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Ontario Court Recognizes importance of Parental Alienation in Divorce Case

By candice - Last updated: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - Save & Share - Leave a Comment

A recent case heard in the Ontario Court of Appeal has placed strict punishments – the first of its kind – on a father found to be alienating his children from their mother.

In the case titled C.S. v. M.S., a 2007 decision made by the Superior Court was upheld giving the mother custody of the couple’s youngest child. The original decision also awarded the mother costs of over $320,000, a restraining order against the father for both the mother and child, as well as barring the other three children from their marriage from having access to the youngest child. These decisions were also upheld.

According to the Ontario Court of Appeal decision, there was substantial evidence that the three other children (who are now adults) were alienated from their mother and the youngest child had not yet been alienated but would eventually become a victim of Parental Alienation Syndrome (“PAS”).

PAS is essentially the “brainwashing” of a child against one parent by the other parent, and can have long-term detrimental effects on the well-being of the child and his or her relationships with the parents.

The court found that, “the father has taken aggressive and persistent steps to alienate his other children from their mother. The likelihood of this continuing with [the youngest child] if the father had access to her was virtually certain”.

Court cases are treated on a case-by-case basis and the threshold to meet the test of finding “parental alienation” is high, but this case is very different as the father has been prohibited from having access to the child from the ages of 10 to 18. According to the father’s lawyer, there is no other case in the country in which access to a child from age 10 to 18 has been terminated ever before. The lawyer also mentioned that the move of a Canadian court preventing siblings from contacting each other is very unprecedented when they are not directly involved in the application.

In this case, measures to protect the children and parents against parental alienation almost came too late, however, in the end, the court decided to enforce very strict measures due to the specific set of circumstances. In the future, with this precedent-setting case, the Ontario courts will be forced take a tougher stance against parental alienation.

Posted in Toronto Divorce Lawyers, Toronto Family Lawyers • Tags: , , , , • Top Of Page

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