Canadian Lawyer

40 J U L Y 2 0 1 6 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m father was to have four, week-long visits with his daughter and weekly access by Skype. The mother, with the father's consent, then moved to the Greater Toronto Area. Among other issues in the Ontario court was the question of whether the mother had failed to facili- tate the weekly Skype calls. The father asserted that the mother failed in her responsibility to facilitate the calls. The mother countered that, as her daugh- ter became more resistant to participating in the calls, she took her for counselling at the Hincks- Dellcrest Centre for family therapy in Toronto. The counselling included a suggestion that the mother engage the father in conversation at the beginning of the calls, as a way of also engaging the daughter. The self-represented father objected to this process and argued that the mother was in contempt of the B.C. consent order. The father also argued that the computer was not always on when he expected the Skype calls to occur and that this amounted to contempt; however, he refused to telephone to see about co-ordinating the Skype calls, such as requesting that the computer be turned on. In holding for the mother, Hood concluded: "The [mother] is not in contempt of any order. Rather, the [father] should act more reasonably in assisting to make the calls happen." Toronto family lawyer Tilda M. Roll represented the mother, who had never lived with the father, or even in the same city. She noted that in this case in particular, and for social media in general, there can be a tendency for the non-resident parent to put considerable weight on what social media can do. As a result, adults can be overly concerned with the structure of these calls and rigid about their scheduling and how they are conducted. Too often, Roll noted, they expect their children to behave like adults who use Skype for lengthy, private conversations, while the reality is that children tend to be more fluid. Children may not even want to use such methods, keep to particular schedules, or speak for the allotted amount of time. There can also be a tendency, as there was in this case, to turn the social media issue into a tug of war with an underlying agenda, says Roll. "It's human dynamics," she says. "You don't want to make things comfortable for the person you see as being in your way. But the truth is, if you're child-focused, you can never let yourself go there." Roll notes that, generally, social media can be useful. "Social media should continue and be part of court orders. What else are you going to do? That's our lives now, it's a global village." Nevertheless, she adds, keeping arrangements flexible can be a very difficult task for many families. "People want to carve out their time and they get very addicted to that," says Roll. For the ongoing management of the fine detail of social media arrangements set by agreement or court order, it's helpful to use other professionals, such as a parenting co-ordinator or social workers first, she adds. And the greater the distances in a community or region, the more likely it is that social media use by children will be a key part of co-parenting arrangements. Audra Bayer, a lawyer with MacLean Law in Kelowna, B.C., says social media use as part of access arrangements is becoming more common in her practice; she notes that conflict over this issue often becomes more heated in situations where there is significant distance involved, because these parents generally struggle to maintain contact with their children. As a result, bumps with social media can quickly escalate already troubled relations. "Parents come to court, saying, 'This is not just contempt over a call, it's contempt of access,'" says Bayer. "And the other parent may say, 'I couldn't get the kid to engage, or, the kid had Brownies.'" Too often, instead of trying to reschedule such conflicts, things deteriorate further, with L E G A L R E P O RT \ FA M I LY L AW I HAVE RESERVATIONS REGARDING FACETIME OR SKYPE, PARTICULARLY WHEN A PARENT SEES A CHILD DAILY, OR FAIRLY REGULARLY. JUSTICE NEILL BROWN, B.C. Supreme Court Untitled-1 1 2016-02-11 10:20 AM

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