Unvaccinated dad loses custody of at-risk child

A New Brunswick father who is refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 has lost his right to see his immunocompromised child and his two other children in person.

Justice Nathalie Godbout of the Court of Queen's Bench writes in her decision that she was ruling "with a heavy heart" but that the health risk to the 10-year-old child made the decision necessary.

And she debunks the "research" the father did himself that he says led him to question the safety and efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

"His own anecdotal research on such a highly specialized topic carries little to no weight in the overall analysis when measured against the sound medical advice of our public health officials," Godbout writes.

The parents separated in 2019 and agreed to share custody of their three children.

But the COVID-19 pandemic and the refusal of the father and his new spouse to be vaccinated posed a serious risk to the children, Godbout wrote, especially the middle child who gets specialized care for non-cancerous tumours in her blood vessels.

Their mother asked the court for a change to the custody agreement ending the father's in-person access to his three children.

"As the parents who are caring for [the child] 50 per cent of the time, in close quarters, unmasked and unvaccinated, they are well-positioned to transmit the virus to [the child] should they contract it, this despite their best efforts," the ruling says.

"It is no contest: the current science in the face of a highly contagious virus far outweighs Mr. F.'s layman wait-and-see approach." 

The parents and the children are not named in the 26-page court ruling. They are only identified by initials.

The new order allows the father "generous" visiting rights via Zoom but no in-person contact. If he gets vaccinated, he can return to court to ask for a change to the decision.

The father was also refusing to consent to the children being vaccinated. Godbout ruled the mother could get that done without his agreement. 

Fredericton lawyer Grant Ogilvie, who represented the mother in the case, said the three children have already received their first doses of vaccine since the ruling on Monday.

"She was ecstatic in some regards," Ogilvie said. "But this isn't a case where she wants to take the children away from their father. This is  what's best for the children, period. She's acknowledged this is going to have an impact on the children, but she said, 'I have to do what's best for them.'"