Best Canadian Parental Alienation Lawyers know that Alienation is abuse. If you alienate your child, the child pays. The other parent pays. And if in court, you will pay. Call us toll-free at 1 877 602 9900
MacLean Law is an award-winning national Canadian family law firm with offices across BC, in Calgary, Winnipeg, and Toronto, Ontario. The best Canadian parental alienation lawyers know that seminars for health professionals decry parental alienation as abuse of a child. In today’s blog we explain how courts deal with parental alienation.
The Best Canadian Parental Alienation Lawyers know that although the breakup of a marriage is charged with resentment and bitterness, one parent is not allowed to turn the child or children against the other. Both parties are expected to regulate their anger and antipathy. Poisoning the potential for a child to have a positive relationship with the other parent is alienation and emotional abuse and can lead to a reversal of custody and or termination of parenting rights. In addition, you may be ordered to pay costs associated with the litigation and psychological treatment required as a result of the alienation AKA abuse.
Best Canadian Parental Alienation Lawyers 1 877 602 9900
The Best Canadian Parental Alienation Lawyers stay on top of case developments and noted that in the case of A.M. v C.H. 2019 ONCA 764, a 14-year-old boy resisted regular visits with his father. The trial judge determined that the child’s mother groomed and conditioned her son to hold his father in low regard. This determination was founded on the evidence provided by social workers working with the child and following attempts at reconciliation therapy. In paragraph 15, the court referenced paragraph 170 of the trial judge decision, which described the behavior the mother engaged in that likely contributed to the child’s hatred for his father:
- Allows and insists that the child makes decisions about
- Sets few limits around routines, rules and
- Refuses to speak directly to the father or be in the same room or close proximity
- Does not let the target parent come to the door to pick up the
- No concern for missed visits with other
- Makes statements and then denies what was
- The rejected parent is discouraged or refused permission to attend school events and activities.
- Does not believe that the child has any need for a relationship with other
- Portrays another parent as dangerous and occasionally acts fearful of other parent in front of the
- Exaggerates negative attributes of other parent and omits anything
- Delusional false statements repeated to child
- Distorts history and other parent’s participation in the child’s life; claims other parent has totally changed since
- Projection of own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours onto the other
- Does not correct child’s rude or defiant behavior directed towards the other parent, but would never permit a child to do this with them
- Convinced of harm, when there is no basis for this
- False or fabricated allegations of sexual, physical, and/or emotional
- Denigrates and exaggerates flaws of rejected parent to child
- Extreme lack of courtesy to rejected parent
- Relocation for minor reasons and with little concern for effects on the targeted parent
Vancouver Parental Alienation 1 877 602 9900
The court held that the child should not return home with his mother and in doing so stated that the facts were consistent with emotional abuse, which he believed would continue and would result in permanent damage to the relationship between father and child (paragraph 20). The trial judge ordered that it would be in the best interest of the child if he were removed from his mother’s care, ordered a time-limited suspension of access and that the child be placed under the care of his father hoping that father and son would build a positive relationship. He did so despite the child’s refusal to live with his father but noted in his decision:
“I have no doubt that [the child] will initially struggle tremendously with the order I am making. However, continuing with the status quo in my view will not only result in a termination of the child’s relationship with the Applicant Father but it will be detrimental to his emotional development in the long-term to continue to be exposed to the destructive parenting of the Respondent Mother. The long-term detrimental impact on the child of a permanently severed relationship with his father and ongoing exposure to the substandard parenting of the Respondent Mother far outweighs the emotionally challenging but temporary adjustment to living with the Applicant Father and short-term difficulties of having no contact with the Respondent Mother” (paragraph 167).
Toronto Parental Alienation 1 877 602 9900
Justice Paul W. Nicholson of the Ontario Court of Appeal noted that the mother’s conduct was seriously detrimental to the child and contrary to the child’s best interests (paragraph 25):
“The mother’s conduct was highly relevant, and the trial judge did not err in giving it the importance he did (paragraph 26). The clear evidence about risks to the child if he stayed with his mother justified a change in custody and the no-contact order. The trial judge chose this remedy to promote the child’s long-term best interests, not to punish the mother. There is no basis to intervene” (paragraph 30).
Justice Paul W. Nicholson further noted that the trial judge was not aiming to make a psychiatric diagnosis of the child but based his decision on evidence of what was reported to be occurring within the family. No expert opinion was required for the trial judge to find that the mother alienated the child from his father. (paragraph 31).
Upon the child moving in with and residing with his father he immediately began emotionally dysregulating. This behavior was attributed to his mother’s regular violation of her no access order and the years of grooming. After a period of very concerning behavior and regular police involvement, a no-contact order between father and son was entered. The child was then placed in care.
In August of 2019 during the Cost Endorsement order proceedings, it was noted that the father and child had reunited and the child was living with him.
Concerning the initial trial proceedings, the mother paid her own counsel’s account which totaled $66,932.73. She was also ordered to pay costs of $200,000 for the trial to her husband. She earned approximately $40,000 a year. With respect to the appeal, the Court held that the mother’s appeal was not frivolous and nothing in her conduct of the appeal warranted a costs sanction.
In determining “a fair and reasonable amount to be paid in costs” relating to the appeal, the court considered the length of the appeal and the motions, the complexity of the issues, the importance of the issues to the parties, as well as an amount that a losing party might reasonably expect to pay on an appeal like this, keeping in mind proportionality.
With respect to the appeal, costs to the father were ordered of $40,000 for the motion to stay, the motion to admit fresh evidence, and the appeal, inclusive of disbursements and taxes, and net of the $3,500 costs awarded to the mother on the motion for directions.
Calgary Parental Alienation 1 877 602 9900
If you need one of the Best Canadian Parental Alienation Lawyers on both your and your child’s side call us today toll-free across Canada at 1 877 602 9900
