Stephanie Martinez

The Applicant Mother brought an urgent interim motion seeking permission to remain in South Carolina with the children, having left Canada due to alleged family violence and coercive controlling behaviour by the Respondent Father.

Despite procedural irregularities regarding the formal notice of motion, the court deemed the motion properly before it.

The court considered the serious allegations of abuse, the Applicant's role as primary caregiver, and the children's best interests, particularly in light of the Divorce Act's provisions on family violence and relocation.

The Respondent's denials were found to be minimizations and deflections.

The court extended the temporary order allowing the Applicant and children to remain in South Carolina, finding it unsafe for them to return to Ontario at this time.

The applicants sought certiorari and mandamus to overturn the Public Prosecution Service of Canada's (PPSC) decision to terminate a private prosecution against Sar-El Canada under the Foreign Enlistment Act.

The applicants alleged the termination was influenced by partisan interests and constituted an abuse of process, arguing there was a reasonable prospect of conviction.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the applicants lacked standing to challenge the Crown's exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

The court affirmed that prosecutorial discretion, including the decision to withdraw charges based on no reasonable prospect of conviction, is reviewable only for egregious abuse of process, which was not demonstrated in this case.

The parties, an unmarried couple, each brought a motion to change parenting time for their two children.

The applicant father sought to expand his parenting time to an equal regime, while the respondent mother sought to reduce the father's parenting time and requested Office of the Children's Lawyer (OCL) involvement.

The court granted the father's request for equal temporary parenting time, finding his proposal to be in the children's best interests, and dismissed the mother's request to reduce time.

The court also requested OCL involvement and made orders regarding pick-up/drop-off locations and telephone access.

Costs were awarded to the father.