A parenting order is only as good as its enforcement. When the other parent refuses to hand over the children for scheduled parenting time, cancels exchanges without cause, or simply stops complying with the order, the parent being denied time has remedies. Alberta’s Family Law Act allows a person with a right to time with a child under a parenting order, a contact order, or a Divorce Act order to apply for an enforcement order if time has been denied within the preceding twelve months. The Court of King’s Bench treats a matter of parenting time, contact, or communication with a child that cannot reasonably be delayed as urgent, and a parent who has been entirely cut off from a child will usually be in that position.
An enforcement order can require the other parent to provide compensatory time to make up what was lost, to post security for future compliance, to reimburse the necessary expenses actually incurred because of the denial, and to pay a penalty of up to $100 for each day of denial, to a maximum of $5,000, with further consequences if the penalty is not paid. The Court may decline to enforce where the denial was excusable, so the evidence must establish the schedule, each missed exchange, the communications surrounding it, and the absence of any legitimate reason. A sustained pattern of denial is also relevant to any later application to vary the parenting order itself, and persistent breach of a court order can be pursued as contempt in the Court of King’s Bench.
Keystone Legal brings enforcement applications for parents who are being denied time and defends parents who are accused of denying it where the refusal was justified by a real concern for the child. The firm’s approach is documentary: the order, a log of every scheduled exchange and what happened, the messages exchanged, and the costs incurred, assembled into an affidavit that lets the Court see the pattern in one reading. Where the denial is total and current, the firm brings the matter as an urgent application; where it is a pattern over months, the firm pairs the enforcement application with an application to vary the parenting order so that the underlying problem is fixed rather than only penalized.
Calgary parents engage Keystone Legal for enforcement matters through a confidential virtual process, in English or French, with in-person meetings arranged where helpful. The firm accepts these applications where they proceed through the Calgary Courts Centre. If you are being kept from your children, call (587) 328-3328.
