Court and vaccines for kids
In the early weeks of the pandemic, some abusers took advantage of the public health crisis to manipulate parenting orders, stop paying child support and, generally, make life for their former partner as difficult as possible. A few months later, the focus shifted to fathers refusing to agree to appropriate schooling arrangements for the children, even when they had previously shown no interest in this issue at all. Now that vaccinations are available for children, that has become the weapon that some abusers use to maintain power and control.
Fortunately, the courts are taking the same position they took in 2020 when parents couldn’t agree on other COVID-related issues: the government is to be trusted in terms of the regulations and recommendations it makes with respect to COVID-management, and court orders will reflect that.
Here are summaries of just a few of the recent cases.
In one case decided in late 2021, the judge took judicial notice of “the safety and efficacy” of vaccines to control the spread of COVID-19. This means the courts can take this as an established fact without evidence having to be provided to prove it:
I find that the applicable government authorities have concluded that the COVID-19 vaccination is safe and effective for children ages 12 – 17 to prevent severe illness from COVID-19 and have encouraged eligible children to be vaccinated.
In another case, the judge found that the father had engaged in family violence towards both the mother and the child and that he had had little involvement with the child. The father was unvaccinated. The mother sought to have the child’s time with the father supervised, and the court agreed, basing its decision on the history of family violence, the father’s lack of involvement with the child, his impulsivity and poor judgement, as well as the fact that he was unvaccinated. In his order, the judge set out stringent conditions to reduce the risk of the child contracting COVID-19, including:
- a requirement that parenting time take place outside or in the paternal grandmother’s home
- a prohibition of parenting time taking place in the father’s home, since he lived with his father and neither of them was vaccinated
- a requirement that the father and child be masked during parenting time
- a requirement that the child not be exposed to any unvaccinated people other than her father
The order also stated that:
if the father breaches any of these conditions, the mother may bring a motion to court on an urgent basis to suspend his in-person parenting time.
In a third case, in which the father faced criminal charges related to family violence, the court tied vaccinations to the best interests of the child, noting:
The father can choose not to vaccinate himself to protect himself from contracting COVID-19. He can also choose to not protect the community by vaccinating himself. However, when he chooses not to protect the children from contracting COVID-19 by not vaccinating himself, this is a parenting choice that affects their best interests and reflects poorly on his parenting judgment.
The court allowed the father to continue with in-person parenting time, but reduced the time and imposed similar conditions to those in the case above.
Decisions in other parts of Canada are very similar, so if you are supporting a woman whose ex is refusing to allow the children to be vaccinated, you can assure her that she is in a strong position to be successful if the matter has to go in front of a judge.
This blog post first appeared on PamelaCross.ca and is used with permission from the author.