''"Parenting time'' " is the schedule of a child's time between married spouses under the federal ''Divorce Act''. Under the provincial ''Family Law Act'', it's the schedule of a child's time between the child's guardians. Parenting time means almost exactly the same thing, whether you're talking about the ''Divorce Act'' or the ''Family Law Act''.

(The big difference between "access" under the old ''Divorce Act'' and "parenting time" under the new ''Divorce Act'' is that access referred to the schedule of the married spouse with the least amount of time with the child. Quite often, the child would live more with one parent than the other. The parent that the child mostly lived with had the child's ''primary residence'', and the other parent had ''access'' to the child. Orders would usually specify the other parent's schedule of access, assuming that the child would be with the parent with the child's primary residence for the rest of the time. Parenting time, on the other hand, refers to the schedule of the child's time with ''both '' parents. Both spouses have Each spouse has parenting time with their child, not just one of them.)

If the parents can’t agree on how they'll share the children's parenting time, judges and arbitrators the court can make orders and awards about how parenting time will be allocated between them. Neither the ''Divorce Act'' nor the ''Family Law Act'' makes any presumptions about how parenting time should be allocated between parents. All the ''Divorce Act'' has to say on the subject is that "a child should have as much time with each spouse as is consistent with the best interests of the child," which is ''not '' a presumption that children's time should be allocated equally between parents or allocated in some any other way. The ''Family Law Act'' says explicitly that there is no particular allocation of parenting time that “is presumed to be in the best interests of a child.”

Under section 16.4 of the ''Divorce Act'', someone who has decision-making responsibility parenting time with a child also has the right to ask for and get information about the child's wellbeing, including about their education and health, from anyone who has it, including the other spouse. Under section 16.2, a spouse has the authority to make "day-to-day decisions" about the child during their parenting time. ''Day-to-day decisions'' includes are about small things like deciding whether to go the park or to the movies, deciding what clothes the child should wear, and deciding when the child should go to bed, as well as emergency decisions.