Parliament is back in session: What does this mean for family law?

Canadian Members of Parliament returned to the House of Commons this last week Monday as Parliament resumes for the fall.

CBC News held a poll on their website asking Canadians what the most important issues to them were from a selection of pre-determined categories like the federal long-gun registry, healthcare, Afghan detainee transfers and the mandatory long-form census. Surprisingly, family law reform was not on the list but many of the 2500 Canadians who responded wrote it in themselves saying it should be a top priority.

Family law reform has yet to be touched upon as Parliament has focused on taxes, prisons, the census and the purchasing of $16 billion worth of fighter jets since returning.

Canadian family law reform as a whole is a slow process because it’s unfortunately not a top priority. For example, Bill C-422 is among the top 100 private member’s bills currently after undergoing its first reading over a year ago. This bill deals with mandating equal shared parenting unless it’s not in the best interests of the child, to promote the fact that children benefit from relationships with both their parents and to eliminate parental alienation, amending the Canadian Divorce Act in a very positive way.  However, a bill in this position with little attention and support will likely not be debated until next fall. Members of the public can contact their MPs and let them know that this issue is important to them to garner extra support.

A recent review by Ontario’s Law Reform Commission that interviewed social workers, family lawyers, judges and mediators suggested family law reform should definitely be a top priority, and a recent comment by Ontario Chief Justice Warren Winkler also pointed out that creating a mandatory mediation process before family cases go to court would save families unnecessary financial hardship and emotional stress.

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By heather - Last updated: Sunday, September 26, 2010
Filed in Child Custody in Ontario, Divorce, Family Law Changes Ontario, Mediation, child custody •


Could lessons in Ontario family law before marriage mean less divorce?

A group from the Law Commission of Ontario is suggesting providing engaged couples with lessons in Ontario family law to prevent eventual breakdowns in married relationships in their latest report.

The group has consulted with various family law professionals and determined that the majority of divorced couples wish they knew more about the family law process before they had gotten married.

 Julie Lassonde, a research lawyer with the law commission, told the Winnipeg Free Press this week that, “They need more information about what the consequences are of living with someone, what am I getting into if I get married, what are my legal obligations?” She said, “These are all kind of taboo topics, no one wants to talk about the law when they’re in love but it would avoid, we believe, a lot of difficulties at breakdown.”

The group’s report states that offering information sessions before marriage and childbirth may help couples through the integration of family-building and marriage information into high school sexual education classes “to introduce some broad concepts, some ideas, so young people are better equipped to build relationships that make sense to them.”

 

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By heather - Last updated: Sunday, September 26, 2010
Filed in Divorce, Family Law Changes Ontario •


Ontario Chief Justice Calls For Mandatory Family Law Mediation

Ontario Chief Justice Warren Winkler recently gave a speech to headline the official opening of Ontario courts for the year, and used it as an opportunity to call for more changes to Ontario’s family law system.

Justice Winkler said that making it mandatory for cases to go through mediation before heading to family court would be a big step in having less expensive and faster resolutions to complicated divorce disagreements like custody battles, as well as make it easer to obtain information such as the financial records of a spouse.

“Accordingly, only in the event that the alternative dispute resolution process is unsuccessful would access to the costly, time-consuming, adversarial and sometimes acrimonious court process be available to litigants,” he said in his speech.

Winkler also said he doubted that improvements could be made through adjusting Ontario’s family law system, and that a complete overhaul that included his proposed rule was necessary.

Such a proposal would filter out cases that take up a lot of the court’s time by having them resolved out of court beforehand, freeing up court resources for difficult cases that must go through the court process.

This type of resolution has become mandatory in many areas of the world. According to the Sydney Sunday Telegraph, only about five per cent of family law-related cases end up in court because alternative dispute resolution is mandatory in Australia.

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By heather - Last updated: Sunday, September 19, 2010
Filed in Family Law Changes Ontario, Mediation •


More of British Columbia’s progressive family law changes revealed

The family law problems posed by modern life will soon have more clear-cut resolutions as British Columbia plans on tabling the new Family Law Act (the changes’ working title) during the first half of next year.

The 30-year-old Family Relations Act in British Columbia, which is the province’s version of the Ontario Family Law Act, is set to be completely overhauled with new rights for common-law couples and new custody rules to for today’s non-nuclear families.

Separating couples’ time with their children won’t be called access or custody anymore, but “parenting time” or “guardianship”. Families who are constantly in volatile disputes where children are involved will have parenting coordinators that will have the authority to act as an arbitrator, and children conceived by an egg or sperm after the donor parent dies will be seen in the eyes of the law equal to any other child by that particular pairing.

In addition, ex-spouses who act inappropriately can be given conduct orders that result in jail time and fines.

British Columbia’s government consulted with family lawyers, the Canadian Bar Association, as well as the public, in order to come up with the 172-page white paper.

Currently, Ontario does not have similar laws granting common-law couples property rights or custody laws that compare with those that British Columbia is proposing.

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By heather - Last updated: Sunday, September 12, 2010
Filed in Child Visitation, Common Law Marriage, Divorce, Family Property Division, child custody •


Survey shows more Canadians worried about money than children during divorce

Survey results of a recently released online poll shows that of 2100 Canadians, 2035 (94%) are most concerned about money when it comes to the divorce process. Only a surprising three per cent of respondents said children were their main concern, while 1.3 per cent and 1.2 per cent said emotional impact and legal concerns were what they were worried about, respectively. The survey data was compiled by an Ontario divorce strategy website.

Another end-of-August survey by the Association of Divorce Financial Planners that polled divorce professionals across Canada and the United States determined that the most common reasons for divorce is slowly drifting apart and the end of the child rearing process rather than more emotionally-straining issues like infidelity.

Both of these new surveys can shed light on alternative dispute resolution, a quickly growing method of dealing with divorce issues in a timely and less expensive manner than going to court. One popular method of alternative dispute resolution is collaborative law.

Collaborative law does not involve litigation and instead involves the spouses and their respective lawyers cooperating and negotiating to come to a resolution that benefits and is acceptable to both spouses.

 

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By heather - Last updated: Monday, September 6, 2010
Filed in Collaborative Law, Divorce, Questions and Answers •