Association aims to reduce family conflict
Andrew Feldstein
In family law, it is always the xtreme cases that make the A
section of your newspaper or the
evening news. Whether it is an
abduction by a mother or father
where children are taken out of
the country, or family violence
perpetrated by spouses or partners who at one time were in love
with each other, family law is
fraught with emotion and stress.
The Association of Family and
Conciliation Courts (AFCC) is a
professional organization whose
goal is to help reduce and resolve
conflict in families experiencing
separation/divorce, and achieve
better outcomes, especially for
their children.
“AFCC is an interdisciplinary
organization and our focus is the
family,” says Barbara Jo Fidler, a
psychologist and president of the
Ontario Chapter of AFCC who
did her PhD dissertation on the
effects of custody and access disputes on children.
AFCC is indeed a unique, inter-
national professional association
with close to 5,000 members. In
the U.S., the parent organization
( www.afccnet.org) will celebrate
its 50th anniversary in Los
Angeles in May, 2013. Ontario’s
chapter ( www.afccontario.ca) is
four years old and British Colum-
bia and Alberta are organizing
their own AFCC chapters
Our members do not share a
common profession; quite the
opposite—we are the most
diverse and multi-disciplinary of
teams. Among AFCC’s members
are judges, family law lawyers,
court administrators, mediators,
social workers, psychologists,
psychiatrists, addiction special-
ists, counselors, researchers, and
many others.
[W]e know that about
10 to 20 per cent of
separating or divorcing
families continue to
engage in conflict, years
after the separation.
Barbara Jo Fidler
Ontario Chapter of the
Association of Family and
Conciliation Courts
and divorce, not the parents
themselves, who suffer life-changing consequences. When
children are involved in their parents’ conflict, it robs them of a
childhood and often causes
irreparable harm.
AFCC has a strong commitment to education, innovation
and interdisciplinary collaboration in order to benefit communities, empower families and promote a healthy future for children.
Members deal with custody and
access disputes and child protection matters through a variety of
dispute resolution approaches.
AFCC offers its members training throughout the year, at conferences, workshops, think tanks
and task forces. Online resources
are available at both the chapter
and parent websites.
“From our work and research
with families over decades, we
know that about 10 to 20 per cent
of separating or divorcing fam-
ilies continue to engage in con-
flict, years after the separation,”
Fidler says. “These ‘high conflict’
families pose significant challen-
ges for family law professionals…
[as they] continue to be mired in
unresolved emotional and psych-
ological issues…[and] are unable
to effectively separate.”
In high-conflict separations,
one or both partners are unable
to move on emotionally. “So,
fighting is a way to keep them
engaged to avoid making the real
separation,” says Fidler.
The key to these high-conflict
families, as many AFCC members have observed, is early intervention. The earlier families
receive appropriate dispute resolution service — which may mean
appearing before a judge in some
cases—the better it will be for
everyone concerned. But in certain courts, like the Greater
Toronto Area for example, parents without lawyers account for
about 50 per cent of cases. AFCC
provides a venue for professional
discourse on how to address this
significant problem.
Today, AFCC Ontario has about
325 members, at least one quarter or more of which are family
law lawyers. Yet, according to the
Law Society of Upper Canada,
there are 4,506 family law lawyers in Ontario.
For those family law lawyers
who are not yet AFCC members,
here is the perfect opportunity:
The AFCC’s fourth annual conference is coming up on October
18 and 19, 2012, in Toronto. It is
a great place to meet new professionals, network with colleagues,
learn the latest news, and share
your own expertise. Please join
us: http://www.afccontario.ca/
afcc_ontario_conferences.html.
Andrew Feldstein is managing partner of Feldstein Family Law Group,
one of the largest Family Law firms
in Greater Toronto. He has been a
member of AFCC Ontario since
January 2008.
Ring: Preferred approach is to treat it as an unconditional gift
fected by delivery, it cannot be
recovered. Since a promise to
marry cannot be enforced, and
long after divorce on a no-fault
basis became accepted in Canada, the concept of a battle over
ownership of the engagement
ring appears artificial and
anomalous at the very least.”
The third approach, applied in
several British Columbia decisions, views the offer and
acceptance of an engagement
ring as evidence of mutual
promises to marry such that if
the contract is terminated, the
parties ought to be restored to
their pre-contract position. The
analysis is founded upon principles of commercial and contract law, rather than principles
of gift. See Hitchcox v. Harper,
[1996] B.C.J. No. 1861 (S.C.);
Sperling v. Grouwstra, [2004]
B.C.J. No. 463 (S.C.);
Zimmerman v. Lazare, [2007] B.C.J.
No. 932 (S.C.).
In Zimmerman, the bride told
the groom that their engage-
Continued from page 10
ment was over after a heated
quarrel. The groom sued for
recovery of the ring. Justice Ian
Pitfield held that it does not
matter who caused or what contributed to the termination of
the engagement. If the engagement is dissolved, then, in the
absence of agreement to the contrary, the ring must be returned
in order to put the couple back
to the positions they were in
before the engagement.
The treatment of engagement
rings varies among Canadian
jurisdictions. The weight of
Ontario authorities dictates
that ownership of the ring is
determined by reference to who
broke the engagement. How-
ever, this appears to be at odds
with s. 33 of Ontario’s Marriage
Act, which provides that “where
one person makes a gift to
another in contemplation of or
conditional upon their mar-
riage to each other and the
marriage fails to take place or is
abandoned, the question of
whether or not the failure or
abandonment was caused by or
was the fault of the donor shall
not be considered in determin-
ing the right of the donor to
recover the gift.”
This approach also suffers from
the difficulty of having to find
who terminated the engagement,
either by words or by conduct,
which is not always easy, as illus-
trated by McArthur. The demise
of a relationship is rarely attrib-
utable only to one party.
Anna Wong practises civil litigation
at Landy Marr Kats LLP in Toronto.
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PETER SUTTON, B.M., B.Ch., F.R.C.P.(c)
Consultation and Assessment:
Parental Separation and Divorce
Custody and Access
Child Welfare
Parenting Capacity
Civil Litigation
164 Monarch Park Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
M4J 4R6
Telephone: 416-960-8996
Facsimile: 416-960-9673
e-mail:
peter.sutton@psychiatryinlaw.com
MARMER PENNER INC.
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Children, families, adults
2 Bloor Street West, Suite 2603, Toronto, Ontario M4W 3E2
Tel: (416) 961-5612 Fax: (416) 961-6158 www.marmerpenner.com
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