Canadian Lawyer

LEGAL REPORT/FAMILY LAW as support, custody, or access, as well as the enforcement of support obligations, and adoption and child protection, says Nicholas Bala, a law professor at Queen's University. That division means families in the throes of a divorce in jurisdictions where there is no UFC can find themselves going from one court and judge to another to resolve the different issues involved in their breakup. Those divisions, coupled with the increasing complexity of family law cases — complexity that has continued to increase over the years — spurred the introduction of the concept of UFCs. "It was designed to enable families to resolve all outstanding range of family justice services such as mediation or con- ciliation to reduce the number of cases that have to go before a judge in the first place. "The average proportion of consent orders per case at all UFC sites taken together is 29.7 per cent, which is almost identical to the average proportion of consent orders per case at non-UFC sites at 29.3 per cent," wrote the authors of the evaluation. "However, when the UFC sites were examined separately, there were dramatic differences in the proportion of matters resolved through consent/agreement. "Results for the intensity of court usage indicate that UFCs legal issues in a single forum, providing 'one-stop shopping' for family law services by unifying the jurisdiction of the federal government and the provinces into a single court," explains a 2009 federal government evaluation of the UFC system. "Key characteristics of the unified model include employing simplified procedures in a user-friendly environment, having specialist judges, and providing a full range of professional and community support services." However, it wasn't until 1977 that the pilot project in Hamilton got off the ground. Other pilot projects followed in Saskatoon in 1978, Fredericton in 1979, and St. John's in 1979. The federal government's 2009 evaluation found that unified family courts have been a success. Areas with UFCs are more likely to have specialized judges to hear cases and a greater NEWLY REVISED & UPDATED FOR 2012 Don't spend valuable time and resources updating your precedents when DIVORCEmate has already done the work for you! 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DIVORCEmate One...From Marriage Contracts to Divorce Judgments and Everything in Between. a product of Toll Free: 1-800-653-0925 or 416-718-3461 x446 e: sales@divorcemate.com www.divorcemate.com 52 A U GUST 2012 www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com ntitled-2 1 12-02-14 9:32 AM may be more efficient than traditional courts in terms of issue resolution," said the report, adding that the total number of activities per application or new filing is lower in the unified family courts than in traditional locations they compared. Some, like Dalhousie University law professor Rollie Thompson, argue the unified family courts also tend to help the increasing number of people in family disputes who aren't represented by a lawyer. However, the same problem of divided jurisdictions the UFCs seek to resolve also helps make them harder to create. Like a marriage, both partners — the federal and provincial government — have to be in the mood at the same time in order for new courts to be born. At times, the federal government has been the one eager to expand the courts and the provinces have balked, says Thompson. Now, provinces like Ontario and Nova Scotia are keen to grow the UFC system and it is the federal government that appears to be reluctant. "You need two levels of govern- ment interested in a unified family court to make it work," explains Thompson. "This current federal government has had not much interest in the unified family court." Bala says the expansion of UFCs has been "glacial" and "deeply frustrating." "I think there's a political side to it and there is a judicial side to it. The political side is who is going to appoint the judges and who is going to pay for the judges and it's obviously an ongoing area of federal-provincial disagreement. I think it is very unfortunate that the two levels of government can't agree about what is a relatively small issue compared to the social and economic value of unified family courts." One of the factors that appears to be hampering the expan- sion of UFCs in Canada is money. The federal government has to be willing to appoint and pay a unified family court judge to hear cases that up until then might have been heard by a judge appointed and paid by the province while the province has to be prepared to fund the services that accompany it. In June, at the unveiling of a plaque to mark the Hamilton pilot project, federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson praised the concept of unified family courts but stopped short of promising additional new money to create more of them. Carole Saindon, spokeswoman for the federal Justice department, says Ottawa committed $122 million in 2009 for a five-year program to improve family justice services such as mediation and parent education programs to facilitate early collaborative resolution of family law cases. Expanding the UFC model "raises significant policy and

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