It is every parents' worst nightmare. It is what we as
family lawyers assure our client's is "extremely
rare". "It", being a situation when one parent
unilaterally retains the children in a country where the children
are not habitually resident, or where one parent flees to another
country with the children.
Within the past year I have appeared before the court on this
type of matter on two occasions. In both situations I represented
clients who lived overseas, and desperately sought to have their
children returned to their country of habitual residence after the
children had been wrongfully retained in Canada. Although rare, we
are faced with these types of fact scenarios from time to time.
This article is meant to provide some guidance in the event that
you are faced with this issue. You will also want to familiarize
yourself with The Queen's Bench Rules 15-69 through
15-77 as they set out the procedure for these types of
applications.
