Timothy G. Price

The applicants, who were the foster parents of a two-and-a-half-year-old child, applied to the Child and Family Services Review Board to review the Children's Aid Society's decision to remove the child from their care and place him with a maternal kin family out of province.

The child had lived with the applicants since he was three days old, along with his half-sister.

The Board considered expert evidence on attachment and the potential trauma of disrupting the child's bond with the foster family.

The Board determined that it was in the child's best interests to remain with the applicants, where he could be adopted alongside his half-sister, and directed the Society not to carry out the proposed removal.

The moving parties, who were foster parents to three children, brought a motion to be added as party respondents in a Crown wardship application.

They wished to adopt the children, but the children's aid society preferred a kin placement with the grandmother.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that it was not a proper case for a best interests comparison within the unresolved child protection application, and noting the foster parents' existing participatory rights under the Child and Family Services Act.

In a combined child protection and status review trial involving four children, the court found the youngest child in need of protection and concluded that Crown wardship was the least intrusive order consistent with the best interests of all four children.

The evidence established chronic neglect of the home environment, inability to manage the children’s significant behavioural needs, abusive discipline, repeated school lateness, persistent enmeshment of the children in adult conflict, and longstanding unresolved mental health and grief issues affecting parenting capacity.

The court accepted the psychologist’s evidence that the parent’s deficits were deep-rooted and not amenable to change in the foreseeable future, and that supervision could not adequately protect the children.

Access to the parent was denied for the two youngest children, supervised access was preserved for the two eldest children, and inter-sibling access was ordered for all children.

The Children's Aid Society brought a motion for summary judgment seeking an order for Crown wardship with no access.

The parents conceded to the Crown wardship, but the father sought access.

The court found that the father had not seen the child in nearly two years due to criminal activity and substance abuse.

Applying the test for summary judgment under the Family Law Rules and the statutory presumption against access to a Crown ward, the court concluded there was no genuine issue for trial regarding access, as the father could not demonstrate a beneficial and meaningful relationship with the child.

The motion was granted and Crown wardship was ordered without access.

The appellant children's aid society appealed a decision finding a genuine issue for trial in a child protection matter.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the motion judge that the society's ex parte order, obtained despite knowing the mother contested the application, and the mother's Parenting Plan raised credibility issues requiring a trial.

The court ordered the trial to be expedited and awarded costs to the respondent.