Our Surrey child custody and Surrey parenting time denial lawyers know that a child should have maximum contact with both parents. Lorne MacLean, QC argues “a child shouldn’t forfeit the love and guidance of two caring and concerned parents merely because of marriage breakdown”. It’s critical you call us immediately if you are denied parenting time or are wrongfully accused of doing so at 604-576-5400. Acting quickly may stop Surrey parenting time denial before it gets worse and damages your children.
Lorne MacLean, QC will not tolerate Surrey parental alienation behaviours but will also ensure false claims of Surrey parenting time denial are dealt with fairly. Check out Lorne MacLean, QC’s video on parental alienation.
Our Surrey parenting time denial know that it is unacceptable to allow parental alienation or inappropriate gatekeeping of contact between a non primary residential parent. The courts can order a variety of solutions to denial of Surrey parenting time. Fines, make up time, contempt and in the worst of cases a reversal of child custody from the denying parent to the targeted parent.
In this weeks recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Goddard a mother unsuccessfully appealed a contempt finding over her failure to ensure a teenage child visited their father. This case shows that Surrey parenting time denial behaviours will not be tolerated by courts.
The Ontario court of Appeal came down in support of the trial judge who found the mother in contempt for not ensuring the child saw the father even though the mother argued the child did not want to go.
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”: Quaresma v. Bathurst, (2008), O.J. NO. 4734 (Ont. S.C.J.) at para.8. See also Campo v. Campo, 2015 ONSC 1349 (CanLII); Stuyt v. Stuyt, 2009 CanLII 43948 (ON SC), 2009 CanLII 43948 (Ont. S.C.); Stuyt v. Stuyt, 2009 CanLII 43948 (Ont. S.C.); and Hatcher v. Hatcher, [2009] O.J. No. 1343 (Ont. Sup.Ct.).
[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 wilful disobedience of the order from the appellant’s failure to do 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”.
[30] As the motion judge noted, the appellant had been put on notice in prior proceedings that more than mere encouragement was required. For example, in response to the submission of her counsel on November 28, 2014 that “any type of a forced provision I don’t think is going to help at all”, MacDonald J. asked:
[W]hat does the mother do when this child doesn’t want to go to school or doesn’t want to go to the dentist? What are her mechanisms? Right? … Does this child have an allowance? Does she have a hockey tournament that maybe she’s not allowed to go to if she doesn’t go to see dad before? Are there things she could do to force her to go short of the police attending at her house and physically removing her?
[31] Despite this, it is clear from her affidavit that the appellant took no further steps. She did not go beyond mere encouragement to attempt any stronger forms of persuasion.
[32] In our view, there was ample evidence in the record to support the motion judge’s conclusion that the appellant essentially left the decision concerning compliance with the access order up to S. For example, the motion judge cited an email sent by the appellant to the respondent on January 27, 2014, in which she wrote: “I spoke with [S.] and she would prefer to stay here this weekend.” The motion judge referred to another email sent by the appellant on March 4, 2014 in which she stated: “[S.] is getting older and is more than capable of deciding when she would like to go to your house to visit.” Finally, the motion judge referenced an email sent by the appellant to her lawyer on November 14, 2014, in which she described how she tried to ask S. why she did not want to visit her father and stated: “[i]f she wanted to go we had to know.”
[33] It is possible that nothing short of physical force could have brought S. to the access visits. However, this does not excuse the appellant given the motion judge’s finding that she has not done all that she could to attempt to comply with the access order. The motion judge found that despite being on notice that attempts at stronger forms of persuasion may be required, the appellant did not go beyond mere encouragement. In these circumstances, the motion judge properly concluded that deliberate and wilful disobedience was established beyond a reasonable doubt.
Surrey parenting time denial cases are difficult and excuses are legion in this cases. You have to love your child more than you dislike the other parent if you want the child to grow up as normally as possible after separation.
