Ginese v. Fadel: The Risks to Alienated Parents and Children that Bill C 223 Ignores

Introduction

If you want a preview of what family law might look like if courts are effectively barred from addressing parental alienation (PA), consider how constrained they already are in the most severe alienation cases.

Bill C‑223 (the “Keeping Children Safe Act”) has now passed second reading and is before the Justice Committee, and its core thrust is to prevent judges from using PA concepts and remedies even where there is compelling, case‑specific evidence that a child has been deliberately turned against a parent.

Severe Alienation

Severe alienation arises when one parent relentlessly manipulates a child into aligning with that parent’s own narrative, emotions, and hostility toward the other parent before, during, and after separation. This extreme pattern of behaviour seeks to implant in the child the same rejection and contempt the alienating parent feels, often in the absence of any objective justification.

The result is not merely “high conflict”; it is a form of emotional abuse that can cause significant, lasting psychological harm to children, a reality recognized in Canadian scholarship and case law.

The Children, the Courts, and Bill C‑223

In response to this harm, courts have developed a toolkit that includes primary residence reversal (moving the child from the alienating parent to the alienated parent), tight restrictions on the alienating parent’s contact, and various forms of reunification therapy. Canadian appellate and trial courts have explicitly endorsed these measures in appropriate cases as necessary to advance children’s best interests.

Judges must weigh these remedies against the risk of short‑term trauma from separating a child from their preferred parent or compelling contact with the rejected parent. Many decisions reflect a painful judicial calculus: courts acknowledge severe alienation and emotional abuse but still refrain from robust intervention out of concern that an abrupt transition will exacerbate the child’s distress.

Bill C‑223 does not respond to these difficulties by offering more nuanced tools or better resourcing; instead, it proposes a permanent shift that would significantly handcuff courts’ ability even to consider PA evidence and to use core PA remedies.

Ginese v. Fadel: Promising Discussion, Unsatisfying Result

In Ginese v. Fadel, the father’s persistent manipulation and control of his four children led them to unjustifiably resent and reject their mother. The court repeatedly emphasized how exceptional the facts were, noting how rare it is to see children with virtually no desire to maintain any relationship with one parent.

Despite recognizing the father’s alienating conduct and expressing “incredible sadness,” the judge ultimately concluded that the children had to remain in their father’s primary care because of the extreme risk of further trauma if they were removed from him. The judgment is striking for its candour: the court effectively acknowledges emotional abuse but feels institutionally constrained from imposing the most effective remedies.

The judge carefully set out what she would have done had the alienation been less entrenched. In a less severe case, she would have ordered:

• The children to reside temporarily with relatives who understood the alienating dynamics.
• Limited, supervised parenting time to both parents.
• Structured reunification therapy to “deprogram” the children from years of harmful influence.
• Gradual reintegration of both parents into the children’s lives if therapy proved effective.

This plan reflects precisely the kind of individualized, evidence‑based response that the current Divorce Act permits—and that many scholars and practitioners see as essential in resist‑refuse dynamics.

Why Bill C‑223 Would Reject a “Ginese‑Type” Solution

Unfortunately, Bill C‑223 is fundamentally at odds with this type of judicial problem‑solving. The Bill would:

• Repeal the current obligation to consider each parent’s willingness to support the child’s relationship with the other parent.
• Insert new provisions (proposed s. 16(3.1)) that bar courts from considering evidence that a parent has manipulated, persuaded, or encouraged a child to resist or refuse contact with the other parent when that evidence is advanced to support restrictions on the manipulating parent’s parenting time or to justify interventions like reunification therapy.
• Provide only a narrow and confusing exception (proposed s. 16(3.2)), which allows some consideration of these behaviours only where the alleged manipulator is also found to have committed family violence, and even then only for limited purposes.

Put bluntly, judges would be told: you may not treat deliberate alienation, standing alone, as relevant to parenting‑time restrictions or to ordering intensive reunification interventions. That is so even where there is compelling expert evidence of emotional harm to the child.

The vast majority of “resist‑refuse” cases — where the facts fall short of the extreme Ginese scenario but still involve serious, proven alienation — would therefore be stripped of the very tools courts now rely on to protect children.

The Risks of Easing Relocation for the Favoured Parent

The final orders in Ginese also show the judge’s effort to preserve whatever bond remained between the children and their alienated mother. Among other things, the court restricted the father’s ability to relocate, by:

• Prohibiting him from moving with the children outside their home city without the mother’s written consent or a court order.
• Requiring him to provide notice even for moves within the home city.

These relocation restraints are modest compared to a full residence reversal, but they serve a crucial protective function: they prevent the alienating parent from using mobility as the final step in severing the child’s relationship with the rejected parent.

Bill C‑223 proposes to rewrite the Divorce Act’s relocation provisions (s. 16.93), in a way that would make it substantially harder for an alienated parent to oppose the favoured parent’s move. Under the new s. 16.93(1), the burden would fall squarely on the objecting parent to prove not only that the move is contrary to the child’s best interests, but effectively that a primary‑residence reversal is required if the move is to be blocked.

When you overlay that burden with the Bill’s prohibition on considering PA evidence for the purpose of limiting or rebalancing parenting time, it becomes almost impossible for an alienated parent to prevent relocation—even where the move will cement the alienation and effectively erase the other parent from the child’s life.

Reunification Therapy: Losing Its Place at the Table

In Ginese, the court devoted considerable attention to the potential of reunification therapy. The judge canvassed options such as:

• Sessions involving both parents to explore their respective roles in the resist‑refuse dynamic.
• Individual and joint sessions with each child, thereby reducing the risk of sibling “groupthink.”
• Trauma‑focused therapy to address attachment disruption and emotional harm.

The judge ultimately declined to order reunification therapy only because the facts were at the extreme end of the spectrum, and there was a real risk that mandatory intervention at that point would do more harm than good. That is a case‑specific judgment call — not a condemnation of reunification therapy as such.

Bill C‑223 would largely shut the door on this tool. The Bill would prohibit courts from ordering a child to attend “reunification therapy” or comparable programs aimed at repairing the relationship with a rejected parent, unless the favoured parent consents. In practice, the very parent who has been found (or credibly alleged) to be undermining the child’s relationship with the other parent would hold a veto over the principal therapeutic remedy.

Reunification therapy is not appropriate in every case, and it should not be used to paper over genuine family violence. But treating it as presumptively off‑limits ignores both the social‑science evidence that parental alienation is a real and harmful phenomenon and the many cases where carefully monitored reunification interventions have helped children regain healthy relationships with a previously rejected parent.

What the Pro‑Bill Narrative Misses

Feminist and anti‑violence organizations such as NAWL have strongly championed Bill C‑223, describing PA as a “discredited” or “pseudo‑concept” and framing the Bill as a necessary response to systemic disbelief of women’s abuse allegations. They welcome provisions that:

• Eliminate any perceived presumption of shared parenting.
• Prevent courts from “disregarding” children’s views on the theory that those views have been manipulated.
• Bar orders that restrict time with a parent to whom the child is bonded for the purpose of improving the relationship with the other parent.

But this framing obscures a critical reality documented in Canadian research and case law: not all PA claims are bogus tactics by abusive men, and in a substantial subset of cases the alienated parent is the mother, often facing serious emotional abuse herself.

Professor Nicholas Bala and Dr. Rachel Birnbaum — hardly allies of abusers — have warned that there is a “large body of research” supporting PA as a valid concept and that Bill C‑223’s attempt to ban its use in courts is a “simplistic” response that will harm children. Other expert submissions to the House of Commons Justice Committee have likewise concluded that the Bill would make it more difficult, not easier, for courts to help children who have been alienated from a parent.

A truly child‑focused system does not require judges to choose between believing family‑violence survivors and recognizing the reality of parental alienation. It requires careful, individualized fact‑finding that can distinguish genuine protective parenting from deliberate, harmful alienation. Bill C‑223 moves in the opposite direction.

Conclusions

Severe alienation places courts in an almost impossible position. In the most extreme cases—such as Ginese — judges may reluctantly conclude that the short‑term risk of further trauma from uprooting children outweighs even serious concerns about the favoured parent’s conduct. But that difficult balancing act is made with eyes wide open to both parents’ behaviours and with a full appreciation that deliberate alienation is itself a form of emotional abuse.

Bill C‑223 would significantly constrain the courts. By prohibiting judges from squarely examining a parent’s alienating tactics and by stripping away established remedies such as residence reversal, structured parenting‑time rebalancing, and reunification therapy, the Bill effectively tells courts to ignore a central driver of many children’s suffering.

Many courts and commentators have recognized that robust PA remedies are sometimes necessary to protect children’s long‑term best interests, even where those remedies are initially painful or unpopular with the child. Bill C‑223 would leave that toolkit nearly bare, particularly in the very “middle‑range” cases where timely, proportionate intervention can still make a positive difference.

The restrictions that Bill C‑223 would impose on courts’ ability to acknowledge and respond to PA will not make children safer. On the contrary, they risk entrenching emotional abuse, easing relocations that permanently sever important parent‑child bonds, and forcing judges into the uncomfortable territory where only the most extreme, severe alienation is even visible — let alone remediable.

If you believe you or your children may be experiencing parental alienation, contact us for an in‑depth consultation, where we can analyze your specific facts and work with you to craft realistic, evidence‑based strategies within the current legal framework.