What Happens If CAS Is Called Over Domestic Violence in Ontario?

If police or a children's aid society (CAS) have become involved after violence at home, you may be afraid that being a survivor will cost you your children. That fear is common, and it helps to know how the process works.

This article explains in plain language how Ontario's child protection law treats exposure to violence, what CAS and the court must consider, and what you can do. It is general information, not legal advice.

How exposure to violence is treated

The Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017 (CYFSA) does not name exposure to domestic violence as a separate ground for protection. It is assessed under the physical harm, emotional harm and risk-of-harm grounds.

Those grounds include physical harm, or the risk of it, caused by a person's failure to adequately care for, provide for, supervise or protect the child. They also include emotional harm such as serious anxiety, depression, withdrawal, or aggressive behaviour, or the risk of it. The focus is on what the child is experiencing and how the adults are responding to the risk.

Separately, when courts make parenting decisions under the Children's Law Reform Act (CLRA), family violence includes a child's direct or indirect exposure to violent or threatening conduct, and need not be a criminal offence. Those definitions are used in parenting cases, not as the test for a protection finding.

After a call to police or CAS

• Anyone with reasonable grounds to suspect a child may be in need of protection must report it to a society, and professionals can face an offence for failing to do so.
• A worker assesses risk and urgency using the Ontario Child Welfare Eligibility Spectrum, and an investigation takes place where there are reasonable and probable grounds.
• In urgent cases, a child can be brought to a place of safety. A justice of the peace can issue a warrant, and a worker can act without one if there would be a substantial risk to the child's health or safety while a warrant is obtained.

If a child is brought to a place of safety, within five days the matter must go before a court, the child must be returned, or an agreement such as a temporary care agreement must be made. Get legal advice before agreeing to anything. A temporary care agreement can be ended by written notice, which takes effect five days after the other parties actually receive it, or up to 21 days if the agreement sets a longer period.

Keeping children safely with you

The law requires the least disruptive appropriate course of action. Before choosing an order, the court must ask what efforts the society or others have made to assist the child. It cannot remove a child unless less disruptive alternatives, including non-residential services and that assistance, would be inadequate to protect the child.

Where a child stays home or is placed under supervision, temporary orders and supervision orders can impose reasonable terms and conditions on the parent, the caregiver, the child and others. A court can also make a restraining order that bars a person from contact with the child or with the person who has lawful custody, but the person must be personally served first.

Breaching a CYFSA restraining order is an offence punishable by a fine of up to $5,000, up to one year in jail, or both. A society also cannot return a child in its care to the restrained person, or to anyone who could allow that person access.

Longer-term court outcomes

If a court finds a child in need of protection, it can make a supervision order, an interim society care order, an extended society care order, or interim care followed by supervision. Before placing a child in society care, it must consider a relative or community member under supervision.

The court can also grant custody to one or more people other than a foster parent, with their consent, instead of a standard order. That order is deemed to be a parenting order or contact order under the CLRA, and it ends the child protection case. It cannot be made if a Divorce Act decision-making order exists or if it would conflict with a superior court order.

If you later need to relocate for safety, the CLRA notice rules can be waived by the court where there is a risk of family violence, and the application can be made without notice to the other party.

What to do next

• Write down dates, incidents, police report numbers and any messages that show what has happened.
• Speak with a lawyer early, before signing any agreement or Statement of Agreed Facts (Form 33C).
• Tell your lawyer about safe relatives or friends who could help, and about any supports you are using.
• Be truthful with the society and the court, since knowingly giving false information in an application is an offence.
• Communications with your own lawyer stay privileged.
• If you disagree with a society decision, you can complain in writing, ask the Child and Family Services Review Board to review it, or complain to the Ontario Ombudsman.

Frequently asked questions