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→The law about children
To decide what is in a child’s best interest, parents and judges must consider all of the needs and circumstances of the child, as well as a number of factors that are listed in section 37 of the act. These factors include:
====The best interests of children and family violence====
When family violence is an issue, parents and judges must consider the best-interests factors at section 37 of the ''[[Family Law Act]]'', as well as a list of additional considerations consideraions set out at section 38, to help assess the impact of the family violence on the child and on a person’s capacity to care for the child. These considerations include:
The ''Family Law Act'' also says that an agreement or order is presumed ''not'' to be in the best interests of a child unless it protects the child’s safety and well-being to the greatest extent possible.
Under section 211 of the ''[[Family Law Act]]'', the court can order that a family justice counsellor, a social worker, or another person like a clinical counsellor or a psychologist, assess one or more of:
These assessments are ''evaluative'' because they are conducted by an expert who makes recommendations to the court.
When people have a child through assisted reproduction, a person who donates eggs or sperm is not presumed to be a legal parent. However, a woman who is a surrogate mother ''is'' presumed to be a parent, and her spouse may also be a legal parent. The ''Family Law Act'' lets people make agreements when they have a child through assisted reproduction. These agreements can say who is a parent and who isn’t. The people who can be a parent under an assisted reproduction agreement are:
As a result, a child can have more than two parents under the ''Family Law Act''. The courts have yet to figure out how child support <span class="noglossary">will</span> work in situations like this.
Under the ''[[Family Law Act]]'', the people who are responsible for caring for a child are ''guardians''. A child can have one guardian, two guardians, or more than two guardians. Most of the time, a child’s parents <span class="noglossary">will</span> be the child’s guardians, as long as the parents have lived with the child. A parent who never lived with a child isn’t a guardian unless:
The court can make an order appointing someone who isn’t a parent as the guardian of a child under section 51. The same section also lets the court make an order removing a person, including a parent, as the guardian of a child. Both the Provincial Court and the Supreme Court can make orders about guardianship.
The different ways that guardians care for a child and the decisions guardians have to make are called ''parental responsibilities.'' Parental responsibilities are listed at section 41 of the ''[[Family Law Act]]'' and include:
When a child has more than one guardian, the guardians must usually make these decisions together. However, the guardians can agree or the court can order that only one guardian should have a particular parental responsibility. One guardian, for example, might have the exclusive responsibility for making decisions about education while another guardian might have the exclusive responsibility for making decisions about healthcare.
If a guardian is temporarily unable to exercise their parental responsibilities, perhaps because they're sick or leaving the country for an extended period of time, the guardian can authorize someone else to manage certain responsibilities. This person doesn’t become a guardian but can be given the power to:
This is useful whenever a guardian needs someone else to care for a child, or if a child from outside British Columbia will be going to school here and an adult living in British Columbia needs to care for the child and manage the child's affairs.
Under the ''[[Family Law Act]]'', a guardian can appoint someone to take over and <span class="noglossary">act</span> as the child’s guardian if:
The new person takes over as guardian when the first guardian dies or becomes unable to exercise their parental responsibilities.
The ''[[Family Law Act]]'' gives the court the power to enforce parenting time and contact when:
In certain situations, it isn’t wrongful to withhold a child from a person entitled to parenting time or contact. Under section 62, it isn’t wrongful to withhold a child if:
The court can make a number of orders to enforce parenting time and contact, including requiring:
Applications about the wrongful withholding of parenting time or contact must be brought within a year of when the parenting time or contact was withheld. Remember that disagreements about the exercise or withholding of time with a child can also be addressed through a mediator or an arbitrator, and that arbitrators can exercise the power of a judge when making decisions.
When a guardian objects, how the guardians share the child's time becomes really important. When the guardians ''do not'' have substantially equal parenting time, the guardian with the greater parenting time who wants to move must show the court that
and the objecting guardian must then show that the move is not in the best interests of the child or the move <span class="noglossary">will</span> be allowed.
When the guardians ''do'' have substantially equal parenting time, the guardian who wants to move must show the court that:
''Good faith'' means that the guardian who wants to move isn’t planning on moving just to take the child away from another guardian, but because they are moving, at least in part, because they believe the move will improve the child's or guardian's quality of life.