Law360 Canada (May 1, 2026, 4:31 PM EDT) --

Rollie Thompson

Part 1: Bill C-223 on relocation and its defence by Suzanne Zaccour and Joanne Moser

I wrote about Bill C-223’s proposed relocation changes in October 2025 (“Bill C-223: Bad ideas on child relocation”). Law360 Canada published a two-part defence of the bill by Suzanne Zaccour and Joanne Moser on April 22-23, 2026 (“Relocation law is stacked against mothers — Bill C-223 can fix it”; “Relocation law is stacked against mothers — Bill C-223 can fix it: Addressing bias”). Zaccour is one of the architects of the bill, in her role at the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL).

Bill C-223 is a private member’s bill to amend the Divorce Act, proposed by Hamilton Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner. The bill has passed first and second reading in the House and is now before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for hearings. It proposes significant changes in the law on family violence, parenting, parental alienation and relocation. It could become law. Yet far too few practising lawyers and family law professionals, unfortunately, are aware of the bill. 

The current law of relocation is not “stacked” against mothers. It is focused on the best interests of children. In relocation cases, the best interests of children don’t always line up with the interests of mothers, but that doesn’t need to be “fixed.” And to call the proposed relocation fixes in Bill C-223 “modest,” as they do in their last sentence of part two, is just misleading.

Zaccour and Moser refer to NAWL’s “in-depth study” of the 2021 Divorce Act amendments, but there’s no analysis of the relocation case law, just a series of assertions. I’ve done the detailed relocation analysis. Most of the assertions by Zaccour and Moser are just plain wrong.

We now have five years of experience with the 2021 Divorce Act relocation amendments, as well as the provincial laws that mirror the federal changes. Under the new laws, about 55-60 per cent of relocations are allowed, up from the usual 50 per cent over the previous 20 years. The 2021 amendments are generally working well, giving more structure to the process and substance of relocation.

To make their argument, Zaccour and Moster cherry-pick one bad relocation decision under the 2021 laws, citing Friesen v. Friesen, 2023 SKCA 60, affirming Friesen v. Friesen, 2022 SKKB 83. In that case, despite family violence (pre- and post-separation) by the father, the trial judge and the Court of Appeal rejected the mother’s proposed move and, even more surprisingly, ordered shared parenting in Saskatchewan. It’s a terrible decision, but it sticks out. Out of 20 decisions where family violence was found under the 2021 laws, mothers were allowed to move in 18 of them (the other “no” was E.R.G. v. J.R.G., 2024 BCSC 789).

The only other decision cited by Zaccour and Moser is an old one that predates the amendments, Vanrootselaar v. Jacobs, 2015 BCSC 2544. They don’t mention that the mother there relocated to Newfoundland without notice the day after the father objected to her relocation and the court simply ordered the return of the children to B.C. Why cite this old case? Apparently, only to shock, by somehow connecting this old case to the recent Tumbler Ridge shootings.

You need more than one bad case and a bunch of dubious assertions to justify major changes to relocation law. Here are some of the questionable assertions in the article by Zaccour and Moser:

• Relocation law is stacked against mothers in multiple ways.
• The 2021 relocation laws continue to generate significant confusion among lawyers and inconsistent application from the courts.
• Mothers are assumed to always be the parent seeking to relocate (even though Zaccour and Moser recognize the statistics that 90 per cent of relocating parents are mothers).
• Relocation cases usually unfold with fathers defending a shared parenting status quo.
• Courts have a silent preference for shared parenting.
• The issue in every relocation case is which parent will be the primary parent: the mother who wants to move or the father who is left behind.
• Courts tell mothers where to live.
• Courts should assume that a mother proposing to relocate will relocate without her children in deciding relocation.
• Even where a relocating parent has the “vast majority” of the parenting time, courts still deny relocation in 14 per cent of the cases.
• The current burdens in the Divorce Act reflect a “systematic bias devaluating women’s care work.”
• The current requirement of “substantial compliance” with a parenting order or agreement to engage burdens of proof puts mothers on trial.
• It is generally in the best interests of a child to relocate with a parent who has a bare majority (50 per cent plus 1) of the parenting time.

The sweeping statements by Zaccour and Moser about the 2021 changes — that they continue to cause confusion among lawyers and inconsistent application by judges — are not correct. There have been more than 300 relocation decisions under the new laws. Inevitably, under new legislation, lawyers and courts initially have to work out the proper interpretation of various provisions.

Five years later, there is now a consensus about the main legal issues in relocation. In cases involving children, reasonable courts can disagree about the best interests of a child. One person’s “inconsistency” is another’s individualized decision on the facts. The burdens of proof are working, the added relocation best interests factors are being applied carefully, family violence has been addressed, and the double-bind issue has been properly identified.

In an odd twist, the significant changes proposed in Bill C-223 would throw relocation law into another period of initial confusion, of the very kind criticized by Zaccour and Moser. Further, the drafting in Bill C-223 is very poor, so poor that it is frequently impossible to interpret or even understand its provisions. Drafting divorce amendments that affect so many parents and children every year must be much clearer than Bill C-223.

This is part one of a two-part series. In part two, I will review the burdens of proof of best interests in the current law of relocation and how Bill C-223 would significantly and without justification change those burdens.

Rollie Thompson, K.C., is professor emeritus at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, and counsel at Epstein Cole LLP. He has been researching, writing and presenting about relocation since even before Gordon v. Goertz, even before 1996.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.

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