“The father asks this Court to make a finding of parental alienation. Whether there should be a finding of alienation is a fact specific determination.
At ¶ 122 of the trial decision in Bors v. Beleuta, 2019 ONSC 7029 (aff’d by 2021 ONCA 513), Van Melle J. made a finding that a mother had alienated the children from their father. In so doing, at ¶ 119, she adopted the following definition of parental alienation:
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.
The father did not call any expert evidence about alienation, but expert evidence is not necessarily required. See A.M. v. C.H., 2018 ONSC 6472 ¶ 107 (aff’d by 2019 ONCA 764 ¶ 31-35). Even where there is no expert evidence, courts have relied on the list of factors that experts have developed to aid in identifying parental alienation. See for example ¶ 108 and 109 of the trial decision in A.M. v. C.H.; see also ¶ 194 of E.M. v. M.Q., 2021 ONCJ 533, wherein A.W.J. Sullivan J. cited a list of 17 strategies in which an alienating parent might engage.
I am not repeating each of the behaviours or indicia of alienation here. In summary, they include such things as involving a child in adult matters and the litigation, making false statements to a child, denigrating the other parent to a child, or in the presence of a child, fabricating allegations that the other parent is abusive, and so on. At ¶ 121 of the trial decision in Bors v. Beleuta, Van Melle J. added to the list a parent’s continuing failure to abide by court orders can be part of the alienating behaviour.
A parent who engages in these patterns of behaviour is engaging in emotional abuse towards the child. It is a form of family violence. See again Bors v. Belutal ¶ 122; see S. v. A., 2021 ONSC 5976 ¶ 26-29; and see also Epshtein v. Verzberger-Epshtein, 2021 ONSC 7694 ¶ 110-114.
To find parental alienation, the focus is not just on the parental conduct; the focus is also on the impact on the child. As Nicholson J. summarized in his trial decision in A.M. v. C.H., a child may vilify the other parent, participate in the campaign of hatred, express trivial reasons to justify the hatred, have disproportionate reactions to the other parent’s behaviours, express a lack of guilt or remorse for those actions, be angry at the other parent, and mimic the alienating parent’s behaviour. See A.M. v. C.H. ¶ 109.
And before making a finding of parental alienation, it is necessary to examine whether the rejected parent’s behaviour is the cause or a contributing factor the damaged relationship. If the child has experienced negative behaviour by a parent that causes him or her to independently form the view that he or she does not wish to have the relationship, the case may be more aptly one of realistic estrangement. “In true alienation cases there is an absence of an objective reason for the child to reject the other parent”. See H.B. v. M.B., 2018 ONCJ 916 ¶ 43.”