"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are."
— Benjamin Franklin.
Introduction
Ontario’s family justice system—made up of the courts, Legal Aid Ontario, Children’s Aid Societies, and police—claims to put children’s best interests first. But in reality, this goal is often set aside for reasons such as administrative shortcuts, chronic underfunding, inconsistent decisions, and simply gross incompetence. This essay draws on studies, an Ontario Ombudsman’s investigation, and news reports from Peel Region to look at five main problems: bias and inconsistency in family court, barriers to fair hearings due to underfunded legal aid, dysfunction in child protection agencies (especially Peel CAS), negative effects of police involvement without proper training, and a 2021 language reform that changed legal terms but not families’ experiences. The essay also looks at reforms that have worked in other places.
Ontario and Peel Region are the focus here because there is the most documentation—thanks to an Ombudsman with real investigative power, a provincial workplace review, and strong local journalism. This doesn’t mean the problem is only in Ontario. The same issues—underfunded legal aid, child protection agencies with little outside oversight, police responding to family crises without enough training, and courts that value speed and cost over child welfare—are found across Canada. Less documentation in other places just means there is less oversight, not that the problem is smaller. This is a Canadian issue, and it challenges the country’s reputation for being fair and humane.
Bias and Inconsistency in Family Court Rulings
For years, people have said that family courts are biased against fathers, though supporters of the current system often dismiss these claims. But recent evidence suggests otherwise. A 2024 University of Ottawa study, published in Discover Psychology, looked at North American custody cases and found that race, culture, gender, and perceived religion often worked against fathers. Fathers from South Asian and Middle Eastern or North African backgrounds were especially affected, often labeled as controlling or abusive, regardless of the facts. The study also found that mental health issues like depression or PTSD were used against fathers in court. Delays in decisions also harmed children and hurt their relationships with the other parent.
There is also a more subtle bias when decisions are made for administrative convenience instead of based on strong evidence. Cases are often delayed due to slow evaluations, adjournments, and scheduling choices unrelated to parenting quality that are meant to fit the court’s schedule. This keeps children in limbo and often puts their best interests second to court efficiency.
Access to Justice: Legal Aid Ontario’s Threshold Problem
People who cannot afford legal representation face a serious disadvantage. Unbelievably, to qualify for legal aid in criminal or family matters, an individual’s annual income had to be $22,720 or less; for families of five or more, about $50,803. After the 2025 reform, the limit for families of four or fewer rose to $45,440, a figure that access-to-justice advocates call inadequate. As a result, in a reality where people live month to month and cannot afford housing and food at the same time, many low- and middle-income Ontarians who cannot afford private legal advice are excluded. Those just over the limit but unable to hire a lawyer usually must represent themselves, adding to court backlogs the government aims to reduce and to injustice. "Justice is for those who can afford it"
These changes resulted from deliberate policy choices. In 2019, the provincial government - the worst and arguably the most corrupt in history - cut legal aid funding by about one-third. The Chief Justice of Ontario warned that this would increase the number of cases in which people appear without legal representation and ultimately raise long-term justice system costs. Despite this, the cuts proceeded. Parents representing themselves in child protection or custody cases face lawyers from agencies and from the opposing side with extensive procedural knowledge. The difference stems from financial resources, not parental suitability.
Children’s Aid Societies: Documented Dysfunction, Not Just Perception
It is at this point that the record ceases to be a matter of opinion. In December 2022, the Ontario Ombudsman—although he only obtained responsibility for children’s aid societies in 2019—published his first investigation into the Toronto CAS’s treatment of a boy known as “Brandon”. This inquiry revealed that the Toronto CAS had on numerous occasions failed to adhere to Ontario’s own Child Protection Standards and to its own internal policies over a period of nearly three years, until eventually the police located the boy on a urine-soiled futon in a dirty, insect-infested apartment. The Ombudsman identified a consistent pattern of delays in investigations, safety assessments, and service plan preparation, with CAS supervisors repeatedly approving deviations from standard practice. He clearly stated that the standard in child protection is not “trying their best” but the best interests of the child—precisely the principle for which the system exists and which it had failed to uphold.
It was not an isolated failure. An independent investigation by the Ombudsman in 2023 into a for-profit foster care agency discovered that a 13-year-old Indigenous girl in their care went missing on more than one occasion, and while she was absent she was physically and sexually assaulted and had an overdose, yet the agency delayed informing the police by several hours and referred to her as a “chronic runaway” rather than treating her disappearances as the emergencies they should have been.
Peel Children’s Aid Society, which serves Brampton, Caledon, and Mississauga, has a well-documented history of problems. A Global News investigation, using leaked documents and staff interviews, found the agency was involved in a financial scandal, with fraud allegations and arrests. A provincial inquiry called the workplace “seriously troubled” and found mismanagement of public money and a toxic culture. The finance director was arrested in 2022 on alleged fraud charges, but the charges were dropped due to disclosure issues. Even though the agency makes big decisions about families, it has struggled to manage its own operations.
Police in the Middle of Family Crises
Front-line officers, especially from Mississauga’s 11 Division, often respond first when families are in crisis. There is clear evidence of accountability problems. Families of people killed or injured by Peel police have demonstrated outside 11 Division, demanding explanations for why officers involved in fatal shootings—many starting as mental health or domestic incidents—remain employed. Meanwhile, inquiries by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) are often delayed. A Peel officer has been criminally charged with sexual assault after a provincial police watchdog investigation. Defence lawyers note that Peel’s strict charging approach in family violence cases makes it hard to identify the “dominant aggressor” and can lead to wrongful charges. And usually it does lead to spectacular failures - in a third-world-like display of unbelievable aggressive incompetence and lack of intelligent judgement. These errors seriously affect custody disputes. Officers must make quick decisions in complex situations, while family courts take months to review cases. Early mistakes, police incompetence, and gender bias can significantly affect custody decisions before judicial review of the evidence - deeply harming children.
A Reform That Exists on Paper Only, for New Cases
Ontario did, in fact, take a real step forward in changing the attitude that leads to some of this damage. On March 1, 2021, both the federal Divorce Act and Ontario’s Children’s Law Reform Act completely eliminated the terms “custody” and “access”, replacing them with “decision-making responsibility” and “parenting time”, respectively. The reason given was to shift family law away from treating children as property to be won or lost in a custody dispute and towards using language that presents separation as a situation in which two parents share ongoing responsibility for a child’s life. In principle, this was an acknowledgement that the previous “winner-takes-all” approach had been part of the problem.
When introduced, the government limited the reform’s effect. Family law firms clarified that existing court orders using “custody” and “access” do not need revision due to the language change. Updated terminology does not justify reviewing or altering existing orders. Thus, while the law shifted from a “winner” to a “shared responsibility” approach, families under earlier orders were excluded. Parents who lost significant time with their children under pre-2021 custody arrangements have no automatic way to request reconsideration under the new principle. The updated language applies only to new cases and does not remedy issues affecting those subject to old policies. For thousands of Ontario families with pre-2021 orders, the legislative change altered the law’s stated intent without changing their situation. Since the Divorce Act change was federal, this gap exists across all provinces, not just Ontario.
"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
The Long-Term Cost to Children
Children affected by these issues face real and lasting consequences. Research from the UK shows clear links between parental divorce or separation, father absence, and poor mental health in children and teens. Other studies found that divorce during adolescence leads to more depression, lasting from age seven to thirty-three. The harm is worse when a capable parent is removed because of long court cases or unresolved alienation. Studies on parental alienation show negative effects like low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, substance use, higher risk of suicide, academic problems, and a greater chance that these children will alienate their own children as adults. Interviews with adults who went through parental alienation as kids show long-term problems, including low self-esteem, depression, substance misuse, trouble trusting others, and strained relationships with their own children. Delays, conflict, and instability in the child protection system can affect people well into adulthood.
What Other Jurisdictions Have Already Fixed
The problems facing Ontario are by no means special; other administrative regions have created more effective systems for family justice.
Sweden is a strong example of successful reform. It has the highest rate of shared physical custody in the world. This became common even before laws required it, because courts started recommending shared custody as equal parenting was already the norm. This was helped by gender-neutral parental leave since 1974 and universal free child care. Over twenty years, the number of Swedish children in shared, equal-parenting arrangements grew from about 1 percent to between 30 and 40 percent, showing these policies work.
In 2018, Kentucky changed its laws to start with the assumption that joint custody and equal parenting time are best for children. Judges now begin each case with this idea unless there is evidence to the contrary. If a parent has a domestic violence order against them, this assumption is dropped, showing that child protection and parental rights can work together. Kentucky’s divorce rate fell by 25 percent from 2016 to 2023, compared to an 18 percent drop nationally. Similar rules have been adopted in Belgium, Arizona, Arkansas, and West Virginia, with Florida and Missouri following later. Today, about 20 other U.S. states give nearly equal parenting time in practice, even without formal laws. Ontario and other Canadian provinces have not made these changes.
Some critics say that shared custody is less stable in families with high conflict, and research supports this concern. Kentucky addressed this by including a domestic violence exemption from the start. This isn’t a reason to keep things as they are, but it does show how reform can be designed to work better.
Conclusion
Ontario’s family law is supposed to put the best interests of the child first, but there is clear evidence that this often doesn’t happen. Examples include an Ombudsman’s report on neglect, slow reporting by a foster agency, a children’s aid society called “seriously troubled,” low legal aid limits, public demands for police accountability, and a 2021 reform that left out families with older court orders. These show that the law’s main principle is often ignored. Sweden and Kentucky show that better approaches are possible. Ontario’s failure to adopt these kinds of changes continues to harm children.
These problems are not just found in Ontario. Each province in Canada runs its own legal aid program, and all of them are underfunded. Child protection is also a provincial job, and oversight bodies, where they exist, have only recently been given real authority. Police across Canada are usually the first to respond to family crises but get little special training. The 2021 change in legal language came from a federal law, so the gap between new ideas and old court orders affects families everywhere. Ontario’s detailed records exist because of its Ombudsman and active press, but the same issues are found across the country. Canada presents itself as fair and caring, but its system for protecting vulnerable children often does the opposite, in every province.
A Personal Reckoning
I didn’t write this because of academic training. I wrote it as a father who has personally experienced all of these failures.
I couldn’t afford a lawyer. While I was dealing with a disability and my family was breaking down, Legal Aid Ontario mostly ignored me. I was wrongfully arrested twice by officers from Peel Regional Police’s 11 Division while trying to protect my child from a parent with untreated bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and sometimes active psychosis. I wasn’t the dangerous one; I was trying to stop the harm. The system couldn’t tell the difference and didn’t try hard enough to find out.
I lost custody not because there was proof I was a bad parent, but because of administrative convenience, cost, and a false statement from a lawyer known for misconduct before my case even reached court. Someone who shouldn’t have been allowed to appear before a judge, let alone affect my child’s life, was given that chance. Sadly, in Brampton Family Court, false statements are often accepted, and this, along with other failures, has allowed years of child abuse to continue.
I’m not writing this to get sympathy. I write because I know, no matter what any official says, the real cost a child pays when a system meant to protect them ends up protecting itself—its schedules, budgets, and reputation. My family has paid that price, and it can’t be undone. My child’s childhood is gone, and no reform, however late, can bring back the years lost to a broken system.
But I don’t believe the story has to end here. Sweden didn’t build a better system by accident, and Kentucky didn’t fix its problems by waiting—they made changes because people decided that one family’s pain shouldn’t be repeated for others. What happened to us isn’t because Ontario is uniquely broken. It’s because Canada has allowed its system to run on underfunded courts, unaccountable agencies, and untrained first responders, while pretending these failures are rare. They aren’t. Canada can still choose a better path—in Ontario and everywhere else. I can’t get back what my child lost, but it’s not too late for the next parent standing outside a courtroom with no lawyer and no support. Justice can still come for them and their children, wherever they live. That’s a fight worth having, and it’s a hope I refuse to give up, even from where I am now, after years of injustice.
A Friendly Reminder for Brampton Justices and the Highly Unqualified Peel Police Officers
In Canadian law, the principle that the well-being of a child is paramount is legally referred to as the "best interests of the child" standard:
A. (Federal)
Section 16(1): "The court shall take into consideration only the best interests of the child of the marriage in making a parenting order or a contact order."
Section 16(2): "When considering the factors referred to in subsection (3), the court shall give primary consideration to the child’s physical, emotional and psychological safety, security and well-being."
B. (Ontario - CYFSA)
Section 1(1): "The paramount purpose of this Act is to promote the best interests, protection and well-being of children."