What are the factors that the court must consider when assessing the best interests of the child in a custody matter?
Ontario, Canada
The following excerpt is from Cumpson v. Templeton, 2005 CanLII 22132 (ON SC):
Gordon v. Goertz sets out the factors that a court must consider when assessing Jonah’s best interests, including: (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; and (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’s remaining with the parent to whose custody it (sic) 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.
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