CANADA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Shannon Beddoe, Annabelle Lim and Susannah Mungall, McCarthy Hansen & Company LLP
amendments, and reduces litigation focused on gen - eralities rather than child-centred feasibility. Conclusion Canadian relocation law has followed a steady doc - trinal path from Gordon to Barendregt and through Parliament’s 2021 amendments: a child-centred, con - textual analysis rejecting presumptions and insisting on practical feasibility. That framework remains fit for purpose. What has shifted is the terrain. In many com - munities, the costs defining a child’s stable daily life – housing, childcare, transportation – have increased enough to strain the assumption that “staying” is straightforward after separation. The legal system has long adapted to technological and social change without abandoning core princi - ples. Negligence did not need a new test for autono - mous vehicles; it needed new facts and standards of care. Privacy did not discard its foundations for the internet; it reinterpreted them through a different factual lens. Family law’s best interests analysis can likewise meet contemporary economic realities by naming and evaluating economic necessity within the existing framework and burdens of proof.
If the best interests test is to keep pace with the con - ditions in which Canadian children live, courts should be explicit when “staying” is unavailable and evaluate relocation proposals against realistic, evidenced alter - natives. The aim is not to privilege movement over sta - bility or create new presumptions, but to ensure that stability itself is understood in today’s terms. Where remaining in place compromises secure housing, predictable routines, and a parent’s ability to sustain caregiving, the principled application of established doctrine should acknowledge that reality. The relo - cation framework needs clarity more than reform. It should make plain that the child’s interests are served by stability that can be achieved and maintained, not by a geography that a family can no longer afford. In that spirit, courts can continue to do what Gordon counselled: decide each case on its evidence, with eyes open to the world where children are raised.
57 C HILD RELOC AT I ON 20 26
CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook