, he told her that he had been away and forgot to tell her, or he had missed the date.

Other Missed Opportunities to Visit with the Children

[78] Adam also acknowledged that there were other occasions when he missed opportunities to visit with the children when they were younger. These included short visits at a local park arranged between him and Sarah.

[79] Their birthdays, in particular, became a point of contention. Adam sometimes failed to acknowledge the birthday of one child or the other. These included C.'s sixth birthday, when Sarah invited Adam to drop by the house to see C. before she attended a party at the art gallery. While not specifically recollecting the event, Adam could not deny the allegation, either. He reasoned that he would not have gone to the matrimonial home, or stayed long if he did, because Sarah's family would have been there, which would have made him feel uncomfortable.

[80] Adam also conceded that it was possible that he might have missed C.'s seventh and eighth birthdays, although he had no specific recollection either way.

[81] In 2017, because Adam's visit would not occur on C.'s ninth birthday, he took presents to the library and placed them in Sarah's vehicle after the visit ended. He telephoned Sarah in order to speak with C. on the day of her birthday. Sarah said that C. was not interested in receiving his call. As a result, he was able to persuade Sarah to hold the telephone near C. while he said happy birthday to her. C. said nothing to him.

[82] In 2018, Adam's visit fell on C.'s tenth birthday. Sarah told him that C. did not want to attend access or see him, so no visit occurred.

Gifts for the Children

[83] While there was conflicting evidence about how often Adam may have given or failed to give gifts to the children for their birthdays or at Christmas, and whether the children accepted them or returned them to him, he did admit that he stopped giving the children Christmas gifts for a number of years following Christmas 2017, because Sarah returned the Christmas gifts that he had given the children at a library visit, unopened.

[84] Sarah, however, indicated that Adam was and continues to be welcome to come to her residence with any gifts for the children, that they had and continue to have annual discussions about the children's birthdays, and that when Adam comes to the house with any gifts for the children, she makes herself scarce so that he can give the children their gifts. This evidence runs contrary to so much other evidence, yet Adam did not dispute it.

Commencement of the Litigation

[85] On September 13, 2017, Adam texted Sarah again to ask if he could retrieve the children for a brief period on the upcoming Friday or Sunday for a brief visit with his mother and stepfather who were to be coming to visit. Sarah did not respond to his text.

[86] As a result, Adam, unrepresented at the time, commenced this litigation on September 15, 2017. C. was eight and N. was six when the litigation began. Three and a half years had passed since the parties separated and no progress had been made in expanding Adam's parenting time.

[87] In the application, Adam only sought an order for parenting time. He requested that it be unsupervised, and that it occur on alternating weekends and during one weekday. He also requested "reasonable, unsupervised" parenting time during holiday periods.

[88] In her answer, Sarah claimed that Adam was never an involved parent, that he engaged in other activities in preference to being with the children, and that he was, as a result, somewhat of a stranger to the children, who were uncomfortable in his presence.

[89] With the commencement of the litigation, the children's attitudes toward Adam worsened dramatically. While they continued to attend the library, accompanied by Sarah, who remained elsewhere in the building for the duration of their visits, they often told Adam that they hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. They often sat at computers for the entirety of their visits, rarely speaking with him otherwise. When he told them that he loves them, they responded that they do not love him. Adam's attempts to discuss the children's responses with Sarah were futile.

OCL Involvement

[90] On April 6, 2018, Ontario Court Justice M. O'Dea requested the involvement of the Office of the Children's Lawyer (OCL) "to inquire why, during access over three years, the children's views of and relationship with their father have not changed or improved."

[91] The OCL agreed to become involved and, on May 14, 2018, Jennifer Dewar was appointed to undertake a clinical investigation. After completing her investigation, she held a disclosure meeting with the parties on October 11, 2018.

[92] In her interim report dated November 9, 2018, Ms. Dewar summarized the parties' positions as follows:

"Mr. Cousins reports that he initiated this court application as he would like to have additional access with his children. He would like to be able to have the children at his home and be more involved with decision-making. Ms. Healy reports that the children become extremely stressed around having additional access and she is not in agreement with any access plan that would put the children at increased stress. Ms. Healy is requesting sole custody and would like regular access to occur when the children feel ready."

[93] She made the following noteworthy comments:

Mr. Cousins has very little information about the children. [He] has very little interaction with [them] during their access visits and was not able to provide any details of their life.

Ms. Healy reported on several occasions during this assessment that she feels that it is up to Mr. Cousins to build a relationship with the children, and she does not feel as though it is her job to facilitate this relationship.

When [C. was] asked about her visits with her dad she indicated that she did not like them and began crying into her hands.…When asked about her visits with her father… she said that… "He makes me uncomfortable." I asked what he does to make her feel uncomfortable [and] she stated, "just him being around."

N. very clearly said he did not want to visit his father and did not like seeing his father at the library. [Following a second observed visit by Ms. Dewar] N. said, "I don't want to see him anywhere."

[94] Ms. Dewar also observed two visits between Adam and the children. The first was at the library and the second at Merrymount in St. Thomas. She noted that, during the first visit, when Adam tried to interact with the children, "they would tell him to leave them alone. On one occasion when [Adam] tried to help N. with the [computer] mouse, N. pushed his hand away. At no time during the visit did the children look [at] or have any interaction with their father."

[95] The Merrymount visit lasted only 30 minutes. Ms. Dewar described the children, on arriving with Sarah, as "both crying, sobbing into their mother's leg, each holding a stuffed animal. They were hugging on their mother's waist. When asked if they would like to come in and see dad, they started crying louder.... The children refused to enter the access area to see their father. When Mr. Cousins came to the back of the room they sat with their faces in their hands. C. yelled "get out of here. I don't want to see your face" and N. yelled, "go away."

[96] According to Ms. Dewar, there was "no interaction between the children and their father."

[97] Adam agreed that the effort at him having his parenting time at Merrymount turned out to be a disaster. In fact, Merrymount would not allow them to return without assurances that transitions of the children from Sarah to him would not result in a similar scene.

[98] Ms. Dewar's report also noted that, unbeknownst to Adam, who had "joint custody" with her, Sarah had taken the children to their family doctor, who had recommended counselling for both children about access with Adam.

[99] In discussing her observations, interviews and findings, Ms. Dewar wrote:

The current access between the children and their father is in no one's best interests. It causes the children a great deal of stress and allows for no communication or relationship building between Mr. Cousins and the children. It is unfortunate for everyone that this community access has gone this way for so long. The fact that Mr. Cousins' visits with the children has involved no relationship building and very limited communication, and the fact that access has not been expanded on, has essentially stunted the children's relationship with their father…The children's presentation when discussing their father is very concerning. Although Ms. Healy reports that she tells the children that they need to see their father, there is little information to suggest that she has tried to help facilitate this relationship. She sees this as the role for Mr. Cousins, however both parents need to be committed to this process. In addition to this, Mr. Cousins has been very passive in his interactions with the kids and has made little attempt to move forward, in fear of the children's reactions.…Ms. Healy must begin to encourage a relationship between the children and their father….They need to feel safe in moving forward in trust that their mother is supporting them in building a relationship with their father. Visits between Mr. Cousins and the children need to be a priority and non-negotiable. It cannot be cancelled due to extracurriculars and must remain consistent. This will be very important for the children to be able to come to terms with their feelings and begin to fall into a regular routine. In addition to this, Mr. Cousins must remain consistent and begin to provide the children with information about himself and his life…It is expected that Ms. Healy will initiate counselling for the children as soon as possible. It is expected that Mr. Cousins will be a part of this reunification counseling in order to begin to build a relationship with the children.

[100] Ms. Dewar then made some interim recommendations because of the limited interactions that had occurred to that date between Adam and the children and the significant stress caused to the children by access. Those recommendations included:

a) Adam's access remaining supervised at the time, with visits to take place twice weekly for the next 6 months at the Elgin Merrymount Access Centre for a period of 2 hours per visit;

b) the children to begin to attend counselling, with Ms. Healy taking the initiative for its commencement; and

c) the children and Adam to begin reunification counselling together when recommended by the counsellor working with the children, ideally as soon as possible.

[101] Ms. Dewar further recommended that, if both parties agreed, she would contact them in a further six months to assess the situation, having particular regard to whether Sarah had arranged for and facilitated both individual counselling for the children and reunification counselling for the children and their father.

[102] Unfortunately, in the end, the Merrymount St. Thomas location could not accommodate other than a one-hour visit, once per week. As a result, Adam never received the twice weekly visits that were recommended by Ms. Dewar. Instead, access continued at the library, as it had before Ms. Dewar's investigation.

[103] Sarah's evidence at trial was that Ms. Dewar was biased against her "in some ways."

Counselling with Michelle McIntyre

[104] Not long after the release of the Ms. Dewar's OCL report, the parties began a search for a therapist who might be able to implement the recommendations of Ms. Dewar. Sarah was assisted by her former solicitor, Rebecca Fox.

[105] Ultimately, the parties agreed on trying to work with Michelle McIntyre, an experienced family therapist connected with Dr. Amanda Bell and Associates. Sarah made the initial contact, seeking information about reunification therapy.

[106] The parties worked, separately, on the intake form which Ms. McIntyre required before counselling could begin. Ms. McIntyre also wanted to meet individually with each parent to understand the circumstances before she met the children. Her longer-range plan was for Adam and the children to meet with her as a group.

[107] Sarah first met with Ms. McIntyre in May 2019. Her sessions occurred over two distinct periods. The first three meetings occurred in May, June, and July, 2019. None involved the children.

[108] In Sarah's second session, she raised the issue of conflict between the children's sports schedules and potentially attending for counselling. Ms. McIntyre suggested that some flexibility was required on the part of both parties about this issue. During this session, Ms. McIntyre confirmed that Sarah had no concerns that the children would be abused or maltreated in Adam's care. Instead, Sarah focused on what she felt were awkward and unnecessary efforts by Adam to display affection for the children when he was caring for them, which the children resisted. Ms. McIntyre told Sarah that she was concerned that the children were perceiving covert indications from Sarah that she was uncomfortable about them visiting with Adam and reacting accordingly.

[109] In her July 2019 session, Sarah described a recent access visit at which C., then 10 years of age, was "crying and rolling on the floor asking to go home," and about which Sarah reported that she was firm that the visit was to take place. During this session, Sarah also reported that the children knew little about Adam, with C. not even knowing his first name. Ms. McIntyre discussed the possibility of this issue being addressed in a future session once Adam and the children were meeting with her jointly.

[110] Adam first met with Ms. McIntyre in February 2019, and ultimately met with her on seven occasions, none of which involved the children. Ms. McIntyre used the sessions with him, in part, to try to learn his perspective on why the children were not interested in having a relationship with him. He told Ms. McIntyre that he was concerned that he had allowed his limited contact with the children to go on too long, because he is non-confrontational, and that he should have addressed the issue with Sarah much earlier. Ms. McIntyre recommended that he attend the children's sports activities as often as possible, since that was being identified to her as an issue by Sarah.

[111] Ms. McIntyre reported that Adam completed the homework she asked him to do and that he "engaged meaningfully" with her in his sessions.

Ms. McIntyre's Attempts to Schedule Sessions with the Children

[112] Ms. McIntyre's attempts to schedule sessions with the children over the summer of 2019 were unsuccessful because of their involvement in extracurricular activities. With the resumption of school in September, Sarah was seeking after-school sessions for the children, of which few were available. One was finally available in November, but Sarah declined because C. had made a school sports team.

OCL Follow-Up and Further Re-engagement Request

[113] As she had indicated in her interim report that she would do, Ms. Dewar had reached out to the parties in June 2019. At that time, having been told that the parties had just engaged with Michelle McIntyre, Ms. Dewar agreed to check in with them again at a later date. When she again checked in September 2019, she learned that the children had not yet started counselling with Ms. McIntyre.

[114] On October 4, 2019, Ms. Dewar spoke with Ms. McIntyre about the parental counselling and plans for the children's counselling to begin.

[115] During a further conversation with Ms. McIntyre on November 25, 2019, Ms. Dewar learned that Sarah had cancelled the children's first counselling session with her in November because of C.'s involvement with a school team. At that point, Ms. Dewar concluded that her continued involvement would be futile. She wrote a closing report which was particularly critical of Sarah. Ms. Dewar noted, specifically, that "[s]ince the interim report was filed, there has been no information to suggest that Ms. Healy has encouraged a relationship between the children and their father." She observed that visits "should not be cancelled due to extra-curricular activities and they must remain consistent," concluding that Sarah's changes to Adams parenting time due to activities and the delay of counselling for the children "continues to send the message to the children that access with their father is not important and secondary. It is in no way being thought of as a priority and there has been no progress made at all."

[116] She indicated that, in her conversations with Sarah, "it appears that she views the counselling as intended more for Mr. Cousins than herself." Despite Sarah having told her that she encourages the children to attend visits with their father, Ms. Dewar wrote that, "since there is no objective reason why the children would be so uncomfortable and resistant to seeing their father, it must be assumed that their reluctance is due to some influence by Sarah, whether intentional or not."

[117] Lastly, she wrote that there is "little evidence to show that Sarah has worked through her own feelings of anger and resentment about the situation," and recommended that Sarah engage in private counselling addressing those issues.

Order of Justice Korpan dated December 6, 2019

[118] Because of Adam's understanding that the children had still had no contact with Ms. McIntyre by late 2019, he moved for an order that they begin meeting regularly with her.

[119] On December 6, 2019, Justice Korpan ordered Sarah to ensure that the children meet weekly with Ms. McIntyre, beginning with a session on December 9, 2019. As a result, the children began to attend sessions with her. Sarah was also present during their sessions at the request of Ms. McIntyre. She made this "unusual" request because she wanted Sarah present to "regulate" the children, who presented as quiet and reserved in their sessions.

[120] During an individual session with Sarah on January 17, 2020, she indicated that the children – particularly C. – were being resistant to attending counselling with Ms. McIntyre. She, in turn, told Sarah that she needed to be more actively involved in the sessions with the children by encouraging them to have a relationship with their father.

[121] During a session with Sarah and the children on March 5, 2020, C. behaved as a much younger, insecure child. She cuddled up to her mother and told her that she loves her because of all the things that Sarah does for her.

[122] Following this session, Sarah reported that Adam was still missing visits or cancelling at the last minute. She also reported that she did not feel able to talk positively about him, which was causing her anxiety over the fact that she had been told to try. She complained that all of the responsibility was being placed on her. Ms. McIntyre wanted to consider her next steps following this discussion. However, she was confident that Sarah knew that her lack of active involvement in the children's sessions created a barrier to them having a better relationship with Adam.

[123] Unfortunately, there were no further sessions with the children because external events intervened. With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in mid-March 2020, all counselling visits with Ms. McIntyre were cancelled. Virtual visits were not yet in place, and Dr. Bell and her colleagues decided that they were not likely to be successful for any children they were seeing.

[124] At the same time, C. reached an age when Dr. Bell required her consent to continue with counselling. C. declined to provide it.

[125] In the result, Michelle McIntyre met with the children and Sarah on five occasions. She never progressed to the point of meeting Adam and the children together.

[126] Sarah testified that she did not regard Ms. McIntyre as being biased against her.

Children's Ongoing Visits During Michelle McIntyre's Involvement

[127] While the parties and the children were meeting with Ms. McIntyre, Adam's parenting time continued to occur at the library, with the same limited and uncomfortable interactions that had become their key feature. He did not try to resurrect the Merrymount visits, having concluded that, in the absence of therapy, there was no reason to believe that the children's behaviour there would be any different than it had been on the one occasion that a visit there was attempted.

Visits During Covid

[128] Because of Covid lockdowns, Adam's in-person library visits with the children were suspended. After a brief period, and some consultation between the parties, the visits resumed via Zoom.

[129] At the outset, the agreement was that the Zoom visits would occur on a schedule that was based on the children's availability. This meant constant text exchanges between the parties about scheduling. Eventually, the parties agreed that Adam would have his virtual visits with the children on a regularly scheduled basis.

[130] Adam devised different methods to keep the children engaged. They played word games. He purchased some board games that they could share over the Zoom platform. That was done by him sending half of the game to Sarah's place, with him keeping the other half. They also played participant games on the internet. While the virtual meetings started out lasting as much as 45 minutes, by the time that they ended in 2023, they typically ended in about five minutes.

[131] Of the 144 virtual visits scheduled between 2020 and 2023, Adam claimed to have missed only seven, while Sarah put the number at no more than twelve. Only seven visits occurred in 2023 before they ceased.

Other Covid Era Parenting Time Opportunities

[132] Justice Aston presided over a settlement conference on January 19, 2022. In his endorsement, he wrote that he had expressed a "blunt judicial opinion" that included a "suggestion that [Adam] bring a motion for in-person unsupervised access" which "he intends to do."

[133] On May 2, 2022, Justice Campbell made an order at a case conference, presumably on consent, which granted Adam parenting time with N. by attending his soccer practices and games and "being an involved parent." The order appears to have resulted from Sarah's complaint that Adam was not taking advantage of the opportunities that attendance at the children's sports events would allow him to see and, perhaps, interact with the children.

[134] In order to take advantage of the opportunities in the order, Adam stopped attending his jujitsu classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He began to attend N.'s soccer games, although he missed three because of previously scheduled events.

[135] The order also required Sarah to make her best efforts to have C. attend N.'s games and engage with Adam. As a result, C. attended all but one of N.'s games.

[136] However, nothing came of Adam's attempts to engage with C. or N. When Adam approached C. at the first soccer game to speak with her, she made eye contact and buried her face in her mother's lap. Sarah held onto her and comforted her, instead of encouraging communication with Adam. C. was 13 when this occurred.

[137] Similarly, Adam's efforts to interact with N. came to naught. Despite efforts to engage with N., the child simply ignored him. As with C., Sarah made no effort to have N. interact with Adam.

Reunification Counselling

[138] On July 4, 2022, the parties informed Justice Campbell that they had agreed to retain Paula DeVeto for the purpose of reconciliation counselling. Sarah had suggested her on the advice of Rebecca Fox, her counsel at the time. The parties agreed to provide the court with the necessary consent for an order on a future return date.

[139] On October 11, 2022, Justice Campbell made the follow-up order on consent of the parties. It required the parties to:

forthwith "take all necessary steps defined by Paula DeVeto to become a participant in, and thereafter attend, participate in and fully complete the course of family reconciliation therapy with the children and the other party on such terms as recommended by Paula DeVeto ;" and

exercise their full parental authority over the children which included, but was not limited to, taking definitive, reasonable, and necessary steps to facilitate parenting time between Adam and the children.

[140] The order further provided Adam with parenting time:

a) each Tuesday from 4:30 PM until 7 PM;

b) each Thursday by video 4:30 PM to 5 PM, and

c) for four hours on one day of each weekend, alternating between Saturday one week and Sunday the next.

[141] Sarah was required to drive the children to a location arranged between the parties for Adam's parenting time, leave them in his care, and remove herself from that location for the duration of Adam's scheduled parenting time.

Paula DeVeto

[142] At trial, Ms. DeVeto, a registered social worker who holds a master's degree in social work and has advanced training in family therapy and mediation, and who has an extensive family therapy practice, was qualified as a participant expert to provide evidence about reunification counselling/therapy, its processes, and goals. I also permitted her to provide opinions formed in the process of working with the parties.

[143] She described reunification therapy as a process by which a therapist and a family seek to restore a normal, healthy relationship between a parent and a child. She also spoke about her role in the reconciliation therapy attempted in this case.

[144] According to Ms. DeVeto, unlike family counselling in the usual sense, consisting of regularly scheduled one-hour sessions, reunification therapy is relational work, often requiring labour-intensive, complex, family systems work. It involves establishing healthy boundaries, ensuring healthy communication, and ensuring that there are no alignments with or over-empowerment of the children.

[145] While the subject children are not parties to an order establishing the therapeutic process, they are at the heart of it. However, because a rejected parent (in this case, Adam) has no legitimate parental authority at the outset of the therapeutic process, the therapist must rely heavily on the cooperation of the preferred parent (Sarah) at that time. To that end, it is that parent's responsibility to inform the children that both parents have agreed on the therapeutic process that is being followed, that the children have a role to play in the process, and that both parents have agreed that is important for the children have a relationship with the rejected parent.

[146] The reunification therapy with Paula DeVeto occurred over two distinct periods. Phase one occurred between October 2022 and April 2023, and phase two between July and October, 2024.

[147] Before the therapy could begin, Ms. DeVeto required that Adam and Sarah sign a "Family Treatment and Intervention Agreement." It addressed the therapeutic process, her role in it, and administrative terms such as costs and payments.

[148] Included amongst its terms were those which provide that:

a) the parties agree that it is in their children's best interests to have a meaningful relationship with both parents;

b) amongst the goals of the treatment are:

i. to facilitate the implementation of a fully normalized and healthy family structure; and

ii. to correct each child's distortions and replace them with realistic perceptions to reflect the child's actual experience with both parents; and

c) despite differences in their views about the causes and reasons for the children's refusal to see Adam, both agreed on all of the objectives in the agreement and that each is part of the solution to meet those objectives.

[149] The agreement further defined Ms. DeVeto's role and authority. Included amongst the terms addressing this topic were that Ms. DeVeto was authorized:

a) to manage, direct and set processes for therapy or, if required, to terminate her services; and

b) to make recommendations to the parents, lawyers, and the court to the extent that she has obtained sufficient information.

[150] Amongst the responsibilities of Adam and Sarah enumerated in the agreement were provisions that required both to:

a) attend all therapy sessions and other events as directed by Ms. DeVeto in a timely manner and without unsubstantiated scheduling delays;

b) overtly support both the therapy and Ms. DeVeto to the children;

c) participate in therapy for a minimum of 6 months unless otherwise specified by way of a court order; and

d) not unilaterally withdraw from the agreement prior to the completion of its term unless by joint consent of both parties.

[151] The agreement also addressed confidentiality. It provided that, by executing it, the parties were giving their informed consent for Ms. DeVeto both to obtain information from the court, counsel and both parties and to provide information received from all sources to the court, counsel, and the other parent.

Reunification Therapy - Phase One

[152] Before meeting with either Adam or Sarah, Ms. DeVeto met with Adam and his spouse, Wilma, and with Sarah and her partner, Greg Lammiman, both individually and as couples, to learn the history of the case.

[153] At no time during either phase did Adam and Sarah participate in a joint session with Ms. DeVeto. That was because Sarah expressed concerns about such a session citing, initially, a history of domestic violence, about which no evidence either existed or was previously claimed, as confirmed by counsel for both parties and, ultimately, anxiety about being in the same room as Adam. For this, Sarah relied on the duration that she and Adam had been apart when the counselling began, despite suggestions by Ms. DeVeto as to how she might facilitate such a session in a manner that would also alleviate any stress felt by Sarah. Instead, for a few sessions, Ms. DeVeto conducted her meetings with Adam and Sarah by shuttling between them in different rooms.

[154] Given their communication difficulties, Ms. DeVeto also recommended that Sarah and Adam switch from communicating by text to communicating via Our Family Wizard, which they did. Adam paid the first year's fee because Sarah was concerned about the cost.

Ms. DeVeto's Initial Assessments

Sarah and Adam

[155] According to Ms. DeVeto, at the outset of her involvement with the parents:

a) Sarah presented as being open to reunification therapy while also being aligned with the children. She told Ms. DeVeto that she had not thought about Adam's parenting time with the children, expressing no concerns about the children not having parenting time with him. Her focus, she said, was on the children and their feelings. Her position was that she would support whatever it was that the children wanted; and

b) Adam had clearly not considered the impact of his pre-separation behaviours on Sarah or the children. She identified him not notifying Sarah that he would be late for his parenting time at the library and failing to apologize to her or the children when he was late. She told him it was important for him to come to terms with his lack of involvement with the children both before and after the separation. To that end, she worked with him on being more child-focused in his interactions with the children.

The Children

[156] Ms. DeVeto began by crediting Sarah for persuading the children to even begin therapy with her, since it was something that they did not want to do.

[157] Having been asked to describe the children before they began reunification therapy, Sarah spoke glowingly of them, describing them as exceedingly successful, intelligent, popular and leaders within their peer groups. She specifically noted that C. is more strong-willed than N.

[158] When Ms. DeVeto initially met the children, Sarah was present. The children presented themselves as being in grief. C. in particular, spoke of feeling abandoned by Adam, claiming that his departure from the marriage left her feeling worthless and unloved by him. Ms. DeVeto noted, however, that many such complaints about Adam lacked specificity.

[159] When the children began to meet with Ms. DeVeto, Adam's parenting time consisted of one video call per week. Because all involved were of the view that the video calls benefited no one, Ms. DeVeto recommended that they end. Adam's contacts with the children thereafter, until the commencement of phase two of the reconciliation therapy, occurred primarily in counselling.

Progression Through Phase One

[160] When Sarah was present, the children were quite open, expressing their views and discussing their beliefs. Amongst those beliefs were that Sarah was "all good" and Adam was "all bad." Ms. DeVeto discussed both parents' post-separation behaviours and communications. She also tried to help the children understand what normally happens in families at time of separation.

[161] In contrast to their sessions with Sarah, during the children's sessions with Adam they were often rude and hostile to him. N. for example, told Adam that he hated him. C. claimed that having to meet with him posed a risk to her mental health. According to a report that Ms. DeVeto wrote for a motion that was heard by Justice Sah in December 2023, described below, during the joint sessions with Adam:

[The children] were forthcoming in sharing their views, deep hurt, and disappointment regarding the absence of their father in their lives. They expressed believing that their father did not love them or care for them. They displayed strong feelings and emotions throughout the session; they were teary and crying at times; their emotions appeared genuine and heartfelt… It became increasingly apparent that the children's distress was tied to their deep-rooted beliefs that their father did not love them or care for them. They expressed feeling unloved, not feeling cared for, and essentially worthless….

[162] Ms. DeVeto commented that Adam listened and tried to respond to the children's statements and concerns.

[163] She described the children's trajectory through counselling as one of movement from being very emotional to quiet but listening to open hostility. By the end of phase one, the children held their father in contempt.

[164] In line with Ms. DeVeto's assessment, as phase one continued, Sarah repeatedly claimed that the children were being harmed emotionally by involvement with the therapy. She described them crying and complaining, venting anger, resentment, and frustration after leaving their sessions, particularly with Adam. She testified that their moods and behaviours became increasingly concerning, and that they would not eat. Sarah said these alleged reactions to be especially pronounced for C.

[165] Ultimately, in an email sent to Ms. DeVeto on April 17, 2023, Sarah wrote: "Over the past several weeks the kids have been communicating many concerning things". She indicted that "they did not feel heard, listened to, taken seriously, or respected in meetings, that they feel they are being manipulated, lied to, and gaslighted." She indicated that the children did not want to continue with therapy, hated going, and had said nothing is going to change. She further advised that they came out of meetings angry and in tears. N. had reportedly repeated that he hated both Ms. DeVeto and his father.

[166] Sarah further recounted that, after a recent session with Adam and Ms. DeVeto, on entering Sarah's vehicle C. was having trouble breathing. She was said to be inconsolable for the entire drive back to St. Thomas from London. On arriving home, C. was said to have remained in the vehicle for about 15 minutes, unable to be calmed. When she finally exited the vehicle, C. was described as having collapsed on the grass, crying. Eventually, she entered the house, where she took some time to settle. Given the times attributed to these events by Sarah, and the usual driving time between London and St. Thomas, this evidence suggests that C., a 13-year-old teenager, was emotionally out of control for over one hour following, and because she was required to participate in, a reunification therapy session with her father. Following C.'s alleged emotional meltdown, Sarah took both children to see a nurse-practitioner.

[167] Ms. DeVeto's reaction to this email was forceful. She labelled the allegations made by Sarah in her email as "outrageous" and "unbelievable." She rejected the children's view, expressed through Sarah, that the therapy was "going nowhere." While she found the children to be contemptuous of Adam, she said that they did not show distress in his presence.

[168] Sarah's email led Ms. DeVeto to call for a meeting of the parties and their lawyers on April 25, 2023. Ms. DeVeto's insistence that the parties' lawyers also attend the meeting was predicated on the fact that the reunification counselling was court ordered, and because part of her plan in calling the meeting was to see if the parties could agree on a way to move the reunification process forward.

Meeting of April 25, 2023

[169] Ms. DeVeto's primary goal in calling the meeting was to address the concerns raised by Sarah in her email, particularly that the children were being harmed emotionally by continued involvement in therapy.

[170] Sarah wanted to focus on what she described as "the emotional toll" that the reunification process was having on the children. She was also seeking an acknowledgement that the children's concerns were both real and legitimate.

[171] The meeting yielded no tangible results. Sarah reported that she continued to tell the children that what they were doing was what they had been ordered to do. She also said that she kept reiterating to them that they should voice their opinions – whatever they might be - in therapy and told them that their father wanted to have a better relationship with them and that his way of showing that was his participation in therapy with Ms. DeVeto.

[172] Sarah came away from it feeling that she was being blamed for the children's responses to the therapeutic process.

[173] Moreover, Ms. DeVeto's insistence that the parties' lawyers attend the meeting ultimately became the source of more disagreement between her and Sarah. This was because Sarah had exhausted her benefits and had to pay for her lawyer's attendance from her own resources. While Ms. DeVeto's position was that she did not concern herself with insurance issues, her insistence on the lawyers' presence, regardless of cost to the parties, only deepened the growing rift between her and Sarah over the whole process of reunification therapy.

London Lightning Game

[174] The day after the meeting, Adam had Ms. DeVeto contact Sarah to invite the children to accompany him and Ms. DeVeto to a London Lightning basketball game on May 6, 2023. Sarah accepted on behalf of the children.

[175] In an email, Sarah described to Ms. DeVeto what she had done to prepare the children for the outing. Included were, telling the children that Ms. DeVeto was not angry with them for expressing their views and that Ms. DeVeto felt that they, and Adam, were doing well in therapy. At trial, she added that she told the children that she expected them to be polite and respectful, to enjoy the game to the best of their ability, and to not use their cell phones.

[176] Despite all of this, the outing did not go well. The children visibly displayed their resistance to being there. They barely spoke to Adam en route to the arena. Once there, they walked extremely slowly, and some distance, behind him and Ms. DeVeto as they approached the arena. They declined all offers of food and beverages. When sitting at the game. C. turned her back on Adam and did not speak to him. On returning to the exchange location the children ran to Sarah as if released from captivity.

[177] Sarah's position was that the children had comported themselves acceptably at the game. She saw nothing rude in their refusal to accept food or beverages. She said that Adam could have told C. to turn toward him during the game. Ms. DeVeto's response to that was that, given the tenuous relationship between Adam and the children, it would not have been helpful or productive for Adam to have told C. to turn around at the game. Instead, Ms. DeVeto addressed the issue by engaging in general conversation with Adam, to which C. could listen.

Termination of Phase One

[178] Under the therapy plan developed by Ms. DeVeto, the next step in the process was to have the children begin having home visits with Adam. As a precursor step, the parties were to attend a further joint meeting on May 25, 2023. As before, the parties' lawyers were also to be in attendance.

[179] The meeting never occurred. Instead, Sarah discharged Rebecca Fox and retained another lawyer. He wrote to Ms. DeVeto to advise that Sarah and the children were withdrawing from the reunification therapy.

Adam's Perspective on Phase One

[180] Adam's perspective was that the therapy improved communication between him and the children and that some progress was made in rebuilding his relationship with them.

[181] During his joint sessions with the children, Adam had his first frank conversations with them since they had become young adults. He acknowledged that they expressed harsh opinions about him.

[182] He apologized for events that had occurred in the past which had made the children feel as if he did not care about them. He also made commitments to them to avoid similar behaviours in the future. They also discussed events where his and the children's perceptions differed.

Sarah's Perspective on Phase One

[183] Sarah's perspective on the therapy, near the end of phase one, had been set out in her email of April 17, 2023. She felt that the goals of the reunification therapy, which she described as:

a) her, Adam, and the children moving on from the struggles of the past, and

b) the children having a more normal relationship with Adam,

had not been met.

[184] She also voiced belated concerns about the agreement which committed her and Adam to participate in the reunification therapy. Although represented at the time by counsel, she claimed that the terms which set out Ms. DeVeto's authority were not drawn to her attention. She felt that Ms. DeVeto had too much control and that, as she and the children experienced it, reunification therapy was not the positive, healthy process she thought it would be. She was of the view that the process was designed to benefit Adam more than the children.

[185] She claimed, additionally, to have had concerns about Ms. DeVeto early in phase one, before Ms. DeVeto began to express concerns about Sarah's behaviour.

Ms. DeVeto's Perspective on Phase One

[186] Ms. DeVeto testified that the issues that were of concern to the children during phase one were, in fact, being addressed in their sessions – both with Adam and without him.

[187] She was concerned that the cancellation of the follow-up meeting of May 25, 2023 and the improper, premature termination of the reunification therapy sent a wrong message to the children.

Actions Reportedly Taken/Not Taken by Sarah after May 2023 to Support a Relationship Between Adam and the Children

[188] Sarah testified that, after May 15, 2023, she was constantly thinking "how to get everyone to a better place." She regularly considered how the relationship between Adam and the children might be improved.

[189] She concluded that one way of doing so would be by affording Adam the opportunity to see the children at N.'s soccer games. She did this by sending him N.'s soccer schedule.

[190] She further testified that she spoke with the children about how they could "get to a better place." She thought that they might be more open to meeting with Adam away from counselling, and they reportedly confirmed to her that this was the case.

[191] However, while she was quick to point out that, despite having no regular parenting schedule after May 15, 2023, Adam contacted her about the children on only a few occasions, she provided no evidence of any effort on her part to arrange even one of the meetings between Adam and the children about which they were allegedly open to attending.

Actions Reportedly Taken/Not Taken by Adam after May 2023 to Support a Relationship with the Children

[192] Adam tried to maintain communications with the children by seeking their phone numbers from Sarah. She told him that he could get them from the children. This, despite the fact that he was not seeing them. Sarah later provided him with the numbers, although the parties disagreed on whether she did so in response to a motion. I did not see one in the electronic record.

[193] After the children had withdrawn from therapy, Adam did not ask them to go out with him into the community because Paula DeVeto had suggested that doing so would be counterproductive.

C.'s Post-Phase-One Tik Tok Posts About Adam

[194] Following the end of phase one, in August and September, 2023, Adam discovered a series of three posts that C. had placed about him on Tik Tok, a video sharing social media site. All were disparaging of him. A single screen shot of each video was entered into evidence. In one, C. wrote, "dads suck," followed by a series of "hashtags," including, "#mydadleftme" and "#fatherlesschild." In the second, she wrote "he left me," and in the third she wrote, "dads are overrated anyways." The second and third posts had the same hashtags as the first.

[195] Adam brought the videos to the attention of Ms. DeVeto but, apparently, not to Sarah's attention.

[196] In her report filed for the motion heard by Justice Sah in December 2023, Ms. DeVeto set out a more complete version of what C. reported in one of the videos. It described a memory C. claimed to have of her father in which he allegedly terrorized her and her brother during a Christmas visit at which Sarah was clearly present.

[197] Ms. DeVeto criticized C. for the posts, finding her action in doing so "not normative" and recommended that C. cease her actions immediately.

[198] When she learned of the posts, Sarah asked C. to remove them. She complied. However, Sarah imposed no sanctions on her for having placed them on the site.

Court Events Following the Termination of Phase One

[199] The parties appeared before Justice Campbell on August 8, 2023. At that time, Ms. DeVeto also provided the court with what Justice Campbell called a "verbal update." Justice Campbell then adjourned the proceeding to an Assignment Court on September 8, 2023, such adjournment being without prejudice to Adam bringing a motion for interim relief.

[200] On September 8, 2023, the matter was added to the trial list in April 2024.

[201] On October 4, 2023, Sarah brought a motion again seeking the involvement of the Children's Lawyer. Adam brought a cross-motion seeking a declaration that Sarah was in breach of Justice Campbell's order of October 11, 2022, which committed the parties to participate in reunification counselling, a monetary penalty of $1,500.00 for her non-compliance, and an order that she "strictly comply" with the October 11, 2022 order.

[202] Both motions were heard by Justice Sah on December 15, 2023. In a reserved decision dated January 31, 2024, Justice Sah granted the relief sought by Adam, dismissed Sarah's request for an OCL referral, and took on case management responsibility.

[203] In her endorsement, Justice Sah concluded that Sarah's disagreement "with Ms. DeVeto's opinion that the children's panic attacks, sleepless nights, diminished appetites and emotional breakdowns are a part of their healing…[was] not reason to abandon court-ordered reconciliation therapy."

[204] Justice Sah also made the following findings pertinent to both her order, specifically, and this proceeding, generally:

a) that Sarah "lacks understanding of her role as parental authority despite her consent to [Justice Campbell's] 2022 order;"

b) that, after changing counsel in May 2023, Sarah "took no further steps in relation to therapy, despite the fact that Ms. DeVeto was clear that she was concerned about the impact on the children of further delay;"

c) that Sarah "permitt[ed] the children to refuse to open gifts sent by [Adam], permitt[ed] the children to be rude to [him], and allow[ed] the children to dictate parenting time;

d) that Sarah "believes that she has no role in facilitating a relationship between the children and [Adam]; and

e) that Sarah had "failed to demonstrate that she has done all she reasonably can do to ensure compliance with [Justice Campbell's] order."

[205] Justice Sah held that Sarah "cannot flout a court order based on [her] belief" that "the children deserve to have their feelings, wants, needs and wishes heard."

[206] Justice Sah also directed that, before the March 8, 2024 first return date before her as case management judge:

a) Sarah was to "contact Ms. DeVeto to discuss her concerns;" and

b) the parties were to "obtain a list of recommendations to move forward given the children's hiatus from counselling and current presentation."

Events Following the January 31, 2024 Order of Justice Sah

[207] Shortly after the release of Justice Sah's reasons and order of January 31, 2024, Sarah's partner Greg Lammiman contacted Ms. DeVeto. He claimed to be speaking on behalf of Sarah. He asked Ms. DeVeto:

a) whether she would release Sarah from her therapeutic contract which, by then, formed the basis of at least one court order;

b) if she knew of any ethical reason she should not proceed with the counselling process; and

c) if she was a member of the Ontario Association of Family Mediators.

[208] Ms. DeVeto regarded the call and the questions raised as a veiled threat to report her to a regulatory body about how she had discharged her responsibilities in the first phase of the reconciliation therapy.

[209] Ms. DeVeto's belief had two immediate effects:

a) it led her to recommend that Adam decline an invitation that was extended to him by Greg Lammiman in February 2024 to meet, with the children present, so that they could observe positive interactions between the two men in their lives; and

b) she decided that, before the matter could proceed to phase two, in accordance with the order of Justice Sah, she required an acknowledgement from Sarah that there was no truth to her allegation that the process of reunification therapy, and Ms. DeVeto's role in it, were harming the children emotionally.

[210] In furtherance of her goals, and following a meeting with counsel on February 23, 2024, Ms. DeVeto confirmed to them, in writing, that Sarah needed to speak with a therapist for the limited purpose of addressing how the children were to be spoken to about the therapy, and to be educated about how to convey to them that participating in the reunification therapy was not detrimental to their mental health.

[211] To those ends, Ms. DeVeto referred Sarah to a therapist named Jenna Hill. While Sarah initially claimed to not understand why she was to meet with Jenna Hill, she did because of Justice Sah's order that therapy with Ms. DeVeto was to resume. She understood ultimately that Jenna Hill was to help her understand the reunification process and her role in it.

[212] Ms. Hill also, at the request of Sarah's counsel, described the process of reunification counselling to her, and how it differs from personal counselling.

Case Management Meetings (March and April, 2024)

March 8, 2024

[213] At the case management meeting on March 8, 2024, Justice Sah ordered that Sarah provide an update regarding her participation in counselling with Jenna Hill at the next conference, scheduled for March 28, 2024. Ms. DeVeto was also to provide an update, if necessary.

March 28, 2024

[214] At this meeting, Justice Sah noted that Sarah had met with Jenna Hill to begin counselling and that Sarah was reporting a positive interaction with Ms. Hill. Direction was given about Sarah requesting that Ms. DeVeto contact Ms. Hill. A portion of Ms. DeVeto's interim report on reunification therapy was ordered released to Ms. Hill. Mr. Pentz, Sarah's then-counsel, was noted to have reported that the children had a positive interaction with Adam.

April 30, 2024

[215] On this date, Justice Sah expressed satisfaction that "there has been progress, albeit slow." She noted that Sarah continued to see Ms. Hill and that she had "opened the door" to Adam attending her residence for N.'s birthday.

[216] Justice Sah suggested that an update from Ms. Hill would be of assistance. She asked for one by June 1, 2024, to be shared with Ms. DeVeto.

Jenna Hill

[217] Ms. Hill holds a master's degree in social work from Laurier University and has taken advanced training in both alienation and parent-child conflict. She is a registered social worker, a social worker for the OCL, and runs a part-time private practice.

[218] Ms. Hill provided both oral evidence and, as the result of the request by Justice Sah on April 30, 2024, a written status report dated June 5, 2024, outlining her progress to that date in counselling Sarah.

[219] In her written report, Ms. Hill noted that she had met Sarah six times between March 25 and May 28, 2024. She reported that Sarah:

a) told her that, when counselling began, she "believed [that she and Adam] would come to some sort of an understanding and find ways to move forward;"

b) told her that she encourages the children to remain involved with the reunification process, despite their mistrust of it;

c) told her that she had apologized to the children many times about her role and responsibility in the lack of relationship they have with their father;

d) often spoke of Adam's failure to attend the children's sports activities, activities that Sarah said were part of her and the children's "family values;"

e) told her that the longer the children were involved with reunification counselling with Ms. DeVeto, the more they grew to resist it;

f) did not appreciate that simply terminating phase 1 without speaking to Ms. DeVeto about her reasons for doing so deprived the children of a model "to learn how to address issues effectively, share their experiences, and allow for relationships to heal and move forward;"

g) "believes that the issues between the children and Mr. Cousins are largely a result of Mr. Cousins' historical and ongoing "lack of interest" in [the children];" and

h) "has further identified her belief that returning to reunification therapy with Ms. DeVeto would not be productive and would not be in the children's best interests."

[220] Lastly, Ms. Hill noted in her report that, "[a]fter several weeks, Ms. Healey was able to identify her feelings of resentment and frustration towards Ms. Cousins in their marriage and towards the children since their separation."

[221] At trial, Ms. Hill testified that Sarah, who she labelled a "black and white thinker,"

a) could not define the goals of counselling;

b) was initially reluctant to sign an authorization allowing Ms. Hill to communicate with Ms. DeVeto;

c) admitted to feeling that Ms. DeVeto was biased against her because she was always "making excuses" for what Sarah saw as Adam's "bad behaviour;"

d) felt that there was no value for the children in reunification therapy;

e) felt that Adam was pressing the whole concept of reunification therapy to make himself look good before the court;

f) told her that she manages conflict by trying to avoid it. As a result, she had not read Ms. DeVeto's report on phase 1 of the reunification counselling because of Ms. DeVeto's bias against her, calling her a bad mother (which Ms. Hill denied being the case), blaming her for the family's situation, and because she felt that the report would be hurtful to read;

g) had sought medical assistance for the children because she felt the sessions were causing the children, primarily C., to have anxiety;

h) was of the view that therapy with Ms. DeVeto had, in fact, worsened the family's situation;

i) did not support anything that her children did not want to do, seeing her job to be to support her children's wishes;

j) was of the belief that neither she nor the children had done anything wrong, and laid all blame for the premature termination of phase 1 of the reconciliation counselling on both Ms. DeVeto and Adam;

k) told her the children did not feel listened to by Ms. DeVeto, who [they believed] sided with Adam; and

l) was of the view that the Adam commenced his application for revenge against her, simply refusing to believe that he wanted to see the children, although she could acknowledge that it was "theoretically possible."

[222] Ms. Hill indicated that she was of the view that her sessions with Sarah had not met the goal of having her understand her role in the children concluding that their involvement in reunification therapy was causing them emotional harm.

[223] Ms. Hill further noted that she and Sarah had planned to continue meeting as phase two of the reunification therapy moved forward. The meetings did not occur, however, in part because Ms. Hill moved to another province.

Sarah's Reaction to Jenna Hill's Oral Evidence

[224] Sarah claimed to be "shocked" at Jenna Hill's "biased" oral evidence, saying that Ms. Hill had neither made the assertions made in her oral evidence to her during their meetings, and noted that such assertions were not contained in Ms. Hill's written report.

Impression

[225] While there is no doubt that Ms. Hill's oral evidence was more bluntly expressed, her written report contained similar assertions about Sarah's beliefs about reconciliation therapy and her role in the children's rejection of their father, although expressed more diplomatically.

Case Management Meetings (June and July, 2024)

June 19, 2024

[226] At this meeting, with the consent of the parties, Justice Sah made an order prohibiting Sarah from making a number of specific statements to the children which either:

a) blamed Adam for the family's situation being as it was due to his past behaviours, actions, or inaction; or

b) expressed negative views about the process of reunification therapy and both Ms. DeVeto's role in it and her interactions with the children.

[227] Justice Sah also directed the parties to jointly request a letter from Ms. DeVeto setting out next steps, including with respect to individual therapy, Adam's parenting time, and the reunification therapy.

July 18, 2024

[228] By this time, Ms. DeVeto had set out a plan for the family in an email dated July 16, 2024. It involved the children having some daytime visits at Adam's residence, ultimately expanding to a week-about sharing of parenting time.

[229] Justice Sah ordered that:

a) the parties comply with Ms. DeVeto's plan;

b) the parties and children participate in a further two days of meetings with Ms. DeVeto and Angela Murie, a colleague who would be assisting her;

c) Adam's parenting time was to resume on July 28, 2024, at his residence, for seven hours;

d) Adam was to have further parenting time with the children, including an overnight period, the week of August 5-11, 2024, as arranged between the parties; and

e) Neither Sarah nor Greg Lammiman could contact the children while in Adam's care.

The Involvement of Angela Murie

[230] Sarah raised issues with Ms. DeVeto's decision to include a second counsellor, Angela Murie, to assist her with the reunification therapy. According to Ms. DeVeto, she had involved Ms. Murie because of the complexity of the file and not because the children did not like her. Ms. DeVeto found Ms. Murie's involvement to be especially valuable during the community visits, when each of them could observe the interactions of the participants.

[231] Ms. DeVeto acknowledged Sarah's criticisms that Ms. Murie's involvement resulted in a higher hourly rate being paid for the reconciliation therapy than the parties had originally agreed on. She also admitted that she had not had the parties sign an updated contract containing either the new rate or either party's consent to Ms. Murie's involvement. She also failed to provide evidence of Ms. Murie's qualifications. To the last point, no information about Ms. Murie's qualifications was provided to the court, either. Ms. DeVeto testified that, when she was involved, Ms. Murie was always "second seat."

[232] Whatever the legitimacy of Sarah's complaints about how Ms. Murie came to be involved, Justice Sah's order of July 18, 2024 pre-empted them.

[233] Despite her criticism about how Ms. Murie came to be involved, Sarah quickly developed a better relationship with her than she had with Ms. DeVeto because she found Ms. Murie to be less rigid than Ms. DeVeto.

[234] She confirmed that, while the ostensible reason for Ms. Murie's involvement was to assist with the therapeutic process, any therapeutic meetings she attended after Ms. Murie became involved included both Ms. Murie and Ms. DeVeto.

The Meetings with Ms. DeVeto Preliminary to Adam's Resumed Parenting

[235] Sarah and Ms. DeVeto also disagreed about what was to occur on which of the two dates that Justice Sah had directed the parties and the children to meet with Ms. DeVeto preliminary to the commencement of Adam's parenting time with the children on July 28, 2024. Underlying their disagreement was the fact that C. was scheduled to work on the days set out in Justice Sah's direction.

[236] The disagreement was resolved by having Adam and Sarah meet with Ms. DeVeto on July 26, 2024, and with each child spending time with Adam and Ms. DeVeto in the community on July 27, 2024 – N., for lunch and C., for dinner. Both Adam and Ms. DeVeto described the children as being open and communicative, enjoying themselves at these events. According to Sarah, however, the children had not wanted to attend these sessions with Adam, and the presence of Ms. DeVeto only made their involvement more uncomfortable.

[237] Whether the children were putting on false displays cannot now be determined, although they had many times before proven themselves quite capable and willing to tell Adam when they did not want to be around him. Given that Adam and Ms. DeVeto were open about the children's negative reactions to the earlier basketball game, I find their descriptions of the children's reactions to the community outings to ring truer than those of Sarah.

Reunification Therapy - Phase Two: Adam's Resumed Parenting Time

[238] Adam's parenting time with the children on July 28, 2024 was the first time that they attended his residence.

[239] For their first visit, Ms. DeVeto had suggested that it might ease the children's discomfort if some other family members and friends with children of the same ages as C. and N. were to drop by during the visit. The children were not informed of the plan. Adam made these arrangements.

[240] Amongst those who dropped by during the visit were Devon Ferguson and Mackenzie Phillips. The visit lasted seven hours. While the children were guarded at first, they became friendlier as the visit progressed. They played videogames and participated in the making of a pizza. The evidence of Adam, Mr. Ferguson and Ms. Phillips was that the children generally appeared to enjoy themselves during the visit.

[241] The second visit occurred on July 31, 2024. On this occasion, Adam had invited a friend named Francesca Dunseith and her son to spend some time during the visit. Ms. Dunseith's son attended school with N. While Ms. Dunseith knew of Adam's efforts to build a relationship with the children, there was no evidence that her son had any such knowledge. Echoing Adam's evidence, Ms. Dunseith testified about the various games that were played during the visit, and the meal that was eaten. She, like Adam, testified about the children appearing to have fun during the five hours she and her son were present.

[242] The third visit occurred on August 1, 2024. As before, Adam arranged for a friend and her son to join. The plan for this day was for the kids to meet Wilma, who joined after work. Before Wilma's arrival, however, C. expressed her dismay to Adam about what she claimed was N.'s embarrassment about his classmate being present for the visit the day before. Adam's attempt to respond to her concern was rebuffed. Wilma's arrival, however, appeared to cause an improvement in C.'s mood. Everyone had dinner together before the children departed.

[243] The next visit occurred on August 2, 2024. The plan that day was for the children to meet Wilma's son K., who is one year older than C. but who also attended the same secondary school as her. Following the visit Adam, accompanied by N., drove C. to work before returning to his residence with N., where they played a video game.

[244] While driving C. to work, Adam and the children discussed a plan that had been discussed in therapy with Ms. DeVeto for a short camping trip the following week. Neither child had expressed any concern about the plan. However, when Adam texted the children on August 6, 2024 about the camping trip, C. responded that she was not comfortable attending, partly because it would cause N. to miss a soccer game. Adam informed C. that plans had been made for N. to be driven to his game.

[245] The camping trip proceeded as planned. Adam had refurbished a trailer for the children to sleep in. Wilma and her children were also in attendance. The children played some video games in the trailer on first arriving at the campsite. Adam checked in with them from time to time. Later, C. attended N.'s soccer game with Adam, where she and Adam remained in the car for the game because of the heat. On returning to the park, the children remained outside with Adam and Wilma until after midnight despite Adam offering them an opportunity to enjoy some more alone time. The next morning, while N. joined the others for breakfast, C. remained in the camper until it was time to return home. Adam's perception was that the camping trip had been a success and that the children had both enjoyed themselves and had fun while there. His perception was echoed by both Devon Ferguson and Mackenzie Phillips, who had also been in attendance for the duration of the camping trip.

[246] C., however, later expressed concern during a therapy session about Wilma's son, K., drinking underage and vaping marijuana while at the campground. Adam acknowledged that K. had consumed one or two drinks at lunch, with Wilma's consent. He added, however, that K. had not driven for six to eight hours thereafter, and that the children were not in K.'s car at any time he was driving. He also denied that K. had vaped marijuana. He later conceded in therapy that having allowed these actions was erroneous.

[247] Whatever positivity that had been created by the camping trip was soon lost after it ended. The cause was a conflict between parenting time for Adam on August 9, 2024, as ordered by Justice Sah, and plans that Sarah had made with Adam's father and stepmother for the children to visit with them at their residence in another municipality for the weekend that began on August 9. The problem was compounded by the fact that Adam and his father are estranged, and his father had posted to his Facebook page a comment that was critical of Adam's approach at trying to build a relationship with the children. This caused Adam concern that N. might see the post.

[248] Because of Sarah's plan to have the children miss the visit of August 9, 2024, Adam brought a motion seeking to prevent the visit with his father and stepmother on that weekend. Justice Sah was on vacation at the time. As a result, I heard the motion and ruled that Justice Sah's order had to be followed, with the children to have their visit with Adam on August 9.

[249] While Sarah testified that she did not tell the children about the motion or its result, their behaviour when she delivered them to Adam for his visit that day clearly indicated that they were aware that they would not be visiting their paternal grandparents that weekend. On arrival, and for hours thereafter, until the visit ended, the children refused to enter Adam's residence. C. told Adam that she did not trust him but offered no other explanation for refusing to enter his residence. When Adam sought Sarah's assistance, she pointed to a term in Justice Sah's order that prevented her from communicating with the children while they were in his care and told him to handle the problem himself. Ms. DeVeto suggested that he simply engage with the children outside his residence, which is what he tried to do. C. barely spoke with him, interacting instead with her cell phone. N. simply sat in silence, only entering the house to use the washroom. When offered food, the children refused it. At the end of the visit, the children refused Adam's offer of a ride back to Sarah's residence. They chose to walk but rejected his suggestion that he accompany them. He followed at a distance of about 50 feet, walking his dog.

[250] Because of her behaviour, C. had missed work that day, refusing to drive there with Adam. According to Sarah, she told C. that her missing work was disappointing and that she ought to have taken a ride with Adam.

Alternating Week Parenting Time

[251] Sarah also disagreed with the alternating week parenting schedule recommended by Ms. DeVeto, claiming that it did not take account of the children's schedules. She claimed that a week's absence from her home was too long for the children. It also concerned her that there was to be no contact with the children while in the care of their father. Despite Sarah's objections, Justice Sah confirmed the plan for alternating week parenting time in an order dated August 22, 2024.

[252] The alternating week visits ran from Monday to Monday. The plan for each week was that, before each of Adam's weekly visits were to begin, there was to be a joint therapy session with Ms. DeVeto.

[253] Adam's alternating week parenting time with the children began on Monday, August 12, 2024. It continued until October 7, 2024 when, in apparent contravention of Justice Sahs order of August 22, 2024, which specified that that the alternating week parenting schedule was to continue "until further order of the court," Sarah stopped sending to children to Adam's residence. This matter is discussed in greater detail, below.

[254] The following significant events occurred during the four single week periods that the children attended Adam's residence before they stopped going.

[255] During the first week, Adam took the children to Ikea to purchase furniture for the bedrooms that each would have in his residence. N. helped assemble the furniture. Each was also given a television in their room. Adam drove N. to soccer. Ms. DeVeto came to the residence on August 15 for a joint therapeutic session with the children. When offered the opportunity to speak alone with Ms. DeVeto, the children declined. On August 16, Adam and Wilma drove the children to Orillia for a visit with his mother and stepfather. They had lunch on the grandparents' boat.

[256] According to the evidence of Adam's mother, Sophie Mathewson, while the children were guarded at the outset of their visit (not having seen her or her husband for several years), they became less so as the day progressed. There was also talk about a possible future overnight visit. C. remained less open to that than N. but, at the end of the visit, both children hugged Ms. Mathewson after she asked them if it was okay for her to do so.

[257] The second week commenced on August 26, 2024. There was an uneventful, virtual, joint therapy session with Ms. DeVeto. Adam took the children rafting on the Grand River. Wilma's son K. and one of his friends also attended. From Adam's perspective, the day was "great," although C. did hurt one of her nails. C. also attended her volleyball tryouts during the week. Adam attended the children's other sports events and testified that he had his best conversations with them following such events. While Adam indicated that his interactions with the children generally went well during the week, the children did spend time in their bedrooms watching television instead of sitting with Adam and Wilma.

[258] Following a joint therapy session on September 8, 2024, the children were in Adam's care that week. By then, they had returned to school. Activities that week included C. working at her part-time job and playing volleyball and N. trying out for volleyball.

[259] This latter activity led to further conflict. Sarah was signed up to coach N.'s volleyball team. However, Justice Sah's order of August 22, 2024 prohibited Sarah from coaching the children's sports teams when they were in Adam's care. Sarah, however, could not withdraw as a coach. After a discussion with Ms. DeVeto, the parties agreed that if the court approved Sarah being present for N.'s volleyball, they would proceed accordingly. Ms. DeVeto, however, later told the parties that their agreement was not permitted by the exiting orders of Justice Sah, and that her orders could not be changed. As a result, Sarah told Adam that he would have to tell N. because she had already informed him of the parties' tentative agreement that she could coach his volleyball, even when in Adam's care. Interestingly, both Adam and Sarah indicated that N. did not appear upset at his mother not being permitted to coach him while he was in his father's care.

[260] It was during this week, however, that the children's activities also began to raise other issues. One related to whether C. had a curfew at Sarah's residence, which became an issue when she was out on a school night after the curfew of 10:00 p.m. that Adam had set for her He spoke to her about her late arrival home. He also learned from Sarah that the children generally make their own curfew decisions while in her care.

[261] As the week wore on, C. became more expressive of her dissatisfaction with Adam and the entire alternating week parenting plan. She generally communicated her views by text message. However, one time she did so while Adam was driving her somewhere in the car. C. told Adam that he is "a narcissist" and that she found him to be "disgusting." He agreed that the process was difficult. The conversation continued by text after they arrived back at the residence.

[262] Adam saw less resistance from N. to the alternating week visits.

Sarah's Private Messages Criticizing Reunification Therapy

[263] A joint therapy session scheduled for September 15, 2024, unrelated to a parenting time week for Adam, did not happen because Sarah failed to confirm whether she would participate. She was, however, communicating with Adam via Our Family Wizard in September, 2024, sending him multiple messages reporting "research" that she had been doing into reunification therapy, and noting that there was a growing body of evidence that it, "being unapproved, unethical, unregulated and not based on any legitimate science," was dangerous and constituted child abuse. She further disparaged Ms. DeVeto, claiming to have spoken with several of her former clients and "20 lawyers" about her, none of whom, she alleged, were supportive of Ms. DeVeto.

[264] Several posts that Sarah had made to an online group opposed to reunification therapy, based in the United States, between 2022 and November 2024 were entered into evidence. In them, Sarah had written prior to September, 2024, that:

a) giving parenting time to a parent which conflicts with activities in which children like to participate "will create relationship issues and resentment in the future," an issue about which she had "a feeling" she might be dealing in the future;

b) the court "system" is "a joke;"

c) reunification therapy is "a disgusting process" and "horrific," denying that it could be an "acceptable, reputable practice;"

d) "the people involved" with the reunification therapy into which her children had "been forced" "don't care;"

e) "the counsellor" [clearly referring to Ms. DeVeto] "is communicating negatively through and about me and their stepdad to the kids," showing "no concern" when told that the children's "mental and emotional health and well-being [are] deteriorating;"

f) Ms. DeVeto ["the one we were forced to see"] told her and the children they would not be healthy individuals without a relationship with their father, a comment Sarah labeled "inhumane" and "garbage;"

g) reunification therapy was "all about brainwashing, coercion and control;"

h) when the children see through what is occurring and refuse to go along, [Ms. DeVeto] "pushes harder and starts making threats;"

i) she withdrew from reconciliation therapy after 5 months because the children were not "buying any of the therapist's crap and that they were commenting that they didn't buy anything their father was doing either;"

j) the children commented on [Adam's] inability to behave as a grown man because he needed someone to show him how to be a parent;

k) reunification therapy is "$250 per hour of hell, manipulation, coercion, brainwashing and threats;"

and, after September, 2024, that:

l) a parent who forces their children into reunification therapy "despite their wishes and their autonomy regardless of why they feel the way they do" is engaged in "abuse and coercive control;" and

m) courts allow reunification therapy to occur because "they [do not] know what is best for everyone" and "[are] full of corruption."

[265] Confronted with her posts at trial, Sarah responded that she:

a) joined the group because it dealt with reunification therapy but she did not actively participate in it;

b) is of the view that if children say something it should be taken as truth; and

c) did not mean that the court system is "a joke," but that it has "flaws," such as lengthy delays for matters to proceed to trial.

[266] I did not believe her first and third responses. I do not share the view she expressed in her second.

[267] After showing the messages written prior to September 2024 to his lawyers, Adam responded, telling Sarah that he did not agree with her requests.

[268] At the same time, Ms. DeVeto and her colleague, Ms. Murie, were also made aware of Sarah's messages to Adam. They attempted to schedule a meeting with the parties and counsel to discuss the allegations being made by Sarah about them and the court-ordered process in which they were involved. That, however, proved unworkable when Sarah advised, through counsel, that she would not participate in such a meeting.

[269] Adam's next, and last, full week with the children commenced on September 23, 2024. He said that there were a couple of glimmers of hope in that week, as he went to C.'s volleyball and he registered N. for early morning soccer conditioning at the YMCA. That said, Adam described the week as difficult because there had not been therapy the weekend before.

[270] According to Sarah, following their alternating week visits with Adam, the children returned to her crying and frustrated, looking unwell and not being themselves. She claimed, particularly, that N. appeared unclean, as if he had not bathed. She also claimed that N. had reported engaging in self-harm at Adam's residence. However, no evidence, medical or otherwise, was called to support him having done so. Sarah said that she had encouraged the children to speak with Adam about their feelings.

Case Management Order of Justice Sah dated October 3, 2024

[271] Following a case management meeting held October 3, 2024, Justice Sah, noting that Sarah "no longer supports Ms. DeVeto's ongoing involvement," directed that the matter proceed to trial. In doing so, she also ordered that the parties jointly request a letter from Ms. DeVeto setting out the status of the reunification therapy process and providing recommendations.

[272] Ms. DeVeto's letter, dated November 12, 2024 (further discussed, below), notes that Mr. Pentz, Sarah's then-counsel, specifically wrote to advise Ms. DeVeto that Sarah was not requesting any such a letter from her.

October 7, 2024 and following

[273] Justice Sah's order of August 22, 2024 directed that the children's belongings be brought to the home of the parent receiving the children by 9:00 a.m. on the day of an exchange unless otherwise ordered by the therapists.

[274] On October 7, 2024, the children's bags were dropped off that morning at Adam's residence by either Sarah or Greg Lammiman. Adam noted, however, N.'s soccer clothing was missing, as was a volleyball that C. usually brought when she came. He also noted that none of the clothing usually sent for either child was sent. This caused him to be concerned that the children would not arrive after school, as had been the case since school resumed in September.

[275] Adam's concern was borne out when the children failed to arrive after school to begin their week in his care. He tried texting them but both had blocked his number. He texted Sarah, who told him, as she also testified, that she had no knowledge that the children would not be attending his residence. Adam asked her to bring them to his home. She responded that the children were refusing to go.

[276] In response to Adam's information that the children had blocked his number, Sarah, who admitted in her evidence to knowing they had, texted C. to inform her of Adam's concern that he would be unable to communicate with her because she had blocked his number. C. responded, "well, that just sucks for him." While she testified that he found her daughter's response to be rude, Sarah simply wrote at the time, in reply to C., "I am just passing the message along. Hope you have a great day!" She did not rebuke C. for her rude comment about Adam.

[277] That week, Adam attended N.'s soccer game, where he observed N. on the field, wearing his regular gear. The next night, he attended C.'s volleyball practice, where he observed Sarah dropping her off in the parking lot to go into the practice. C. was wearing her regular gear. Adam left without speaking to either Sarah or C.

[278] The same charade of compliance with Justice Sah's order of August 22, 2024 was repeated by Sarah on October 21 and November 4, 2024. The children's suitcases were sent with some clothing items in them, but the children continued not to arrive for their alternating week visits with Adam.

[279] On November 18, 2024, however, only N.'s suitcase was sent to Adam's residence. As before, N. never arrived. Sarah telegraphed notice of this change to Adam in a test message dated November 6, 2024, informing him that, because C. would be turning 16 years of age during his current parenting week, from which C. was absent, she had expressed the intention to withdraw from parental control and would no longer be attending his residence. In her texts with Adam on November 6, 2024, Sarah defended C.'s plan as being within her legal rights.

[280] Sarah claimed that, thereafter, she continued to send N.'s suitcase to Adam's on alternating Mondays in the hope that he would go back to Adam's as scheduled. She claimed that she also continued to remind him on the Sunday that he is supposed to go the next day to his father's, and that he should pack his bag.

[281] In fact, on December 30, 2024, N.'s suitcase did not get sent to Adam's residence. When he asked Sarah if it would be sent, she responded that N. has "refused to pack his clothes," something he had "decided for himself." N. has never returned to Adam's residence.

[282] Sarah also no longer participates in therapy with Ms. DeVeto and she provided no evidence of being in a therapeutic relationship with anyone else.

C.'s Alleged Withdrawal from Parental Control

[283] At the time of trial, C. continued to reside with Sarah. She was said by Sarah to be formulating a plan to move in with her maternal grandparents, who reside a short distance from Sarah's residence. Sarah told Adam that he can stop paying child support for C.

[284] The plan at the time of trial was for C. to move out in early 2025. Sarah claimed that she would not assist C. with her move and that she had no intention of providing her with financial assistance unless ordered to do so by a court. Despite this, she also asserted that she remained supportive of C.'s ability to determine what her personal relationships look like, including with Adam. She plans to manage C.'s antibiotics and "will always make sure she takes care of herself."

[285] Because of C.'s decision, Sarah had also stopped providing information about C.'s sports and other activities to Adam through "Our Family Wizard."

Steps Sarah Claimed to have Taken to Have the Children Comply with Justice Sah's Order

[286] According to Sarah, when the children first refused to go to Adam's residence on October 7, 2024, much of that evening was spent discussing with the children their failure to comply with Justice Sah's order. The children reportedly became angry and were adamant that they would not do so.

[287] Sarah claimed that she continued to remind them each day that week of their obligation to go to their father's residence. She also told them that, if they did not, they would lose privileges. They told her that they did not care.

[288] As a result, the children reportedly lost access to their phones each evening of the first week. N. was also prohibited from playing video games. At the time of trial, he was said to have also missed soccer and volleyball practices, with Sarah also refusing to coach on the nights that he would be in Adam's care.

[289] Additionally, the children were said to have also missed a family Thanksgiving event with the Lammiman family, while Sarah remained home with them.

[290] However, as time passed, the restrictions said by Sarah to have been imposed be her on the children to get them to attend Adam's for their alternate week parenting time were loosened. They resumed attending sports events during the weeks that they were supposed to be at Adam's. However, they were being driven there by Greg Lammiman, who was not bound by Justice Sah's order. Sarah justified these violations of Justice Sah's order by citing the costs of the activities for which the children had been registered and their love of those activities. Her rationale was that if the children are prevented from attending activities that they love, there will be a lingering resentment that could extend for the balance of their life. She claimed that she did not want that to occur. That response only made sense if she was speaking of her relationship with the children, since she was the only person who held the authority to penalize the children for not complying with Justice Sah's order by attending Adam's residence.

[291] As with others of Sarah's responses for not complying with court orders, I did not believe her attempt to justify her actions.

Adam's Response to the Children's Continuing Failure to Attend his Residence

[292] Adam refused to accept that the children had any right to decline to attend his residence after October 7, 2024. He continued to express his disagreement to Sarah via Our Family Wizard, and to text the children each Monday.

[293] That was the status quo when this matter proceeded to trial.

[294] In fact, until I made a post-trial interim parenting time order relating to N. on February 19, 2025, to be discussed below, neither child had any further contact with Adam after October 7, 2024. Sarah allowed this situation to continue despite Justice Sah's order dated August 22, 2024 which required that the children attend with Adam for parenting time in alternate weeks until a court ordered otherwise. That order continued to bind Sarah.

The DeVeto/Murie Letter dated November 12, 2024

[295] On October 21, 2024, Justice King expanded the requirement in Justice Sah's order of October 3, 2024 that the parties jointly request a letter from Ms. DeVeto to include Ms. Murie as a contributor.

[296] In their letter, they reported that, on October 18, 2024, they had each received 3 separate and seemingly identical revocation of consent letters. The letters were sent within 10 minutes of each other from 3 separate email addresses. One of each letter was signed by either Sarah, C., or N. The letters indicated legal and regulatory action would be taken against the therapists if private information were to be disclosed.

[297] The joint letter from Ms. DeVeto and Ms. Murie then reviewed in depth most of the events already discussed in these Reasons, including the changing attitudes of the children toward their father over the entirety of the reunification therapy process.

[298] In writing about the history of the parties' and children's involvement with reunification therapy the authors wrote:

"Ms. Healey presents with black and white thinking while maintaining a pejorative view of Mr. Cousins. On the last day of therapy on September 8, 2024, Ms. Healey alleged in an angry and accusatory tone directed at the therapists, "you are calling my children liars". This was a prior allegation when ending the previous therapy with Ms. DeVeto, restated to Ms. Hill by Ms. Healey during her individual therapy, and untruthful. The therapists had emphasized on this day and in prior sessions the importance of not taking the children's statements and depiction of events entirely at face value and the importance of communicating with Mr. Cousins to gain his perspective as a coparent…

Ms. Healey has not spoken favorably about Mr. Cousins or acknowledged his efforts to reunify his relationship with C. and N. Her remarks regarding Mr. Cousins' reasonable parenting decisions…are consistently critical and demeaning…

Ms. Healey's expectations about how Mr. Cousins should parent are not consistent. For example, she was critical of him for not reminding C. to take her antibiotics daily following her wisdom teeth extraction yet accused him of infantilizing the children due to his efforts to establish expectations regarding parent/child communication, means of transportation from school, and curfews…

What is consistent appears to be Ms. Healey's repetitive negative critiquing of Mr. Cousins as a parent. She has not made any compliments or positive statements about his parenting with both children. The children have also notably not made any positive comments about their father as a person, a father, or in relation to events they have shared (i.e., camping, shopping, gaming, tubing, etc.)…

The false narratives and the children's cognitive distortions in relation to their father have not changed since the family's prior therapeutic involvement with Ms. DeVeto…. C. and N. continue to blame their father entirely for their ruptured relationship with him. Neither Ms. Healey, nor C. and N. have spoken positively about Mr. Cousins as a person or a father during any interactions during reunification therapy. Like their mother, C. and N. demonstrate black and white thinking, which is not generally expected of teenagers who have typically developed some critical thinking skills. They also catastrophize and amplify events that although they could be upsetting are not serious. Their feelings are largely disproportionate to their experiences. C.'s and N.'s inability to be objective in relation to their father and to see what others see mirrors Ms. Healey's pejorative view of Mr. Cousins; Ms. Healey most recently described Mr. Cousins as "a liar and manipulator like he has always been"…"

[299] Under the heading "Clinical Findings" they wrote:

"Given that C. and N. are now 16 and nearly 14 years of age, up until July 28, 2024, they had gone for a decade without the benefit of having their father in their lives in any meaningful way. Ms. Healey does not take responsibility for the children's cut-off relationship from Mr. Cousins and their rejection of him. Rather, despite having the benefit of input from multiple professionals and the court over many years, she continues to blame Mr. Cousins' past and current actions for the children's rejection of him. Ms. Healey relies heavily on Mr. Cousins not regularly attending the children's sporting events, while previously denying him the opportunity to attend Caitlyn's grade 8 graduation. She is consistently inconsistent in her actions and behaviours when it comes to Mr. Cousins' parenting. …

Mr. Cousins had also not acknowledged Ms. [Healey], Mr. Lammiman and other family members at the children's activities and events, which is problematic.

…C. and N. are exhibiting signs of enmeshment and alignment with their mother who has a complete negative view of Mr. Cousins. The children's reactions to Mr. Cousins are consistently negative and substantially disproportionate to innocuous and positive events they experience with him. Ms. Healey takes innocuous positive and routine interactions and amplifies them in a negative manner and the children adopt her view without challenging that interpretation.

There is no evidence that Ms. Healey has used her legitimate parental authority to insist that the children treat their father reasonably, with kindness and respect. Ms. Healey reported that there are no behavioural problems by the children with peers, adults, and authority figures, such as teachers, counsellor, and coaches. It is apparent that C. and N. are respectful of others in their actions [except] their father. Ms. Healey's reliance on Mr. Cousins' inconsistent attendance at sporting events as a justifiable reason for the children to reject him and now, to not spend any time with him whatsoever, is not logical or defendable. This position is even less rational given Mr. Cousins transported [the children] and attended virtually all [of their] sporting events…during the 4 weeks he was able to exercise his temporary court ordered alternating week parenting time schedule. The therapists believe this is a ruse to distract others from substantive issues, primarily that Ms. Healey has never allowed the children to have regularly scheduled parenting time with their father.

Ms. Healey's decision to arbitrarily end reunification therapy for the second time in 2 years, when positive progress was being made, is unjustified and creates further confusion and emotional harm for the children. Her actions and behaviours demonstrate a commitment to minimize, and/or ultimately result in erasing Mr. Cousins from C.'s and N.'s lives. Ms. Healey has not followed the direction of the therapists and has violated multiple court orders. The therapists have observed during their involvement with the family that Ms. Healey has not abandoned her false narratives regarding Mr. Cousins and does not appear to challenge the children's cognitive distortions in relation to their father…

…The therapists have observed [Mr. Cousins] to be dedicated to all parenting time that is court ordered, while also following clinical recommendations by the therapists….

Despite consistent input from multiple professionals and the court over the span of many years, it appears there is no substantive shift in Ms. Healey's perspective or behavior as shown by her actions, most notably by failing to follow 2 court orders. This has prevented both children their right to have regular parenting time with Mr. Cousins and to receive reunification treatment to repair the father/child relationship."

Ms. DeVeto's Oral Evidence

[300] In testifying about her conclusions, Ms. DeVeto indicated that, throughout the period that she was involved with the family she considered multiple hypotheses that might account for C.'s and N.'s estrangement from their father. These included:

a) legitimate estrangement, seen in cases where there is severe maltreatment or severe neglect, neither of which she observed or heard about in this case;

b) alienation, where the children are programmed by one parent; and

c) a hybrid option, which combines harmful behaviours by the estranged parent and programming by the favoured parent.

[301] She had concluded that this was a case of parental alienation by Sarah. She had excluded the possibility of estrangement by Adam being a factor because of the absence of evidence of him having severely neglected or severely maltreated the children. The absence of such evidence also excluded the possibility, for her, of this being a hybrid case, consisting of a mixture of alienation and estrangement.

[302] Ms. DeVeto also described behaviours often manifested by children in reunification cases as including:

a) black-and-white thinking, manifested by the favoured parent being all good, able to do nothing wrong, and the rejected parent being all bad, able to do nothing right; and

b) being guilt-free about horrible things they have said or done toward the rejected parent.

[303] Similarly, included amongst concerning parental behaviours she has seen in reunification cases are:

a) interference by the favoured parent with the estranged parent's contact with the children since separation;

b) the favoured parent allowing the children to choose whether they have contact with the estranged parent; and

c) the favoured parent's failure to refer to the estranged parent, which can have the effect of erasing that parent from the children's lives ["erasure by silence"].

[304] She expressed her concern about Sarah allowing the children to determine whether or not they had contact with Adam. She had coached Sarah to work on persuading the children to understand that it was important it was to have a relationship with their father.

[305] It was Ms. DeVeto's conclusion that amongst the impediments to successful therapy for the children was the fact that they have been over-empowered and have a sense of entitlement. She specifically pointed to C. telling her that she is neither bound by court orders, nor would she follow any that required her to develop a relationship with her father.

Sarah's Evidence About the Children Developing a Relationship with Adam

[306] Sarah's position, asserted multiple times during the trial, was that, while she wanted the children to have a positive relationship with Adam, their decision not to have any relationship with him because he was absent during a large portion of their lives was theirs to make, given their ages.

[307] She claimed to have encouraged the children to talk to Adam directly over the years because, in her opinion, it is the primary responsibility of the parent seeking a relationship with the children to work on developing it.

[308] She said that she has also told the children that their father wants a better relationship with them and his view is that reunification therapy is the best way to achieve that relationship.

[309] She asserted that, as the children's mother, it is her job to look out for their health and welfare. She withdrew from reunification therapy because it was not only not working for the children, but it was also actively harming them and their emotional health.

[310] When asked how she squared her action of withdrawing the children from therapy and her obligation to comply with a court order, she had no response. It boiled down, in her view, to not allowing the children's health to deteriorate, which continued compliance with the orders was doing.

[311] When asked to articulate a plan involving her that would advance the cause of N. having a relationship with Adam, she responded that she would:

a) continue to notify Adam of N.'s activities;

b) share insights about N. with Adam so he can connect better with N.;

c) allow N. to take the lead about contact with Adam "based on his autonomy;"

d) support N. going to see Adam, if N. indicates that he wants to do so, including communicating that to both N. and Adam;

e) continue to be kind to Adam and respectful of him at all public events and sports activities; and

f) remain positive and continue to encourage a relationship with Adam through their communications.

[312] Sarah agreed with the suggestion that the plan she proposed would merely be a continuation of what she was doing at the time of trial, after the reunification therapy had ended. The reason she wanted to let N. take the lead on a relationship with Adam is because the directive approach of reunification therapy had not worked. She maintained that the children should have a say in what their relationships look like.

[313] Challenged that there is no way to balance supporting the children having a relationship with Adam while simultaneously respecting both their autonomy and their refusal to have such a relationship, Sarah disagreed, claiming only that there can be such a balance. She provided no details or specifics about how that balance could be achieved.

Parties' Positions

Ms. Coyne, on behalf of Adam

[322] This is a case of pure parental alienation and I should view it through the lens of Rule 1(8), sanctioning Sarah for her repeated failures to comply with the orders of Justice Campbell, which required the parties to participate in reunification therapy, and Justice Sah, which guided the process through a series of case management meetings and procedural orders.

[323] Not only should I reject Sarah's evidence that the children were being harmed both mentally and emotionally by the reconciliation therapy, but I must also disregard the claimed views and preferences of the children because they are not truly independent, despite their ages.

[324] I should accept the conclusion of Ms. DeVeto that language used by the children was often more consistent with that used by Sarah, also echoing some of the language in the anti-reconciliation therapy Facebook group to which she belonged.

[325] The children's refusal to willingly participate in the therapeutic process stemmed from the combined effect of Sarah refusing to exercise any parental authority over them about the matter and her often reiterated claim that the children's "autonomy" and their views and preferences need to be respected, given their ages.

[326] There was a consistency to the evidence of Ms. Dewar, Ms. McIntyre, Ms. Hill, and Ms. DeVeto about what Sarah needed to do to help the children understand the importance of an authentic relationship with their father, and to actively participate in its rebuilding. Instead, she did nothing. She mouthed the words of support at trial but never acted on them when given the opportunity to do so in therapy.

[327] As a result, the court is left with no option but to accept Ms. DeVeto's recommendation that primary care of the children be turned over to Adam for a period of 90 days. Such a result is the best chance for the children to develop a meaningful relationship with Adam. The magnitude of the children's progress in developing a better relationship with Adam over the period between July and October 2024 cannot be overstated.

Mr. Pentz, on behalf of Sarah

[328] This is a case of reasonable estrangement because the children never developed a solid relationship with Adam from birth. Whatever the past, however, the real issue at this time is whether it is too late for Adam to develop any relationship with the children. This is a case about dealing with emotions.

[329] It is also possible that the children's current poor relationship with Adam was contributed to by the actions of both parents: by Sarah, as a result of not encouraging the children sufficiently to have a relationship with their father; by Adam, as a result of not being sufficiently persistent in pressing for parenting time when he felt that Sarah was denying it; by both, as a result of their poor communication skills and tendency to being conflict-avoidant.

[330] Even if the court were to find that the failure of the children to have developed a relationship is Sarah's fault, such a finding is no longer relevant because the children are too old to be forced into a parenting arrangement to which they will never agree. It is counterproductive to compel children of the ages of these children into a relationship instead of allowing one to develop through the application of child-friendly approaches.

[331] If Sarah had truly not wanted the children to have a relationship with Adam, she would neither have taken the steps that she did to continue his visits with the children for as long as she did nor would she have continued to notify Adam of the children's sports events.

[332] Ms. DeVeto was clearly biased in favour of Adam. In rushing the process of trying to build a relationship between Adam and the children, she became too involved as a participant.

[333] The process she instituted was expanded aggressively and she went too far, too fast, moving the children to an alternate week parenting schedule after they had only a few visits for a few hours at Adam's residence. The children pushed back.

[334] Ms. DeVeto's other failings included insisting that lawyers attend every meeting she called, thereby making the whole process financially challenging for Sarah, involving Ms. Murie without prior consultation and discussion, and without a change to the contract signed by the parties.

[335] It is now too late for Adam to simply apologize to the children and then try to step directly into a relationship with them that never existed. The children and their emotions matter and simply cannot be overlooked.

Post-Trial Interim Parenting Time Order

[336] On February 19, 2025, after having heard the parties' submissions, I made an interim order for a lesser controlled parenting plan for Adam with N., having regard to the following:

a) Sarah had repeatedly claimed throughout her evidence that she supported the children having a relationship with Adam;

b) Sarah had also sworn that Adam comes to and into her home, with her consent, to deliver gifts for the children;

c) the reunification therapy that had been ordered by Justices Campbell and Sah had been terminated in early October 2024 when Sarah stopped sending the children to reside with Adam on an alternating weekly basis;

d) Adam had had no contact with either child since then;

e) C., having turned 16 years of age, had clearly signaled her willingness to leave Sarah's home to avoid having to have any contact with Adam;

f) the evidence had led me to regard C. as an emotionally high-strung teenager who appeared to exercise some measure of control over N.; and

g) N. had clearly demonstrated a willingness to enjoy himself in his father's care over the summer of 2024.

[337] While the order was somewhat complex, at its heart was a simple premise: Adam, and only Adam, would be allowed to drive N. to and from some of his sports activities each week, and N. would be required to attend a dinner with Adam once every two weeks. Sarah was required to exercise parental authority to ensure that N. accompanied Adam on each occasion, failing which she was liable to a fine each time that N. failed or refused to go. Moreover, on those occasions that N. might refuse to go with Adam, Sarah was required to allow Adam into her house to spend one hour conversing with N. Sarah was, similarly, required to exercise parental authority to ensure that N. conversed with his father at her residence if he refused to do so en route to and from his sports activities.

[338] The theory underlying the order was that N. would more likely want to attend his sports events than sit at his mother's home speaking with Adam. The only cost to N. of complying with the order would be a conversation with his father:

a) en route to and from the sports events, much as had occurred during the camping trip in July 2024, when Adam drove N. to and from a soccer game, and

b) once every two weeks at dinner.

[339] I also used the order as a test of Sarah's sincerity about wanting to support a relationship between, in this instance, N. and his father. I wanted to ascertain whether a hint of a relationship could begin to develop between N. and Adam in a circumstance where sports and dinner, rather than reunification therapy, were the reasons for their contacts.

[340] I set a return date of May 2, 2025, and directed that evidence relating to the success or failure of the interim order would be provided by affidavits. Adam's affidavit was to provide a calculation of the amount that Sarah might be liable to owing for failing to comply with the order.

Result of the Post-Trial Interim Parenting Time Order

[341] I was advised when the parties appeared before me on May 2, 2025 to report on the results of my interim order that the effort had been an unmitigated disaster. N. had absolutely refused to have anything to do with his father from the outset.

[342] Things had deteriorated so badly over the period of the adjournment that Ms. Simpson, counsel that day for Adam, specifically requested that I terminate my interim order. Sarah's newly retained counsel, Ms. Kostal, concurred.

[343] As a result, I terminated the order. In its place, I made another, pending the release of this decision and the order it supports, which includes a clause addressing a threat that had been made by C. to summon the police if her father attended any of her sports or other public events.

[344] Based on the evidence of the parties, as set out in their affidavits filed pursuant to my order dated February 19, 2025, I am satisfied that the following 18 breaches of the order occurred over the period between February 21, 2025 and April 22, 2025:

a) N. refused to enter his father's vehicle to attend a practice or tournament with his father on 6 occasions;

b) Sarah failed to allow Adam into her residence to converse with N. on 2 occasions;

c) N. did not converse civilly, or at all, with his father on 7 occasions after failing to attend a practice or game with his father; and

d) Noah refused to attend a weekend dinner with his father on 3 occasions.

[345] I am also satisfied that deemed breaches of the order occurred on 7 occasions commencing April 5, 2025, after notice had been given by Ms. Coyne to Ms. Kostal that I had indicated in court on April 4, 2025 that Adam could discontinue his attendances at Sarah's residence given N.'s repeated refusals to do anything required of him under the order. I had further indicated that, unless and until Sarah informed Adam that he should resume his attendances because N. would comply with the order, a deemed violation of the order for which Sarah would be held responsible would be found for each time that Adam did not attend her residence when, but for N.'s expected refusal, he should have done so.

[346] I specifically disagree with Sarah's submission that N. was unfailingly polite to his father when he was at her residence. Blatantly ignoring someone who has come to see you and failing to speak when spoken to for an hour is not politeness. It is rude. Moreover, the order required that N. converse with his father, so silence was a violation of the order that was visited on Sarah since she clearly failed to exercise parental authority over N. by telling this supposedly unfailingly polite child to speak when spoken to.

[347] The parties' affidavits addressed a number of other matters that fell outside of the parameters of my order dated February 19, 2025 and, as I informed them on May 2, 2025, I had no intention of addressing those other matters in my judgment.

Issues

[348] This case raised the following issues:

1. Has Sarah breached or failed to comply with any of the court's orders in this case?

2. Can the court use Rule 1(8) to impose an order reversing the primary residence and decision-making responsibility, temporarily or permanently, for the children C. and N. or either of them?

3. What order ought to be made in the circumstances of this case, in the children's best interests?

Issue #1: Has Sarah breached or failed to comply with any of the court's orders in this case?

[349] Not including my post-trial order of February 19, 2025, there is overwhelming evidence of Sarah's multiple failures to comply with orders in this case. These include, but are not limited to, the orders of:

a) Justice Campbell dated May 2, 2022, when she failed to make any effort to have either child engage with Adam at one of N.'s soccer games. Her failure became patently clear when, in response to C.'s melodramatic overreaction to Adam approaching her to speak with her, Sarah comforted C. instead of requiring that she converse with her father;

b) Justice Campbell dated October 11, 2022, repeatedly, when she failed to:

i. "attend, participate in and fully complete the course of family reconciliation therapy with the children and [Adam] on such terms as recommended by Paula DeVeto ," particularly by terminating her involvement in the process twice – in April 2023 and October 2024;

ii. "exercise [her] full parental authority over the children which included, but was not limited to, taking definitive, reasonable and necessary steps to require each of them to attend participate in and fully complete the course of reconciliation therapy;" and

iii. "exercise [her] full parental authority over the children which included, but was not limited to, taking definitive, reasonable and necessary steps to facilitate" parenting time with Adam;

c) Justice Sah dated January 31, 2024, by continuing to not comply with Justice Campbell's order dated October 11, 2022; and

d) Justice Sah dated August 22, 2024, by failing to require that the children continue to attend Adam's residence on an alternating weekly basis for parenting time without a court order permitting her to stop doing so.

[350] As a result, I find that the requirement that there be a "failure to obey an order" in this case as the basis for considering the making of an order under Rule 1(8) has been established.

Issue #2: Can the court use Rule 1(8) to impose an order reversing the primary residence and decision-making responsibility, temporarily or permanently, for the children C. and N. or either of them?

[351] Again, the answer is "yes." As the Court of Appeal wrote in paragraph 51 of Bouchard v. Sgovio:

51 Such broad and purposeful applications of r. 1(8) are sensible. The relevant substantive right is created by the order that is being enforced, while r. 1(8) serves to provide the means of enforcement so that those substantive rights may be realized. The rule therefore provides broad discretion to courts to make orders it considers necessary to fully address a party's failure to comply, a flexibility that is of particular importance when the orders address the well-being of children: Children's Aid Society of Haldimand and Norfolk v. J.H. and M.H. , at para. 127. Stated simply, if the remedy ordered addresses or "[deals] with the failure" to comply with the substantive order and the remedy ordered is found to be necessary to achieve the enforcement of the order being breached, that remedy is prima facie authorized by r. 1(8).

[352] Justice David Aston, however, articulated an important qualifier on the extent of the court's authority to craft an order under Rule 1(8) in Wallace v. Fisher, holding that while "Family Law Rule 1(8) provides the court with a broad range of options once a finding of non-compliance has been made," any "consequential order" made pursuant thereto "must not adversely affect [a child's] best interests."

Issue #3: What order ought to be made in the circumstances of this case, in the children's best interests?

[353] Because the parties are divorced, any order that I make will be pursuant to the Divorce Act, R.S.C, 1985, c. 3 (2nd Supp.) The court's authority to make an order such as that sought by Adam also derives from ss. 16.1(1), 16.1(2), 16.1(4) and 16.1(5) of the Divorce Act.

[354] Thus, while it is clear that the court, having determined that Sarah can be sanctioned under Rule 1(8), can make a broad range of orders, any such order must still comply with the requirements of the Divorce Act that it be in the children's best interests. This is made clear in s. 16(1), which mandates that the court "take into consideration only the best interests of the child of the marriage" when making a parenting order. Thus, the children are to be the focus of the court's analysis and decision.

[355] In arriving at a decision based on each child's best interests, the court must give "primary consideration" to each child's "physical, emotional and psychological safety, security and well-being." (s. 16(2))

[356] Section 16(3) sets out a list of non-exclusive factors that the court "shall consider" in determining the best interests of each child. Key to this case are the following:

(a) the child's needs, given the child's age and stage of development, such as the child's need for stability;

(b) the nature and strength of the child's relationship with each spouse, each of the child's siblings and grandparents and any other person who plays an important role in the child's life;

(c) each spouse's willingness to support the development and maintenance of the child's relationship with the other spouse;

(d) the history of care of the child;

(e) the child's views and preferences, giving due weight to the child's age and maturity, unless they cannot be ascertained;…

(g) any plans for the child's care;

(h) the ability and willingness of each person in respect of whom the order would apply to care for and meet the needs of the child; and

(i) the ability and willingness of each person in respect of whom the order would apply to communicate and cooperate, in particular with one another, on matters affecting the child.

[357] Moreover, while s. 16(3)(j) also requires that the court consider "any family violence and its impact," neither party took the position that this is a case involving family violence, as that term is defined in s. 2(1) of the Divorce Act. I agree. There was no evidence that could lead me to conclude that either party committed family violence against the other or the children.

Alienation

[358] I first consider whether the children's rejection of their father is the result of pure alienation, as claimed by Ms. Coyne on behalf of Adam, or one of pure estrangement, as suggested by Mr. Pentz on behalf of Sarah. A third option that I must also consider is whether the parents both contributed to the current situation through a combination of alienating and estranging behaviours and actions.

[359] The court does not require expert evidence to find alienation. It is, instead, "a factual finding about what happened in a particular family."

[360] Alienation has been described in several cases. In Bors v. Bors, Justice Van Melle adopted the following statement about alienation, taken from the Manitoba case of L.M.A.M. v. C.P.M. at para. 98, based on the evidence of Dr. Michael Stambrook:

[Alienation]… is a descriptive term that refers to a process where there is a systematic devaluation, minimization, discreditation of the role of, typically the other parent in a parental dyad. One parent systematically, through a variety of physical, emotional, verbal, contextual, relational set of maneuvers systematically reduces the value, love, commitment, relationship, involvement of the other parent by minimizing, criticizing, and devaluing that parent's role. It can involve children having their sense of history being "re-written" by a parent's redefinition of history, reframing things, repetitively talking about things. It can involve sometimes very subtle and sometimes not so subtle suasion, coercion, direction, misrepresentation, and so on…

So parental alienation is a process, an interactional process where systematically one parent's role in, for the children is eroded over the course of time.

[361] In Williamson v. Williamson, 2016 BCCA 87, [2016] B.C.J. No. 343 at para. 40, the British Columbia Court of Appeal adopted the words of Justice Barrow in D.S.W. v. D.A.W., 2012 BCSC 1522, describing the "the core of parental alienation" being:

... the notion that the child's decision to refuse to have a relationship with the targeted parent is without justification or without convincing reason. If there is a reason given by the child for taking the extreme step of refusing to have a relationship with a parent, it will often be out of all proportion to the decision taken. The reasons for such decisions need to be assessed with the particular personality and experience of the child involved. What may seem a thin or unconvincing rationale for one child may have a much more convincing force in the context of the personality and experience of another child.

[362] In Y.H.P. v. J.N., [2023] O.J. No. 4665, Justice M. Kraft, citing the trial decision of Justice P.W. Nicholson in A.M. v. C.H., 2018 ONSC 6472, listed several factors, also known as indicators of alienation, which had been identified in several cases. Amongst the many listed, I find that the following exist in this case:

Child Behaviours:

• View of parents one-sided, all good or all bad; idealizes one parent and devalues the other
• Vicious vilification of target parent; campaign of hatred
• No guilt or ambivalence regarding malicious treatment, hatred, etc.
• Anger at rejected parent for abandonment; blames him/her for divorce
• Stories are repetitive and lacking in detail and depth
• Denial of hope for reconciliation; no acknowledgement of desire for reconciliation

Alienating Parent Behaviours:

• Allows and insists that child makes decisions about contact
• Rarely talks about the other parent; uninterested in child's time with other parent after contact
• No photos of target parent; removes reminders of the other parent
• Refusal to hear positive comments about rejected parent; quick to discount good times as trivial and unimportant
• No encouragement of calls to other parent between visits; rationalizes that child does not ask
• Telephone messages, gifts and mail from other parent to child are destroyed, ignored or passed on to the child with disdain
• Does not correct child's rude, defiant and/or omnipotent behaviour directed towards the other parent, but would never permit child to do this with others

Estrangement

[363] Courts have described estrangement occurring when "the child understandably refuses contact with a parent because of that parent's behaviour, and there is a logical and rational reason for the child's rejection of the parent." It has also been found to exist "in cases where the child's alienation is reasonable and warranted by the history of the child's relationship with the rejected parent."

[364] Since a finding of alienation does not require expert evidence to be found to exist, I see no reason why the same principle should not apply to estrangement.

A Combination of Alienation and Estrangement

[365] This concept, referred to by Ms. DeVeto, was judicially identified by Justice J. Audet in Ginese v. Fadel, [2024] O.J. No. 2948, where she wrote:

208 It is now widely acknowledged by researchers and academics that parent-child contact problems are best understood from a multi-factorial perspective. While there are cases in which a child's rejection is totally the fault of one parent, in most cases both parents bear some responsibility for the estrangement and rejection.

Analysis

[366] It is not difficult to see how Adam has come to the conclusion that he has been deprived of a relationship with the children as a result of Sarah's alienating actions. The evidence supporting that conclusion is substantial. I do not hesitate to find that Sarah's aliening actions were a cause of the children's total rejection of a relationship with Adam.

[367] However, while the children's abhorrent views of Adam may have been shaped largely by Sarah's alienating actions, I cannot conclude that those views did not also partially arise as a result the combination of his absences from their lives as young children - absences for which he was partially responsible, even if Sarah was prone to exploiting them to her advantage – and his failure to vigorously resist Sarah's alienating actions, both before and in the months and early years following their separation.

[368] The current difficulties began many years ago when C. was an infant. At that time, Sarah began to drive a wedge between her and Adam. When he expressed concerns about the fact that his infant child was rejecting him, Sarah offered no assistance or advice to address the issue, instead telling him that it was his problem to deal with. This was early evidence of the view that she had formed of her husband while they were still together, and which continued long after the marriage ended, as noted by both Ms. Hill and Ms. DeVeto in written reports to the court.

[369] By the time of C.'s first birthday, the combination of Adam's employment, Sarah being C.'s sole caregiver when Adam worked, and C.'s preference for Sarah's attention meant that Adam was slowly being minimized as a figure in C.'s life.

[370] The parties' disputes about Adam's diminished role in caring for C. and Sarah's uncaring attitude about it were never resolved because neither liked conflict. Admissions to this effect were made by Adam in his evidence at trial and by Sarah to Jenna Hill. I find that Adam's trip with C. to Marineland despite Sarah's opposition before the parties' separation constituted a rare act of resistance on his part.

[371] While N.'s birth might have provided a brief respite from Adam's reduced role in parenting, it only applied with respect to N. Sarah continued to prioritize attending to C.'s needs, including her emotional upsets.

[372] Unfortunately, Adam's contribution to the current situation grew when he turned to jiu jitsu to fill a void in his life during Sarah's pregnancy with N. His participation, which grew to include a podcast and weekend tournaments which increasingly took or kept him away from Sarah and the children, simply added to the in-home absences that resulted from having to sleep during the day because he was working a night shift.

[373] As Adam grew more frustrated, by his own admission he also withdrew from situations involving Sarah and the children because of an inability to address those frustrations. And, of course, he was conflict avoidant.

[374] The evidence is clear that, by the time the parties separated, the children had been growing up in an environment often lacking Adam's presence. I accept Sarah's evidence that the children were not overly distressed when she told them that she and their father were separating. While this would have been to a large degree due to their ages, I do not discount the possibility that they were also used to his absences, so a separation, whatever that might have meant to them, did not represent a huge change as it related to interacting with him.

[375] With the separation and the children primarily in Sarah's care, both by circumstance and agreement, the growing estrangement caused by Adam's lengthening absences from the children's lives became the void into which Sarah, both overtly and covertly, added a narrative that ultimately led to the children's adoption of her negative feelings for him – feelings originally driven by her continuing anger at him for his absences and his betrayal of her.

[376] The children's growing estrangement from Adam and Sarah's contribution to their alienation by providing a narrative of rejection merged in Sarah's control of Adam's visits. Adam made the situation no better by failing to demand the parenting time to which he was entitled, not merely by the terms of the parties' separation agreement, but because he was the children's father and it was in their best interests to that he be a part of their lives.

[377] By not pressing his position, Adam lost a chance to exert some control of his parenting time. Sarah, by winning this issue, maintained control of the parenting arrangements. She permitted no expansion. The children continued to see Adam under her controlled conditions. Their horizons were not expanded. However good the visits may have been, because of their brevity and infrequency, Adam had to have remained a somewhat estranged figure in the lives of his children.

[378] The next step in the mixture of causes for the current situation involved the children's swimming lessons. As briefly as this interlude existed, Adam's record of attendance was not good. The lessons were short and he was often late because of work. Thus, the children rarely saw him there. He and Sarah sat apart, and he sometimes took work calls. He left early on occasion. He did not enhance his position in his children's lives during this period. Estrangement grew.

[379] Things got no better with visits moving to the public library – where they remained, unaltered and unexpanded for a period of five years. To his credit, Adam continued to ask for more time with the children, but Sarah constantly resisted, sometimes offering absurd reasons, such as the opinion of a four-year-old child must govern. As before, Adam either failed to push back or if he did, it was done weakly. While it was done with great reluctance and sadness, he accepted Sarah's control. With that control of Adam's visits went Sarah's control of the narrative to which the children were exposed. She also tacitly, if not explicitly, failed to discourage their resistance to seeing Adam, thereby empowering them.

[380] Dynamics, and the beginning of Adam taking steps to end any estrangement of the children, began to change in 2017, when he commenced this litigation. At the outset and through Covid-19, the case moved slowly. By then, the children viewed Adam as an interloper in their lives. Sarah's Answer blamed Adam for the situation entirely.

[381] When Adam retained counsel and pressed for action on the file, he was no longer engaging in estranging behaviour, but it was too late. The children's views of him, shaped by Sara's unwillingness to take any responsibility, had taken hold in their minds. Those views have neither left nor been appreciably altered, despite all of the interventions to date.

[382] Two points need to be made about the combination of estrangement and alienation that existed in this case.

[383] The first is that Sarah's actions in alienating the children from Adam contributed more to the current situation than his estrangement of them did. Sarah always had both the capability and the authority to help the children overcome their estrangement from Adam by actively supporting a relationship between him and the children. She could have addressed the children's sense of loss by allowing Adam into their lives when he asked and spoken of him as someone worthy of their respect and their time. She did not have to justify the actions which led to his estrangement but she could have discussed with Adam the fact that he should address them with the children himself, during extended periods of parenting time not under her control. Instead, she chose to expose the children to her barely contained contempt for him and opposed his efforts to share meaningful time with them in an atmosphere less stifling than the local library. She nurtured the children's anger at him, instead of addressing it in a constructive manner.

[384] The second point is, and I find that, despite his contribution to the children's estrangement, and whatever the state of his relationship with Sarah, Adam loved his children. He had just not been around much of the time to show it. This is significant because I also find that his efforts to maintain and revivify his relationship with them after the separation, in the face of their horrible and unacceptable behaviours, have been sincere and not merely performative.

Best Interests Factors

The children's needs, such as their need for stability, given their ages and stages of development.

[385] C. is 16, soon to be 17 years of age. N. is 14 years of age. Both have resided with Sarah since the parties separated in 2014 – a period of 11 years. Both are described by Sarah and her witnesses in glowing terms -intelligent, independent, outgoing, leaders. Both are said to have a close and loving relationship with her. In this, there is stability.

[386] That stability, however, contains a risk of premature collapse, driven by both the history of this case and the personalities of Sarah and the children.

[387] Recently, C. declared herself to be free of the control of both Adam and Sarah. At the time of trial, however, she had not given effect to her declaration by leaving Sarah's residence. Her plan was ill-defined - no more than a threat or an illusion. However, that it was formulated demonstrates that she prepared to upset the stability of life with her mother in order to avoid having to even have any contact with her father.

[388] Similarly, N.'s extreme reaction to the post-trial interim order that I made demonstrated the lengths to which he, too, was willing to go in order to avoid contact with his father. He, too, was prepared to upset the stability of life with his mother in order to avoid his father.

[389] Given these reactions, the intervention recommended by Ms. DeVeto would undoubtedly have an impact on the children's sense of stability. As a result, in determining whether to upset it, the court must take into account "both the short term and long-term risks and benefits" for each child.

The nature and strength of the children's relationship with each spouse, each of the child's siblings and grandparents and any other person who plays an important role in the child's life.

[390] The evidence demonstrates beyond any doubt that the children have solid, ongoing relationships with members of the extended families of both parents, but only if they have identified and sided with Sarah through this litigation. Through those relationships they are exposed to an echo chamber, one in which those extended family members willingly repeat and amplify their mother's resistance to Adam having expanded time with the children. Adam's father is estranged from him and publicly criticized him in a post that was open to being read by N. for seeking a relationship through rehabilitation therapy. Sarah's mother, who dismissed Adam as being uninterested in his children, clearly was loathe to even acknowledge that his pursuit of this litigation may have meant that he actually wanted a relationship with them. The bias in her evidence, and her contempt for Adam, were palpable.

[391] The children have clearly aligned themselves with Sarah, and regard her as being above reproach.

[392] On the other hand, the children have no relationship with Adam's mother, his stepfather or his wife, Wilma. However, it must also be acknowledged that Adam's mother and stepfather withdrew from continued contact with Sarah after the parties separated because, according to Adam's mother, at first, they thought that they would see the children in the normal course of post-separation arrangements. Later, after this litigation began, they did not want to interfere in it. Wilma was a stranger to the children because Adam failed to even inform them of his marriage. While they likely would not have wanted to hear from him about his marriage, by not having informed them Adam again lost an opportunity to remind them, however briefly, that they matter in his life.

[393] Even at this stage of their lives, the best that can be said about the children's relationship with Adam is that, for a brief period in the summer of 2024, it was fragile and, perhaps, in an emergent stage of resuscitation – a stage that was only reached by a combination of court orders and the sustained efforts of Ms. DeVeto.

Each spouse's willingness to support the development and maintenance of the child's relationship with the other spouse

[394] Adam made clear that he generally regarded Sarah as a good mother. His stated goal, repeated throughout the trial, was to re-establish a relationship with the children, and to work on growing it from there.

[395] While Ms. DeVeto did go as far as to say, when asked, that if the children did not demonstrate a willingness to reconnect with him after being in his care for 90 days, consideration would have to be given to making any change of residence more permanent, Adam did not adopt that statement or plan. This suggested to me that his true goal was, in fact, what he had articulated it to be.

[396] Sarah, on the other hand, deliberately failed in every way and at every opportunity to support the children having a better relationship with Adam. Her do-nothing approach was called out by Ms. Dewar in her OCL report, by Michelle McIntyre during a counselling session on January 17, 2020, and by Ms. Hill, in reporting advice that she gave to Sarah in that regard during their sessions. Ms. DeVeto referred to Sarah's actions as "erasure [of Adam] by silence."

[397] When reconciliation therapy with Ms. DeVeto commenced, Adam was a virtual stranger to the children. Ms. DeVeto further identified Sarah's constant interference with Adam's post-separation contact with the children as a contributing factor to their non-existent relationship with him. I agree with the assessments of each of the therapists.

[398] When given the opportunity at trial to devise a plan by which she could assist with the reunification of Adam and the children, Sarah came up with a plan that, by her own admission, constituted "more of the same."

[399] By constantly repeating that the task of building a relationship with the children fell entirely to Adam, despite repeated advice that she was receiving to the contrary, Sarah demonstrated not only that she did not support the development, let alone the maintenance, of a relationship between the children and Adam, she also demonstrated an unwillingness to exercise parental authority over the children.

[400] Justice Sah found her to have "failed to demonstrate that she has done all she reasonably can do to ensure compliance with [Justice Campbell's] order." As the Court of Appeal held in Godard v. Godard, 2015 ONCA 568, [2015] O.J. No. 4073:

28 Although a child's wishes, particularly the wishes of a child of S.'s age, should certainly be considered by a court prior to making an access order, once the court has determined that access is in the child's best interests a parent cannot leave the decision to comply with the access order up to the child. As stated by the motion judge, Ontario courts have held consistently that a parent "has some positive obligation to ensure a child who allegedly resists contact with the access parent complies with the access order": [citations omitted]

29 No doubt, it may be difficult to comply with an access order, especially as children get older. Parents are not required to do the impossible in order to avoid a contempt finding. They are, however, required to do all that they reasonably can. In this case, the motion judge inferred deliberate and willful disobedience of the order from the appellant's failure to do all that she reasonably could: she failed to "take concrete measures to apply normal parental authority to have the child comply with the access order."

[401] I find that Sarah did not do these things unknowingly or blind to her responsibilities. Instead, she was being openly defiant of the court. Her "black and white" thinking was not so much evidence of a lack of intelligence as it was of an unwillingness to comply with the law in a situation where she was convinced that she is right and everyone else, especially the "corrupt" courts, are wrong.

[402] The evidence clearly demonstrated that, even before the parties separated, Sarah was not overly concerned about supporting and developing, at the very least, C.'s relationship with Adam.

[403] Similarly, after the separation, her reason for refusing Adam to have a visit with N. on his fourth birthday was entirely consistent with her repeated assertions at trial and to the different therapists that the children are the ones who should be able to decide whether they have a relationship with Adam. Having held that opinion when N. was four, she has never wavered from it.

[404] Sarah's indifference to Adam having a relationship with the children is long-standing. Her protestations to the contrary are nothing more than hollow, meaningless words.

The history of care of the children

[405] Subject to her repeated rejections of Adam's efforts to try to build a post-separation relationship with the children, detailed throughout this judgment, Sarah has been the children's primary caregiver since the parties separated. Before separation, however, I find that Adam was as involved with childcare as his work schedule, his absences for other reasons, primarily jiu-jitsu, and Sarah, permitted.

The child's views and preferences, giving due weight to their ages and maturity, unless they cannot be ascertained.

[406] The Court of Appeal considered the issue of children's views and preferences as a factor in determining best interests, and the effect to be given to those views and preferences as children age, in A.M. v. C.H., 2019 ONCA 764, [2019] O.J. No. 4970, writing:

65 Under the Children's Law Reform Act and the Divorce Act , the child's views and preferences are only one factor among many in determining the child's best interests. Consequently, a child's refusal to attend counselling is not necessarily determinative of their best interests.

66 Having said that, A.C. v. Manitoba (Director of Child and Family Services), 2009 SCC 30, [2009] 2 S.C.R. 181 at paras. 81 and 82 highlighted the potential tension between a child's growing autonomy and the child's "best interests" norm:

[81] The general purpose of the "best interests" standard is to provide courts with a focus and perspective through which to act on behalf of those who are vulnerable. In contrast, competent adults are assumed to be "the best arbiter[s] of [their] own moral destiny" and so are entitled to independently assess and determine their own best interests, regardless of whether others would agree when evaluating the choice from an objective standpoint.

[82] The application of an objective "best interests" standard to infants and very young children is uncontroversial . Mature adolescents, on the other hand, have strong claims to autonomy, but these claims exist in tension with a protective duty on the part of the state that is also justified. [citations omitted].

67 As a result, the majority in A.C. stated that the best interests standard "must be interpreted in a way that reflects and addresses an adolescent's evolving capacities for autonomous decision-making": at para. 88.

68 Under this interpretation of the best interests standard, a minor's wishes will have greater weight as their maturity increases. In some cases, the court "will inevitably be so convinced of a child's maturity that the principles of welfare and autonomy will collapse altogether and the child's wishes will become the controlling factor": A.C ., at para. 87 . Scrutiny of a child's maturity will intensify in relation to the severity of potential consequences of medical treatment or its refusal: A.C. at paras. 95 . This is partly because it is inherently difficult to assess an adolescent's ability to make medical decisions: A.C. , at paras. 70-79 …

71 … A court must always consider a child's view and preferences, but a child's refusal to participate in a therapeutic intervention will not necessarily determine whether a court can make such an order. Rather, a court must assess the child's maturity and weigh their wishes accordingly, in relation to the various factors listed in section 24(2) of the Children's Law Reform Act .

[407] The prevailing opinion on the weight to be given to the opinions of children in cases such as these, where there is a question of alienation, was expressed as follows by [now] Associate Chief Justice F. E . McWatt in A.G.L v. K.B.D, [2009] O.J. No. 180:

143 While the case law generally supports placing a great deal of weight on the views and preferences of children over 12, there are clear exceptions. One is in a case such as this where one parent has undermined the child's relationship with the other parent ( Pettenuzzo-Deschene v. Deschene , [2007] O.J. No. 3062 ; Tock v. Tock , [2006] O.J. No. 5324 (S.C.J.)). In Pettenuzzo-Deschene , Justice Whalen determined that if the court finds that there has been parental alienation, then the child's views cannot be seen as their own.

144 In the case of Mitchell v. Mitchell , [2002] O.J. No. 2504 (S.C.J.) little weight was placed on the views and preferences of the children because of the influence of a parent. Similar findings were made in Bergen v. Bergen , 2008 ABQB 237 , [2008] A.J. No. 902 (Q.B.) about wishes expressed to one parent.

[408] More recently, however, Justice J. Audet wrote in respect of obstinate older children in Leelaratna v. Leelaratna, [2018] O.J. No. 5204:

76 Since children are not parties to the family law proceeding, courts do not have the power to make orders compelling them to engage in therapy or counselling. However, courts can order parents, as custodians of their children, to ensure their timely attendance therein. As stated in C. (W.) v. E. (C.) , children do not always get to do whatever they want, nor do they always get to refuse to do things that they are otherwise required to do (see also Snider v. Laszlo , and McClintock v. Karam ).

77 This being said, the older a child is, the less likely that he will meaningfully engage in a therapeutic process that is imposed upon him despite his clearly voiced refusal to do so. When an older or more mature child is strongly objecting to a therapeutic process, it may be inappropriate to make the therapeutic order. Such was the court's conclusion in Sine v. Bannister (16-year-old), in Karwal v. Karwal (17-year-old), and in Mattina v. Mattina , 2017 ONSC 5704 , affirmed at 2018 ONCA 641 (17-, 16- and 10-year-olds).

78 I am of the view that in ascertaining a child's willingness to engage in a therapeutic process, the court should consider the following:

a. How old is the child?

b. Is there clear evidence about the child's willingness/unwillingness to engage (or re-engage) in counselling? (courts should be cautious when the only evidence of a child's alleged strong resistance to therapy comes from the "favoured" parent)

c. Are there ways in which a court could convince an older child to cooperate? (By involving a child's counsel? By offering an opportunity to meet with the judge? By any other means?)

[409] As to these questions, it is clear on the evidence that these children, ages 17 and 14, have made it abundantly clear that they do not want to participate in reunification therapy. Their views and preferences were being expressed throughout the periods of their involvement with Ms. McIntyre and Ms. DeVeto. They have consistently and vigorously stated that they do not want a relationship with their father. They say other, ruder things as well, but those comments will not be further dignified by repetition herein. I highly doubt that this court could convince them to cooperate by re-engaging in reconciliation therapy.

[410] While the argument was made by Ms. DeVeto that their behaviours during the period of reconciliation therapy demonstrate that they are capable of developing an improved relationship with their father through that process, and there was evidence of them interacting with Adam and enjoying themselves in his care, I did note that there was no evidence of the children telling Adam that their feelings for him were changing or had changed. While evidence of enjoyable experiences may very well suggest an improvement in their views of their father, the absence of words or gestures of affection are, to me, equally significant.

[411] Clearly, 17-year-old C. is capable of expressing herself verbally. She did so, often speaking negatively of her father. She was also capable of acting out her negative emotions, often in childlike ways that caused me to wonder about her actual level of maturity. She was, however, younger when these events occurred. To that point, I cite evidence of her:

a) crying and rolling on the floor asking to go home from a visit with Adam, when she was 10 years old;

b) "behav[ing] as a much younger, insecure child," "cuddl[ing] up to her mother, and [telling] her that she loves her because of all the things that Ms. Healey does for her" during a counselling session with Ms. McIntyre when she was 11 years old;

c) burying her face in Sarah's lap to avoid speaking with Adam when he approached her at one of N.'s soccer games, as suggested by Justice Campbell, when she was 13 years of age; and

d) allegedly throwing herself to the ground, crying for an extended period of time after a therapy session with her father when she was 13 years of age.

[412] More recently, in March 2025, C, at the age of 16, saw her father at a basketball practice, one of the children's sports events that he was attending in compliance with my order of February 19, 2025. She ran to the exit door, opened it, began to cry, and told him to "get out" and not to "invade [her] practice," later adding that if he ever attended her activities again, she would call the police.

[413] These are all irrational behaviours which, when one also reflects back on her temperament as a child, suggest an unsettled personality. However, while her personality may be unsettled, her views of her father are not. They mirror those of her mother.

[414] N., like his sister, repeatedly has indicated that he wants nothing to do with his father, claiming an unwavering antipathy toward him. He, however, did not engage in the histrionics of his older sister. However, like her, he also often pointed to what he claimed were the failings of his father to "be there" for them when they were children, referring, specifically, to the library visits that extended over multiple years. This, as was noted by Ms. DeVeto, echoed complaints made by Sarah on a regular basis, and the reason she cited for the children not wanting a relationship with him.

[415] Also, like their mother, both children refused to consider that what others might consider to be minor faux pas by Adam could be anything other than indications of major failures on his part. I cite their mockery of Adam for the allegedly grave error of wearing a suit to a sports event, a view later concurred with by Sarah during therapy. I find that something beyond mere coincidence underlay the identity of views being expressed by the children and their mother about this issue.

[416] All of that noted, another factor that the court must consider when considering the children's views and preferences, especially those of N., the younger of the two, is that the alignment of a younger sibling's views with that of an elder sibling can add to its weight. In Mattina, the Court of Appeal continued:

As Laskin J.A. stated in Ojeikere v. Ojeikere , 2017 ONCA 372 at para. 82 , " each individual child's views and objections are important, but so too is the children's collective view . Where siblings' views align, as they do here, the maturity of the elder sibling may bolster the weight given to the younger siblings' views. All three children have expressed the same strong desire ..." [underlining included in original]

[417] Despite the children's repeated complaints to Ms. DeVeto and Sarah that their views and preferences were being ignored, they were clearly heard by the court. Whether or not their (and Sarah's) desired outcome is in their best interests is a different matter. The court-ordered therapy seemed to be of no assistance in getting them to open their closed minds.

[418] I have carefully considered those views and preferences, and their causes, in making my decision.

Any plans for the children's care

[419] Sarah proposed for things to continue as they had been. The children would decide if they wanted a relationship with Adam. He could continue to try and develop a relationship with them, mainly by attending their sports events and staying until the end. She would, while supporting the children's right to decide the issue, continue to urge them to consider having a relationship with him.

[420] As I have noted, that plan amounts to nothing. Moreover, if there was any truth to the claim that C. had removed herself from Sarah's care, the plan would not even apply to her. If it was not clear before, I indicate now that I disbelieve entirely the evidence that C. has withdrawn from her mother's control.

[421] Additionally, I find that Sarah really has no desire to even undertake the minimal actions that she claims might best move the children along a path of reconciliation with their father. Why would it? She places all blame on him, and he, in her view, cannot be fixed.

[422] Adam simply, and reasonably, wants to try to develop a relationship with the children. His wish deserves whatever support it can reasonably be given. To that end, having regard to the failure of my interim order of February 19, 2025 to open a door for even a minimal level of conversation between Adam and N., Sarah's continued claim of support for an approach to reconciliation that excludes professional involvement and the ages and views of the children, I made a further post-trial order on May 13, 2025. In it, I set terms that require Sarah to keep Adam apprised of the children's various events, and afforded Adam "the absolute right to attend such, and as many, of his children's sports or other public events as he chooses to do, whenever he wants to do so, as part of his efforts to continue building a relationship with the parties' children."

[423] In order to protect him from C. vindictively summoning police for attempting to comply with the order, I also declared that "[a]ny attendance by [him] at a sports or other public event involving either of the children in accordance with the terms of this order is not and shall not, under any circumstances, be construed to be, nor shall it constitute, harassment, criminal or otherwise, of the children or either of them."

The ability and willingness of each person in respect of whom the order would apply to care for and meet the needs of the children

[424] The evidence is clear, and I find, that Adam is both able and willing to care for and meet the children's needs, physically and, with assistance and guidance of a therapist, emotionally and psychologically. I hasten to add that it is doubtful whether the children would allow him to do so, but that is not relevant to this factor.

[425] I am also satisfied that Sarah is both able and willing to care for and meet the children's physical needs.

[426] However, that she has allowed them to live their lives thus far effectively hating their father leads me to have serious doubts about both her ability and her willingness to meet all of their emotional and psychological needs. Frankly, while both children are said to be otherwise well-rounded high achievers, the fact that, for the flimsiest of reasons, they simply do not care about the very existence of the man who contributed to their creation causes me serious concern about their ability to ever be well-rounded adults.

The ability and willingness of each person in respect of whom the order would apply to communicate and cooperate, in particular with one another, on matters affecting the child

[427] Both Adam and Sarah require assistance in communicating. Despite their deficiencies, they have evidenced an ability to speak civilly about the children from time to time. Ms. DeVeto noted this.

[428] One can only hope that, once this litigation is at an end, they will be able to maintain those civil communications about the children.

Appropriateness of the Order Sought by Adam

[429] As Justice Kraft wrote in Y.H.P. v. J.N., while "[t]here are several cases where the court, having found alienation, declined to order a change of custody…there are also many cases where the court has recognized that a change in custody can be appropriate in parental alienation circumstances."

[430] Included amongst the orders made by courts on findings of alienation are ones similar to that being sought in this case by Adam.

[431] As recently as 2021, however, the Court of Appeal in M.P.M. v. A.L.M., [2021] O.J. No. 3577 also noted that:

34 Social science evidence regarding the effectiveness of reversal of custody orders in cases of alienation is inconclusive: see Nicholas C. Bala and Katie Hunter, "Children Resisting Contact & Parental Alienation: Context, Challenges & Recent Ontario Cases" (2015), Queen's University Legal Research Paper No. 056, online: <ssrn.com/abstract=2887646>, cited in A.M. v. C.H. , 2019 ONCA 764 , 32 R.F.L. (8th) 1 (" A.M. v. C.H. (ONCA) "), at para. 76, aff'g 2018 ONSC 6472 (" A.M. v. C.H. (ONSC) ").

[432] Based on the entirety of the evidence, I find that, in theory, it would be in the children's best interests to continue their participation in reconciliation therapy with a view to developing a positive relationship with their father.

[433] The real question, however, is whether that should occur, and whether, if it occurs, it should be done by removing them from the care of their mother.

[434] There are cases which have found that, despite the fact that the children who are the subject of the litigation have been alienated from a parent, it is not appropriate to make an order committing them to reconciliation therapy, much less removing them from the care of the alienating parent.

[435] In Y.H.P. v. J.N., [2023] O.J. No. 4665, Justice W.L. MacPherson articulated four possible courses of action that could be taken in cases where alienation was found to have occurred. These are:

a) Do nothing and leave the child with the alienating parent;

b) Do a custody reversal by placing the child with the rejected parent;

c) Leave the child with the favoured parent and provide therapy; or

d) Provide a transitional placement where the child is placed with a neutral party and therapy is provided so that eventually the child can be placed with the rejected parent.

[436] Each carries risk for the children. In Gee v. Gee, [2023] O.J. No. 2205 at para. 11(f.), Justice I.F. Leach wrote that "our courts also recognize that forcing children to engage in therapeutic processes against their will may not only be futile but harmful."

[437] In Y.H.P. v. J.N., at para. 130, Justice MacPherson wrote that the court must, "ultimately choose the option that is the least detrimental" to the subject children.

[438] In Gee v. Gee, Justice Leach articulated the following "helpful list of considerations in relation to the exercise of a court's discretion to make …therapeutic orders:

i. Is the cause for the family dysfunction (whether alienation, alignment or reasonable estrangement) clear based on expert evidence or otherwise? If not, does it matter in light of the type of therapy proposed?

ii. Is there compelling evidence that the counselling or therapy would be beneficial to the child?

iii. At what stage is the therapeutic order sought? (For example, is the order sought on a motion based on potentially incomplete evidence or a trial based on a full evidentiary record?)

iv. Are the parents likely to meaningfully engage in counselling despite their initial resistance to the making of the order? Will a strong judicial "recommendation" compel participation and cooperation by a recalcitrant parent?

v. Is the child likely to voluntarily engage in counselling/therapy?

[439] Based on the evidence in this case, I find that:

a) the cause of the family dysfunction is much more heavily attributable to the alienating actions of Sarah, while Adam did have a lesser role to play in facilitating those actions through his passivity;

b) some form of therapy would be beneficial for the children;

c) the order has been sought after a trial that fully examined the entire history of the parties' relationship and their roles in the lives of the children;

d) Sarah is adamantly opposed to further therapy, while Adam continues to support it; and

e) the children are highly unlikely to voluntarily engage in any further counselling.

[440] The last of those findings brings me back to the views and preferences of the children, particularly since they are older. There are multiple decisions where this issue has been the determining factor in a court's decision. I cite the following, by way of examples:

a. Ginese v. Fadel, [2024] O.J. No. 2948, where Justice J. Audet wrote:

278 Further, I question this court's ability to impose on M.G., who is 15 years old, an order which goes against his expressed wishes and preferences - even if held because of extreme alienation and against his best interests. M.G., especially, is old enough to vote with his feet, and may place himself or his mother at risk of physical harm if forced to move to his mother's home in Gatineau. With children having endless means to access technology, there is simply no way given M.G and E.G.'s age by which this Court could prevent ongoing contact between them and their father; something that would be essential to maximize the potential for success of a custody reversal.

b. DeMelo v. DeMelo, 2015 ONCA 598, [2015] O.J. No. 4613, where the Court of Appeal, in upholding a decision to not remove children aged 15 and 13 from a mother who the father claimed was alienating them from him, wrote:

" 14 … we note that the children's opposition to court-ordered access was rooted in their own experiences with their father. They made it clear that they do not wish to see their father at the present time and they wish no further involvement in litigation or court-ordered interventions. The evidence established that the children are of sufficient age and maturity so as to warrant judicial respect for their positions on these matters."

c. N.L. v. R.R.M., 2016 ONCA 915, [2016] O.J. No. 6266, where the Court of Appeal upheld an order overturning an arbitrator's ruling that changed the custody of children [aged 17 and 15 at the time of the ruling] from the mother to the father, and in doing so approved of the following statement of the Justice hearing the motion to change:

34 …. The wishes of an alienated child may be warped and misconceived, but they are nonetheless real. The father says that the children's wishes should be disregarded, because they are not truly the children's own wishes. At this point, does that really matter? The expressed wishes are strong, consistent, and long lasting, and they have been acted on by the children in defiance of the authority of both parents, the arbitrator, the police, and this court's order. The fact is that the current custody order in favour of the father has not worked.

d. M.B. v. D.B., [2020] O.J. No. 551, in which Justice R.S. Jain, while finding alienation of children aged 16, 13 and 10, refused to reverse custody of the 16-year-old, writing:

82 With respect to the eldest child, NB is almost 17 and is closer to being a young adult than a child. As a result, the court finds that in NB's case, as Benotto J. said in Fielding , "time has overtaken the custody issue." NB's actions have given voice to her wishes. Although the court does not find that NB's wishes or actions have been independent or in her best interests, it is clear that NB's wishes demonstrate her "capacity for self-determination."

e. Wallace v. Fisher, [2021] O.J. No. 5292, in which Justice Aston wrote of a 17-year-old child who refused to comply with an order that she participate in reconciliation therapy with her mother:

11 The evidence of the social worker engaged by the OCL is clear and unequivocal. Ruby had her 17th birthday last April. She is described as "mature, thoughtful and well spoken". She has been consistent over a lengthy period of time in expressing her desire not to re-establish her relationship with her mother. Ruby does not want any contact with the respondent except as she herself may initiate in the future. She says she will continue to refuse to participate in any further sessions with Paula DeVeto, the person retained to conduct the family reconciliation therapy. Ms. DeVeto herself reported to the parties about a year ago that her continued involvement with the family "would not be helpful and is potentially harmful for Ruby as [the father] is actively not supporting reconciliation with [the mother]".

17 … On the evidence I simply cannot find as a fact that there is any real prospect that Ruby would make any effort in reconciliation therapy, especially if it is conducted by Ms. DeVeto. Nor is there any prospect that an order compelling Ruby to spend time with her mother would be honoured or enforceable. The request for an order that Ruby "be placed in [the mother's] sole care for a period of at least 90 days for the purpose of ensuring the success of the therapeutic re-integration program, and that during that time there be no contact, directly or indirectly between Ruby and her father except on terms the court specifies" is not an order Ruby would honour. What then? An order punishing her for her non-compliance?

18 I appreciate that in this case Ruby's attitude towards her mother dates back to when she was only 13 but it is impossible to rewind to 2017 and change the last four years. Even if Ruby's attitude and feelings are an overreaction or unreasonable, they are her perception and reality. Moreover, in a child focused approach to these troubling issues courts need to promote and respect a child's ability to gradually assume autonomy and independence.

19 Ruby's views and preferences are not to be confused with what is in her best interests. However, her adamant position, her age, and the four-year hiatus in any semblance of a relationship with her mother lead me to believe it would be futile, even counterproductive, to make any of the remedial orders sought.

Conclusion

[441] The Court of Appeal wrote in paragraph 72 of its decision in A.M. v. C.H. that "courts cannot fix every problem." I have, regrettably, come to the conclusion that this is one of those cases.

[442] The course for these children's relationships with their father was set many years ago. Efforts by multiple therapists since 2017 to persuade Sarah to become more actively involved in the process of helping them build a relationship with Adam have been rejected by her, either openly or by passively ignoring them. She has failed to comply with multiple court orders, including the very low-effort interim, post-trial order that I made on February 19, 2025. She is unwaveringly obstinate, and the children have either inherited that obstinacy or are mimicking it effectively.

[443] Given their ages and long-entrenched views, I see no benefit to them – and my decision must be made in their best interests - by changing their primary residence to that of Adam and terminating all contact with Sarah, even for a period of 90 days. In my view, the risks to their emotional stability are simply too great. To that I add that the undertaking of such a venture is only likely to worsen the terrible relationship that currently exists between them and Adam if that is even possible.

[444] In the result, I must dismiss Adam's request for an order for an interim change of primary residence and decision-making responsibility.

[445] However, that does not mean that there is to be no relief for Adam. As Justice Aston wrote in paragraph 19 of Wallace v. Fisher, "there is enough evidence to support the conclusion that Mr. Wallace is at least partly responsible for the failure of the family reconciliation therapy. That finding, together with his failure to ensure his then 13-year-old daughter abided by the parenting time orders in favour of Ms. Fisher, justify an order in the nature of sanctions under Family Law Rule 1(8)."

[446] Adam was seeking relief under Rule 1(8) based on Sarah's repeated failures to comply with court orders. I have found that the grounds for making an order under that Rule exist.

Alternate Relief: A Declaratory Order

[447] As I noted above, the Court of Appeal held in Bouchard v. Sgovio, in Rule 1(8) "provides broad discretion to courts to make orders it considers necessary to fully address a party's failure to comply" with a prior court order. In this case, Sarah failed, on multiple occasions, to comply with the orders of Justices Campbell and Sah to fully participate in reconciliation therapy, and to exercise parental authority to ensure that the children did so.

[448] By doing so, she effectively thwarted the court's determination that reconciliation between the children and Adam might be achieved by the process chosen by both parties for that to occur. That was reconciliation therapy.

[449] Now, in large measure because of Sarah's failure to comply with the orders, which is layered over years of alienating actions, I have found that Adam is not able to achieve that result. As bad as that is, he also continues to be blamed by both Sarah and the children for the non-existence of a relationship with the children. That narrative is false and must be corrected.

[450] As part of my order, I am including a declaration that Sarah is the primary reason the children do not have a relationship with Adam.

[451] In 2017, the Court of Appeal addressed the issue of declarations in the context of parenting disputes in R.G. v. K.G. et al, 2017 ONCA 108, 136 O.R. (3d) 689. After reviewing the nature of declaratory relief, and confirming that "[c]ourts have jurisdiction to grant declaratory relief under their inherent jurisdiction and pursuant to s. 97 of the Courts of Justice Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.43," the court noted the "principles which guide the court in exercising jurisdiction to grant declarations" to be:

"The question must be a real and not a theoretical question, the person raising it must have a real interest to raise it; he must be able to secure a proper contradictor, that is to say, someone presently existing who has a true interest to oppose the declaration sought."

[452] In this case, the question of why the children have no relationship with their father is not theoretical. Each parent blames the other, so Sarah clearly opposes Adam's request that she be found to be responsible for the situation.

[453] The Court of Appeal also quoted the article "Declaratory Judgments in Theoretical Cases: The Reality of the Dispute" (1977), 3 Dal.L.J. 706, that "the two factors which will influence the court in the exercise of its discretion [to issue a declaration] are the utility of the remedy, if granted, and whether, if it is granted, it will settle the questions at issue between the parties."

[454] I have concluded that, absent such a declaration, Adam is left with no official finding about the cause of his non-existent relationship with the children or the result of the efforts that he made to reconcile with them. A declaration will allow him to counter the false narratives of Sarah and the children. In future, it may also help the children understand, if ever they want to, as adults, that these proceedings stood for something more than merely being a source of punishment for them, which they were not.

[455] I also find that making a declaratory order, without having heard submissions on the point from Sarah, is not unfair to her. She had ample opportunity to deny her role in the children's rejection of their father, and voiced that position repeatedly. I have found that she was primarily responsible. The declaration is simply a memorialization, in the form of an order, of that finding.

[456] Consequently, I am satisfied that a declaratory judgment is called for in the circumstances of this case.

Alternate Relief: A Monetary Penalty

[457] One of the options open to me for finding that Sarah failed to comply with some of the orders made in this case is the imposition of monetary penalty in favour of Adam. (Family Law Rule 1(8)(a.1))

[458] While I did consider the imposition of such a penalty for the most egregious of Sarah's breaches of court orders, I ultimately decided against their imposition for a couple of reasons.

[459] First, Adam did not request that the court impose a monetary penalty as an alternative to a ninety-day primary residence reversal. Consequently, neither counsel addressed either the appropriateness or the quantum of such a penalty, if imposed, in their submissions.

[460] Secondly, I found no cases in which Rule 1(8)(a.1) orders had been imposed following a full trial. Similarly, I also could not locate any decisions which addressed whether a penalty could be imposed under Rule 1(8)(a.1) in the absence of submissions from or on behalf of the parties.

[461] However, there is authority about the procedure to be followed in contempt proceedings, where one of the options open to the court is the imposition of a monetary penalty.

[462] That procedure was discussed by the Court of Appeal in College of Optometrists of Ontario v. SHS Optical Ltd. et al. (2008), 2008 ONCA 685, 93 O.R. (3d) 139, at paragraphs 73 and 74 where, on behalf of the Court, Justice Watt wrote:

[75] In contempt proceedings, as in criminal prosecutions, liability and penalty are discrete issues. Each falls to be decided on the basis of evidence that is relevant, material and admissible on the issue being considered. Evidence that is relevant, material and admissible on one issue may be irrelevant, immaterial or inadmissible on the other. In a single hearing, there is always the risk that evidence relevant, material and admissible on one issue will be misapplied to the other, for example, to liability instead of penalty. To permit the introduction of evidence that bears on penalty only in a hearing in which liability has not yet been determined also lends an appearance of pre-judgment to the proceedings and forces the alleged contemnor to defend on inconsistent grounds.

[76] In R. v. B.E.S.T. Plating Shoppe Ltd. (1987), 59 O.R. (2d) 145, [1987] O.J. No. 165 (C.A.), this court concluded that the judge presiding at the contempt hearing had erred in requiring the alleged contemnors to make submissions on penalty when they had not yet been found in contempt of the prohibitory order. The extent to which the fairness of the proceeding is compromised by a consolidated hearing may vary from one case to the next.

[463] The reported decisions in which monetary penalties have been imposed appear to have been the results of motions prior to trial. Such an order was also made by Justice Sah in this case when she ordered Sarah to pay a penalty of $1,500.00 to Adam for having not complied with the original order of Justice Campbell dated October 22, 2017.

[464] Apart from these decisions arising from motions under Rule 1(8)(a.1), they also illustrate that the party against whom the penalty was imposed had the opportunity to make submissions before the penalty was imposed.

[465] While Sarah's failures to comply with the orders that I identified above would appear to be of the nature that would attract an order for the payment of a monetary penalty to Adam, it is now too late for that issue to be addressed, particularly in the absence of submissions from the parties as to both the appropriateness and quantum of such a penalty.

[466] In making that decision, I do, however, exclude my post-trial interim parenting time order of February 19, 2025. In that instance, Sarah had been forewarned about the penalty she would incur for non-compliance. She was given the opportunity to submit evidence about the alleged non-compliances, and her lawyer made submissions about the amount claimed by Adam for such alleged non-compliances. The penalty was based on the evidence. I also note that the amount that is being imposed is less than the amount that would have resulted had Adam's tally of the number of alleged violations been accepted without question.

[467] The fact that I am excluding a monetary penalty for Sarah's violations of the orders earlier identified is, however, not the end of the matter.

[468] In Clinton v. Clinton, [2016] O.J. No. 229, Justice Charney addressed the issue of penalty for contempt under Rule 31(5)(f), which allows the court to order a party found in contempt to pay costs to the other party in an amount decided by the court. Such a remedy is also available under Family Law Rule 1(8)(a).

[469] Costs, about which the parties will be entitled to make submissions, remain in issue in this case. When they do, they should also address whether any costs order made should be adjusted to account for Sarah's failures to comply with the orders that I have identified.

[470] In the result, I make the following declaration and order.

Declaration:

1. This court declares that the Respondent, Sarah Healey, the mother of the children, C.C., born [day/month/year] and N.C., born [day/month/year], is mainly responsible for them having no relationship with their father, the Applicant, Adam Cousins, primarily due to her deliberate and long-term failure to support the development and maintenance of such a relationship.

Order:

This court orders that:

2. Pursuant to Family Law Rule 1(8)(a.1), Sarah Healey shall, within 180 days, pay a penalty to Adam Cousins in the amount of $5,000.00 for her multiple failures to comply with the order of Justice T. Price dated February 19, 2025.

3. Sarah Healey shall continue to provide Adam Cousins with details, in advance, in writing, of the dates, times and locations of all sports or other public events in which each of the children are participating, or scheduled or anticipated to participate, so that Adam Cousins is able to attend those events should he choose to do so.

4. Adam Cousins shall have the absolute right to attend such, and as many, children's sports or other public events as he chooses to do, whenever he wants to do so, as part of his efforts to build a relationship with them.

5. While attending the children's sports or other public events, Adam Cousins shall be and is absolutely entitled to:

a. approach the children or either of them for the purpose of speaking to them;

b. speak to the children or either of them;

c. cheer for the children or either of them;

d. encourage the children or either of them; and

e. remain on site for as long as he chooses, including past the end of the event, for the purposes set out in subparagraphs 5a. and 5b.

6. Any attendance by Adam Cousins at a sports or other public event involving either or both of the children in accordance with the terms of this order is not and shall not, under any circumstances, be construed to be, nor shall it constitute harassment, criminal or otherwise, of the children or either of them.

7. Adam Cousins shall carry a copy of the order that is issued based on this endorsement with him to any sports or other event involving the children or either of them for production to any peace officer who may question his right to be present at any such event or to engage in the actions set out in Paragraph 5 while there.

8. Counsel for the children shall inform each of them about the terms of this order.

9. Within 30 days of the date of this Judgment, counsel for both parties shall serve and file, through the Superior Court Judicial Assistant at St. Thomas, their costs submissions, which shall not exceed five typewritten pages in Times New Roman 12-point font, with double spacing, accompanied by any offers to settle, whether accepted or not, together with a list of all persons who worked on any portion of this proceeding for whose efforts a claim for costs is being made, their position, a complete and clear description of the work undertaken by each such person, and the amount being sought for costs in respect of the efforts of each such person.

10. Each submission shall include a statement of the total amount that party has paid, inclusive of disbursements and HST to the lawyer or lawyers who represented that party in these proceedings.

11. Either party may respond to the costs submissions of the other within 15 days of receiving the other party's costs submissions. Reply submissions shall be filed through the Superior Court Judicial Assistant at St. Thomas and shall not exceed three typewritten pages in Times New Roman 12-point font, with double spacing.

_______________________________

Justice T. Price

Released: September 29, 2025