Co-Parenting Tips After Divorce for Healthy Family Relationships

The obligations start with information, and this is the part of co-parenting the two Acts actually legislate.

Under the Divorce Act, unless the court orders otherwise, a person to whom parenting time or decision-making responsibility has been allocated is entitled to request information about the child's well-being, including their health and education. The request may go to another person who holds parenting time or decision-making responsibility, or to any other person who is likely to have that information, and those persons are to give it - subject to any applicable laws.

Subject to applicable laws, the information entitlement can extend beyond the other parent to someone likely to hold the information, such as a school or clinic.

Under Alberta's Family Law Act, each guardian must provide information to any other guardian at that guardian's request, and each must use their best efforts to co-operate on issues affecting the child. A guardian also has a power to receive health, education and other information from third parties that may significantly affect the child.

And an allocation does not cut the other guardian out. Unless the court orders otherwise, where a power or responsibility of guardianship is allocated to one guardian, the other guardian or guardians remain entitled to make inquiries and to be given information about any significant matter arising in connection with the exercise of that power or responsibility.

Information-sharing between the people responsible for a child is an entitlement and an obligation under both Acts, not only a matter of goodwill.

What happens when an order is not followed is covered in when a family court order isn't followed.

Part of what sounds like general advice is written into the Divorce Act as a duty on the parties, and each duty carries its own qualification.

A person to whom parenting time, decision-making responsibility or contact has been allocated must exercise it in a manner consistent with the best interests of the child. A party to a proceeding must, to the best of their ability, protect any child of the marriage from conflict arising from the proceeding. The parties must try to resolve the matters that may be the subject of an order through a family dispute resolution process, to the extent that it is appropriate to do so. And, for greater certainty, a person who is subject to an order must comply with it until it is no longer in effect.

A party filing a document that starts or answers a proceeding certifies that they are aware of those duties.

Each Act also places a duty on the legal adviser, and they are two different duties.

Under the Divorce Act

Unless the circumstances of the case are of such a nature that it would clearly not be appropriate to do so, a legal adviser acting on a person's behalf in a proceeding under that Act must encourage the person to attempt to resolve the matters that may be the subject of an order through a family dispute resolution process. The legal adviser must also inform the person of the family justice services known to them that might assist in resolving those matters and in complying with any order or decision, and must inform the person of the parties' duties under that Act. Every document that formally commences or responds to a proceeding, filed by a legal adviser, must contain a statement certifying compliance with that section.

Under Alberta's Family Law Act

Every lawyer who acts on behalf of a party in an application under that Act must discuss with the party alternative methods of resolving the matters that are the subject of the application, and must inform the party of the collaborative processes, mediation facilities and family justice services known to the lawyer that might assist in resolving those matters. And, subject to the regulations, every application a lawyer presents to the court under that Act must contain a statement signed by the lawyer certifying that this was done.