The 2008 Annotated Ontario Children’s Law Reform Act

Description:

• The full text of the Children’s Law Reform Act – with all recent amendments
• Section-by-section analysis of the legislation with helpful commentary
• Summaries of all the relevant cases organized by section and including all relevant reported and unreported cases, with significant case law from other jurisdictions
• Cross-references to related provisions.

• A court only has jurisdiction pursuant to s. 4 to declare that a child has one father and one mother. This, however, results in a legislative gap that permits resort to the court’s parens patriae jurisdiction. Otherwise, the Act would deprive a child of the legal recognition of one of his parents. A.(A.) v. B.(B.) (Ont. C.A.).
• the Court of Appeal interpreted the term “legal custody” in a trust agreement to mean a court order for custody. The court held that the term must be interpreted in the context of the entire trust agreement. CIBC Mortgages Inc. v. Tsui (December 21, 2006) (Ont. C.A.).
• Where the court orders that a parent has no access to a child, that parent has no right to obtain information regarding the child’s health, education and welfare. M.(G.) v. M.(A.) (13 September 2006) (Ont. C.J.).
• The court in Lanfrey v. Lanfrey (April 7, 2006) (Ont.C.J.) ordered the custodial father, as an incident of custody, to immediately apply to have the child placed in a closed, residential treatment program, pursuant to s. 114 of the Child and Family Services Act; to provide him with counselling until such a program could be commenced; and required the mother to sign a written consent to placement with the father, to be delivered to the child’s probation officer.