“The court’s authority to choose which school the child will attend is found in section 28(1)(b) of the Children’s Law Reform Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C-12 (“CLRA”) which permits the court to “determine any aspect of the incidents of the right to decision-making … with respect to a child.” The governing principle in making that determination is that the decision be in the best interests of the child (CLRA, s. 24). In this respect, it is important to emphasize that the interests of the parents are relevant only insofar as those interests influence the best interests of the child. The parents’ self-interest is otherwise not relevant. As Black J. put it in Al-Naib v. Shnyin, 2023 ONSC 3125, at para. 33, “it is [the child’s] commute time, and not of the applicant, that matters for the purposes of the court’s analysis.”
Section 24 of the CLRA provides guidance about factors relevant to finding the child’s best interests. For present purposes, the most germane of those factors are the child’s safety, security and well-being (s. 24(2)), her need for stability (s. 24(3)(a)), the nature and strength of her relationships with her parents and other family members (s. 24(3)(b)), plans for the child’s care (s. 24(3)(g)); the ability of the parents and others to care for the child (s. 24(3)(h)); and the ability of those people to co-operate on matters affecting the child (s. 24(3)(i) and (k)).
Specifically with respect to decisions relating to choice of school, the courts have found a variety of factors to be relevant. Audet J. provides a helpful summary of those factors in Thomas v. Osika, 2018 ONSC 2712, at para. 37 (see also Hamid v. Hamid, 2016 ONSC 5013, at paras. 10 – 11). In the circumstances of the present case, the most relevant of those factors is ensuring stability in the child’s life, as I explain below.
It is not the case that the other factors listed either in s. 24 of the CLRA or at para. 37 of Thomas v. Osika are not important or relevant, it is simply that they do not assist in resolving the particular problem presented to me because they apply equally well or equally poorly to the competing proposals of the parties.”