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Parents who decide to live separately often spend considerable time developing a parenting plan that allows both parents to maintain their relationship with the children. However, needs and circumstances change over time, and the original plan might eventually require revision.

Parents can modify their parenting time orders or agreements to suit current circumstances.

Parents Could Craft an Agreement

When parents concur about a change in a parenting time arrangement, the Children’s Law Reform Act s. 19.1 allows you to vary it. You could revise your plan yourselves or work with a mediator or other professional to form a new plan. You then would file the new agreement with the court for approval.

A judge will assess whether the new agreement serves the best interests of the children. In making that determination, the court will consider the needs and circumstances of the specific child. The judge typically will approve the modified parenting time plan if it provides the children with physical and emotional safety and the opportunity to have meaningful connections with both their parents.

In some cases, a judge might not be convinced a change that you agreed upon serves your children’s best interests. The judge might seek more information or schedule a hearing to question you and your co-parent in person. If necessary, a custody revision lawyer in Ottawa could help you prepare for such a hearing.

The do’s and don’t of changing PARENTING TIME AGREEMENTS

Bringing a Motion to Change a Parenting Plan

When parents disagree about the need to modify a parenting time order, the parent who desires the change could file a motion to vary. The parent requesting the change, must file several documents with the court to initiate the process.

One of the most important documents is an affidavit explaining why you are requesting the change. It is critical that the affidavit make clear that the requested change is necessary because of a significant change in circumstances and serves the children’s best interests.

In addition, many courts requires the party bringing the action, to submit a factum, which is a document stating the law they are relying on that supports the request to vary the parenting time agreement. It is by completing these vital documents, that helps to ensure that you make a persuasive argument for the court to consider the adjustment to the parenting time agreement.

Establishing the Need to Vary the Plan

The law favours maintaining the parenting time arrangement a court approved, because it wants people to be able to rely on court orders. However, courts recognize that situations change, and revisions to parenting arrangements are sometimes necessary. Situations that merit a change to a parenting time plan include: • One parent wishes to relocate • One parent is not complying with the existing order • A child’s educational needs • A child’s medical needs • A child changed residences • Other circumstances regarding the child require a change (such as a child unusually gifted in athletics or the arts receiving intensive and timeconsuming training)

In general, courts expect parents to tolerate a degree of inconvenience or expense for the privilege of spending time with their children, but every situation is different. You have to carefully craft your justification for the desired parenting time change, emphasizing how the proposed change will benefit the children.

Don’t Make Emotional Decisions

Parents have to be reasonable with their requests to change an existing parenting time agreement. The changes have to always be in the best interest of the children. It can’t be used as a mechanism to restrict or disrupt their access to the other parent.

Vary Your Parenting Time Agreement with the Help of an Ottawa Lawyer

If your parenting time agreement no longer works well for your children, processes exist to change it.

Contact an Ottawa parenting time modification lawyer to advise you about the steps to take to alter your agreements g

Paul Riley is Managing Director at The Riley Divorce & Family Law Firm. The firm has offices in Toronto, Ottawa and Kawartha Lakes and focuses on getting you out of bad relationships, while protecting what’s most important to you.

OSSTF: Ford Government Must Make Real Investments in Ontario’s Education System

It’s that time again: negotiations between the provincial government, school board representatives, and unions representing Ontario’s frontline education workers and teachers have just begun.

This bargaining round arrives after two years of unprecedented interruptions to student learning.

This summer, the Ford government unveiled their campaign to promote their Plan to Catch Up. The government’s main message is the importance of stability so students can make up the learning loss caused by the pandemic.

On this we agree.

Education workers and teachers working in publicly-funded schools want a return to a stable and safe in-person learning. They want to see the government and school boards fulfill their duty and come to the bargaining table with proposals that will ensure a continued highquality learning experience for all.

They know that all Ontarians benefit considerably from a strong, stable public education system.

However, the government’s implication that it is solely the responsibility of teachers and education workers to ensure stability ignores their own responsibility to the students of this province.

What does stability actually look like for those who learn and work in Ontario’s schools? It starts with ensuring we have certified and trained professionals in school that provide the supports and services that students need. reflect the needs of students. Learning recovery will require greater attention to student needs, all of which are provided by dedicated teachers and education workers.

And given the historic inflation we are facing, being able to attract and retain quality professionals in the education system is becoming increasingly difficult.

Over 20,000 of our Members are education workers. This includes hard working professionals such as custodians, educational assistants, clerical staff, early childhood educators, and many others. Our education worker Members earn less than $45,000 a year, and many must rely on a second or third job just to get by. They provide support to students that are most in need and yet are among the most underpaid and disrespected.

While the government says they can’t afford more investments in education and its workers, they are choosing to underfund the public education system. Right now, they have nearly a billion dollars of unspent federal money meant for Ontario’s schools.

We all lose when they choose to shortchange public education. For every dollar invested in education in Ontario, we receive a $1.30 in economic activity. This is a terrific return, and one that makes it more galling to remember that the Financial Accountability Office projected an education spending shortfall of $12.3 billion dollars over the next nine years if this government continues its current plans – that works out to $16 billion dollars in economic activity that will be lost.

Investing in Ontario’s world-recognized public education system is an investment in our shared future and well-being.

We will fight to make sure that this government does not set the system up for failure. Our southern neighbours in the United States have already shown us how detrimental it can be to increase privatization in public education. This includes charter schools, voucher systems, and tax credits for private schools, all of which have directed more public money towards for-profit corporations instead of investing it in the classroom where it belongs and will have the greatest impact.

Ontario could be headed towards a similar path, with the government recently conducting polling on charter schools and again choosing to take more money out of the public system to hand it out for private tutoring.

Ontario needs real investments in public education that ensure students get a robust learning experience in a stable environment with access to the supports and services they need.

Students deserve nothing less g

“We all lose when they choose to shortchange public education. For every dollar invested in education in Ontario, we receive a $1.30 in economic activity. ”

Karen Littlewood is the President of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF/FEESO)