Does an Incarcerated Parent Have Parenting Time Rights in Ontario?

A parent going to prison doesn't stop being a parent in the eyes of the law. That surprises some people — and worries others, particularly a co-parent who is now solely responsible for a child's day-to-day care and safety. Ontario family courts don't treat incarceration as an automatic bar to parenting time, but they also don't treat it as irrelevant. What actually happens depends heavily on the specific facts.

This guide explains how Ontario courts approach a parenting time request from an incarcerated parent, what a request can realistically look like, and how the other parent can respond.

Incarceration Doesn't Automatically End Parental Status

There is no rule in Ontario family law that a parent's incarceration, on its own, removes their legal status or their ability to ask for parenting time, contact, or a role in decision-making responsibility. A parent who is incarcerated can still bring or respond to a family court application. What changes is the practical shape of any order — and the intensity of scrutiny the request receives.

How a Court Weighs the Request

The best-interests-of-the-child test still applies in full, and it's the only test used. That means a court will look closely at things such as:

• The nature of the offence and any risk it suggests to the child's physical, psychological, or emotional safety
• Whether family violence is part of the history between the parties — an explicit factor the law requires courts to consider
• The child's existing relationship with the incarcerated parent, and whether maintaining it is realistic and beneficial
• Practical realities: what form of contact is actually available, and what impact it has on the child
• The views of the other parent and, depending on age, potentially the child

None of these factors operates as an automatic bar or an automatic entitlement — the outcome depends on the specific facts of the family.

Decision-Making Responsibility Doesn't Require Physical Presence

Decision-making responsibility — the authority over significant decisions like health care, education, and religion or culture — doesn't necessarily require a parent to be physically present to exercise it. An incarcerated parent can, in principle, still hold or share decision-making responsibility, staying informed through calls, mail, or a lawyer, if a court decides that arrangement is workable and in the child's best interests. Whether it's realistic in a specific case depends on the level of communication actually available, the nature of the decisions involved, and how well the parents can cooperate at a distance. A court remains free to limit or reassign decision-making responsibility instead, where practical or safety concerns outweigh the benefit of keeping it shared.

What Parenting Time Can Realistically Look Like

Where a court is satisfied that some form of contact is in a child's best interests, it typically looks different than a standard parenting schedule. Depending on the circumstances, arrangements might involve letters or calls, video contact where available, or supervised in-person visits. A court can also decide that no contact is appropriate for the time being, if the risk to the child outweighs the benefit of maintaining the relationship in that form.

When the Other Parent Objects

It's common for the parent who has been managing the child's care alone to have real concerns about reintroducing contact. Those concerns are relevant evidence, not something a court sets aside — but they aren't automatically determinative either. A court will still weigh the objecting parent's concerns against the child's own interest in the relationship, informed by the safety factors above. This is exactly the kind of dispute where both sides benefit from evidence rather than assumptions.

Changing the Arrangement Later

Circumstances around incarceration change — sentences end, conditions shift, risk assessments change. If an existing order no longer fits, the standard route to update it is a motion to change: the process used to ask a court to vary a final parenting or support order, rather than starting an entirely new case.

Frequently asked questions