Calgary Grandparent Child Contact Lawyers help grandparents maintain a relationship with their grandchild when a relationship between the parents breaks down. our skilledCalgary Grandparent Child Contact Lawyersa also deal with situations where grandparents have “acted badly”. MacLean Law is a multiple winner of Vancouver’s best family law firm and now helps Calgary clients deal with child parenting and contact disputes. Call 403-444-5503 now to remain a part of your child or grandchild’s life.
An important Calgary family law appellate decision was handed down last month concerning, Calgary Child Grandparent Contact. Our Calgary Grandparent Child Contact Lawyers and Calgary parenting time lawyers understand that extended family members play an important role in a child’s healthy development. Some judges say “you can never have too many loving persons in a child’s life”
Calgary Grandparent Child Contact Lawyers 403-444-5503
Grandparents play an important role in caregiving while a marriage is intact but what happens if they are shut out from voluntary contact in a marital breakdown. Is this fair to the child and the grandparents? Our Calgary Grandparent Child Contact Lawyers help grandparents continue to play a role in supporting the healthy development of a child. The recent Alberta Court of Appeal decision allowed an appeal to consider the issue of what the impact of not seeing a grandchild for some time should have on a grandparent’s claim for contact to their grandchild. Obviously maintaining a significant role and immediately applying for continued contact is critical to increase the chances for success for the child and their grandparent’s in maintaining an ongoing bond.
Here is what the Alberta Court of Appeal said:
[6] The issue arising on the appeal involves the interpretation of s 35(4) of the FLA. Specifically, in the context of deciding whether to grant leave for an application for an order permitting contact between a grandparent and a child, what meaning should be attached to the phrase found therein: “the significance of the relationship, if any, between the child and the grandparent”? Does it require or entitle the judge to consider the effect of the conceded two year period of no such conduct in relation to a six-year-old child? Does it require consideration of whether, and to what extent, that situation arose because of the refusal of the child’s guardian to permit contact, rather than lack of interest on the part of the grandparents?
[7] Ms. Hancharuk’s counsel argued the appeal should not be considered meritorious because it involved a question of mixed fact and law for which the standard of review is deference. Thus, it would be difficult for the Clarkes to succeed should the appeal be restored. He did agree that simply because the appeal arose in the context of a set of facts, as do all appeals, it does not mean it cannot raise questions of law. In any event, the ability to restore struck appeals is not limited to those raising only questions of law.
[8] Prior decisions address aspects of an application for a contact order under s 34(4)(a) of the FLA, some of which consider the duration of the period of lack of contact relevant to the meaning to be given to “ significance of the relationship” as that phrase is used in that subsection; others do not. In B.D. v. S.W., 2007 ABPC 95 (CanLII) at para 20, the degree of contact the grandparents had with the child since her birth was not in issue. The evidence demonstrated significant ongoing contact and, while Judge McLellan (as she then was) took the opportunity to address the meaning of “significance” as something of import of or consequence, on the facts of that case she was not required to address, nor did she address, the degree of actual pre-existing contact required to establish the “significance of the relationship” between grandparent and child. In Beck v. Ackmann, 2013 ABCA 109 (CanLII), Justice Rowbotham of this Court cited an extract from a chambers judge’s decision interpreting s 35(4)(b) rather than (a). The extract addressed the effect of a finding that the guardians of the child had not been unreasonable, on the facts in that case, in refusing access to a grandmother by a daughter who was the mother of the child in question. In Hrycun v Theriault, 2015 ABQB 794 (CanLII), in refusing a grandmother leave to pursue an application for contact under s 35(4), one of the considerations taken into account was that she had had no access for the 1.5 years prior. In J.F.B. v. C.L.B., 2008 ABQB 43 (CanLII) leave was granted because the child and the mother’s former common law spouse had been close at one time although had had no contact for the previous year, and because the spouse had ongoing contact with their own child, a half-sibling of the child in question. In Hardie v. Payne, 2010 ABQB 756 (CanLII), 506 AR 200 the Court denied a sister leave, on a s 35(4) application, to apply for contact with her 13 year old brother due to minimal contact over the prior seven years.
Call our Calgary Grandparent Child Contact Lawyers immediately if an issue arises over your ability to support the healthy development of your grandchild or if you have concerns over inappropriate grandparent behaviours upon marriage or relationship breakdown. Call our Calgary Grandparent Child Contact Lawyers at 403-444-5503 to meet with us in downtown Calgary.
