An Ontario Superior Court judge has ordered a father to immediately return his two sons to their mother’s care in Northern Ontario, ruling against his attempt to unilaterally change their primary residence after their summer access visit1. The decision came after the father, Adam Ted Bennett, kept his 13-year-old and 11-year-old sons with him in Southwestern Ontario at the end of the summer, stating that the boys wished to live with him permanently.
The ruling by Justice Wilcox on September 4, 2025, emphasized the court’s reluctance to approve of “self-help” remedies and its priority of maintaining stability for children, especially on an interim basis before a full hearing can be conducted. The judge found that the father had not demonstrated a compelling reason to upset the existing parenting arrangement, which had been in place for years.
The parents, Mr. Bennett and Miriam Clara Louisa Neil, were married in 2010 and separated in 2016. They have five sons, who are now ages 10, 11, 13, 14, and 15. A final court order from February 2020 established that the parents would share joint custody, with Ms. Neil having primary residency of the children. At that time, the order stipulated that the parents had to live within 80 kilometres of each other, with Ms. Neil residing in Stratford and Mr. Bennett in Waterloo.
In 2023, the parents made a private agreement that was never formalized into a court order. This agreement lifted the 80-kilometre distance restriction, allowing Ms. Neil to move with the five children to Kapuskasing, a community in the Cochrane District of Northern Ontario. The court noted this was a 10-hour drive from Mr. Bennett’s new residence in Mount Elgin, Oxford County. As part of this informal arrangement, the parents agreed that the children would spend the entire summer holiday period with their father.
The current dispute began during the summer of 2025 while all five children were staying with Mr. Bennett for their scheduled summer access. On July 15, and again on August 6, Mr. Bennett’s lawyer contacted Ms. Neil. The letters stated that two of the children, Isaac, age 13, and Owen, age 11, had expressed a desire to change their primary residence to live with their father in Mount Elgin and attend school there. The father sought the mother’s consent to this change, indicating he would bring a motion to vary the original court order if she did not agree.
Ms. Neil did not consent to the proposed change. At the end of the summer holidays, Mr. Bennett returned the three other children to their mother’s care in Kapuskasing, but he did not return Isaac and Owen. This action prompted a flurry of legal activity from both parents. On August 14, Ms. Neil filed a motion to change, seeking to formalize the removal of the distance restriction, adjust child support, modify the father’s access, and change the joint custody arrangement to give her sole decision-making authority.
In response, Mr. Bennett filed his own court documents on August 21, disagreeing with the mother’s requests. He sought an order for joint decision-making responsibility and, most critically, an interim and final order granting him primary care of Isaac and Owen. Shortly after, he brought an urgent motion, heard in Cochrane, seeking an immediate temporary order to that effect. Ms. Neil filed her own urgent motion seeking an order for the two boys to be returned to her care and custody without delay.
The matter was initially heard at a case conference on August 26, but the parents were unable to reach a resolution. Due to the urgency of the situation, with the new school year imminent, the cross-motions were scheduled for a special hearing via Zoom before Justice Wilcox on September 2. At the case conference, the parents did agree to request that the Office of the Children’s Lawyer (OCL) appoint a representative for the five children and urgently prepare a Voice of the Child Report regarding the wishes of Isaac and Owen. The court also noted an open file with the North Eastern Ontario Family and Children’s Services in Kapuskasing concerning the mother’s care of the children.
During the September 2 hearing, Mr. Bennett’s lawyer argued that the matter should not be decided urgently. He contended that the existing order was for joint decision-making, that the boys’ wishes were to stay with their father, and that they were safe in his care. He suggested the court should wait for the reports from the OCL and the Children’s Aid Society before making any decision, and that forcing the children to return to their mother would be traumatic.
Conversely, Ms. Neil’s lawyer argued that the situation was extremely urgent. She emphasized that Ms. Neil has been the children’s primary caregiver for years. She submitted that the father was creating a new status quo through “self-help” by withholding the children when he did not get her consent. Her lawyer also informed the court that the father was unable to enroll the boys in school in his area because she had not consented to their relocation. Furthermore, she noted that the family is Metis and that the children are involved with Metis-related cultural activities at the Kapuskasing Friendship Centre, a connection that would be severed by the move.
In his decision, Justice Wilcox first determined that the matter was indeed urgent, as the children’s school year was about to begin and their school registration was in limbo. The judge then turned to the established legal principles governing interim changes to parenting arrangements, particularly those involving a child’s relocation. He cited legal precedent establishing that courts are generally reluctant to upset the existing living arrangement, or “status quo,” on a temporary basis. The reasoning is that stability is a primary need for children, and making significant changes based on the limited and often conflicting affidavit evidence available on an interim motion is a difficult task.
Justice Wilcox found that the father was asking the court to upset the established status quo, which was that the children resided primarily with their mother. To be successful, the father needed to show compelling circumstances or a strong probability that his position would ultimately succeed at a full trial. The judge concluded that Mr. Bennett had failed to meet this high standard.
The decision was particularly critical of the father’s conduct. Justice Wilcox noted that recent amendments to Canada’s Divorce Act provide a clear legal procedure for parents seeking to relocate with their children, a procedure the father did not follow. “In the present case, the applicant’s explanation for not employing the prescribed procedure, that he was hoping for a positive response to his relocation proposal, is neither convincing nor sufficient,” Justice Wilcox wrote. The judge quoted from another case, stating, “A parent who engages in self-help tactics despite the best interests of the child will generally raise serious questions about their own parenting skills and judgment.”
Ultimately, the court found that the father had not met the burden of proving that it would be in the best interests of Isaac and Owen to relocate them 10 hours away from their mother, their siblings, and their community on an interim basis. Justice Wilcox dismissed the father’s motion for interim primary care and granted the mother’s motion, ordering that the two boys be returned to her care immediately. The judge did not make a final decision on the parents’ competing requests to change the parenting order, leaving those matters to be determined at a future, more comprehensive hearing, which will be informed by the forthcoming reports from the Office of the Children’s Lawyer. The issue of which parent will bear the legal costs of the motion was also reserved for that future hearing.
