How does child custody in Canada work?

In the confusion of divorce, most parents never consider the issue of child custody beforehand.Often communication between the spouses has broken down and both parents presume their assumptions about child custody to be accepted by the other parent.Often this is not the case.  As a result, many divorcing parents find themselves confused and surprised by the prospect of child custody issues in divorce. The greatest misconception is that the primary caretaker is the presumed de-facto custodial parent.  So, most parents who take the lead role in providing for the child in marriage simply assume that the law will recognize this role by giving him or her primary custody after divorce.  Historical care, however, does not automatically guarantee child custody.

Courts Decide Custody
According to Canadian law, until courts decide otherwise, both parents have equal rights of custody to any and all children. Cutting through the legalese, what that means is: get the courts to grant you custody ?only then you are safe against any counter motions by your spouse. In order to navigate the courts, however, you need to educate yourself about Canadian custody battles to ensure that you, and not your ex, manage to convince the courts to give custody of your child to you.

Common Presumptions of the Courts
The portrait painted above indicates that there are a great many factors, which a court will use to determine the best interest of a child.That said, however, there are three cardinal rules that generally prevail for most courts:
1) Stay at home mother: A devoted stay at home mom, almost always gains custody of the child over a working husband. This presumption is based upon the fact that, especially for young children, the court likes to place children in an environment where the parent is certain to be around often.
2)    Established status quo: If either party has, for all practical purposes, already taken control of the child after separation but before any official declaration by the courts, the judge will typically interpret the current living arrangement as the default arrangement and all things being equal will uphold it.
3)    Primary caregiver: If you can establish that you have been the primary care giver for a child then the law will typically presume that you are best situated to care for the child in the future and as a result grant you custody.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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