“In my view, the record demonstrates the likelihood of alienation of the child by the father and a litigation strategy purposed to ensure that the child’s relationship with her mother is compromised. While a more robust evidentiary record about alienation would be desirable, the court can reach a preliminary conclusion to that effect at an interim stage of proceedings. In MacLeod v. Macleod, 2019 ONSC 2128, at para. 33, Audet J. observed that,
[33] A finding of parental alienation can be made at the interim stage and on a written record, particularly when the evidence overwhelmingly points to this conclusion. As the court noted in Hazleton v. Forchuck, 2017 ONSC 2282, 93 R.F.L. 7th 254, at para. 2, the urgency raised by parental alienation necessitates early and decisive intervention by the court. In Malhotra v. Henhoeffer, 2018 ONSC 6472, Justice Nicholson held that parental alienation was a legal concept as opposed to a mental health diagnosis, and as such, the court could make a finding of alienation on an elaborate analysis of the facts alone without expert evidence. (bolding added)
In Bors v. Bors, 2019 ONSC 7029, at para. 119 Van Melle J. approved of the following definition of parental alienation described by a Dr. Michael Stambrook in the Manitoba case of L.M.A.N. v. C.P.M., 2011 MBQB 49:
[119] Counsel directed me to the Manitoba case of L.M.A.M. v. C.P.M. 2011 MBQB 46. Dr. Michael Stambrook provided a very comprehensive, and in my view accurate, definition of parental alienation. Justice Thomson quoting from Dr. Stambrook’s testimony wrote at paragraph 98:
It is a descriptive term that refers to a process. It is not a diagnostic label. It doesn’t appear in any nomenclature about mental health disorders. It is a descriptive term that refers to a process where there is a systematic devaluation, minimization, discreditation of the role of, typically the other parent in a parental dyad. One parent systematically, through a variety of physical, emotional, verbal, contextual, relational set of maneuvers systematically reduces the value, love, commitment, relationship, involvement of the other parent by minimizing, criticizing, devaluing that parent’s role. It can involve children having their sense of history being “re-written” by a parent’s redefinition of history, reframing things, repetitively talking about things. It can involve sometimes very subtle and sometimes not so subtle suasion, coercion, direction, misrepresentation and so on.
It is an abusive practice. It is child abuse when it occurs. It’s emotionally abusive. It cripples and stunts children’s development because the reality they knew at one point is undermined by this process. It is dangerous for the development because in [an] ideal situation, children should feel free to love and interact with the adults who are important in their lives, unencumbered by twisted turns of relational loyalties that are, unfortunately misplaced in this situation.
So parental alienation is a process, an interactional process where systematically one parent’s role in, for the children is eroded over the course of time. (bolding added)”