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The mother and father were married in Nova Scotia (Canada) in 2014. The father is a U.S. citizen and the mother a Canadian citizen. She moved to Washington State to live with the father on a visitor’s visa in 2015. Their daughter was born in Washington in 2016.

In January 2017, the parents agreed that the mother would go to Nova Scotia with the daughter with no set return date. The father signed a U.S. State Department consent form which granted permission for the mother to obtain a U.S. passport for the daughter’s travel. The mother left with the child on 27 January 2017.

The father filed for divorce in Washington in May 2017. The mother petitioned the Nova Scotia Supreme Court for divorce, sole custody and spousal and child support. In December 2017, the father filed a return application under the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention. 

In February 2018, the application judge ordered the return of the child. He found the child to be habitually resident in Washington and that the Article 13(1)(a) and 13(1)(b) exceptions were not made out. He based his findings on habitual residence on the last settled shared intentions of the parents and the rule that a parent cannot unilaterally change a child’s habitual residence.

In April 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada, in Balev, adopted the “hybrid approach” to the determination of habitual residence. Under this approach, a child’s habitual residence is determined based on all relevant considerations arising from the facts of the case at hand, and no single consideration is determinative.

Application dismissed. The child was habitually resident in Canada and her retention was therefore not wrongful. 

Habitual Residence - Art. 3

In light of the Balev decision, the Court of appeal found the application judge had erred in law due to incorrect principles guiding his determination of habitual residence.

The Court of Appeal fixed the time of the retention in June 2017, i.e. when the mother clearly communicated her intention to stay in Canada and the father communicated he no longer consented to the child remaining in Canada.

The Court of Appeal applied the “hybrid approach” to determine the child’s habitual residence immediately prior to her retention. It recalled that there is no legal test or closed list of factors for habitual residence, that it requires a look at the entirety of the child’s situation and that a child’s habitual residence can change while she lives with one parent pursuant to the time-limited consent of the other.

The Court retained as relevant the facts that:

• The child was six months old at the time of retention;
• From her birth, she had been and continued to be entirely cared for by her mother;
• The mother had little real connection with Washington (she had no family there, no support network and she was there on a visitor’s visa)
• The mother had a close connection with Nova Scotia (she was from Nova Scotia, had close ties with her family who lived in that province and had secured employment there);
• While the child was a US citizen, she only spent the first 42 days of her life there.

The Court found that immediately prior to June 2017, the child had become integrated into the family and social environment in Nova Scotia. It concluded that the child’s habitual residence was Nova Scotia and that her retention in that province was therefore not wrongful.

Author: Emmanuelle Jacques