What factors must a judge consider in assessing a child's "best interests" when assessing a parent’s reasons for moving to a new location?

New Brunswick, Canada


The following excerpt is from LOT v SLM, 2011 NBQB 216 (CanLII):

Because this is a mobility case the judge made law provides further guidance, at least as to minimum factors to be considered in assessing a child’s “best interests”: ….. … More particularly the judge should consider, inter alia: (a) The existing custody arrangement and relationship between the child and the custodial parent; (b) The existing access arrangement and the relationship between the child and the access parent; (c) The desirability of maximizing contact between the child and both parents; (d) The views of the child; (e) The custodial parent’s reason for moving, only in the exceptional case where it is relevant to that parent’s ability to meet the needs of the child; (f) Disruption to the child of a change in custody; (g) Disruption to the child consequent on removal from family, schools, and the community he or she has come to know. In the end, the importance of the child remaining with the parent to whose custody it has become accustomed in the new location must be weighed against the continuance of full contact with the child’s access parent, its extended family and its community. The ultimate question in every case is: what is in the best interests of the child in all the circumstances, old as well as new? (emphasis added) (Gordon v. Goertz, supra at paras. 49-50)

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