Toronto Family Law Blog

Many thanks to my esteemed colleague, Philip Epstein, for granting permission to publish here his report with respect to the expected expansion of unified family courts in Canada and particularly in Ontario.  Published with permission from Westlaw's "Epstein's This Week in Family Law, Fam. L. News. 2018-13 [copyright Thomson Reuters Canada Limited]: 

The call for a Unified Family Court in Canada has gone on for more than 30 years. Federal and provincial governments have in the past moved very slowly in establishing Unified Family Courts throughout the country, even in places where there is an obvious demand and need. A myriad of cases that have been canvassed in the Newsletter over the last decade has demonstrated the problems that the lack of a Unified Family Court system has caused to unfortunate litigants. At long last we are beginning to see some progress. 

This story is stranger than fiction! A foster parent couple has held the Children's Aid Society of Hamilton, Ontario accountable for violating their constitutional right to freedom of religion.  Child welfare law transitions into constitutional law.  The Children's Aid Society ran roughshod over the foster parents' religious beliefs, summarily terminating their foster care of two youngsters. And it was all over the Easter Bunny! Unbelievable? You bet. True? Absolutely!

Equal Shared Parenting within child custody law is very much a thriving concept in Ontario. Superior Court Justice W.D. Newton has penned what I believe to be a very important decision: Balke v. O'Connor.  Although it was decided on 24 April 2017, remarkably the case has received no further mention other than a brief summary in "Epstein's This Week in Family Law", 2017, Issue #35 (4 September 2017). The decision deserves to have a much wider swath and this blog post is a step in that direction.

I don't like Separation Agreements. Many would surely disagree. In my view, Separation Agreements are not always that easy to enforce. It is much better to have a court order, especially if you seek to enforce a parenting plan. While the provincial government has a government agency mandated to enforce support orders, no similar agency exists with respect to enforcing parenting provisions. So, I don't like Separation Agreements.