Defining Families: An innovative approach to child protection

Who is family? While most people know who is part of their own family, understandings of family vary in a multicultural, diverse society. Some perspectives on family challenge dominant cultural and legal assumptions about who belongs to a family, what a family looks like, and how it does and should function. Within this context, the Province of Manitoba has developed an innovative model of family justice to address child protection. In developing this model, a key question arose: “Who is family?” This question was particularly important given that many families and children affected by child protection legislation are Indigenous – and traditional Indigenous families’ perspectives on family differ from mainstream Canadian definitions. In this talk, Associate Chief Justice Gwen Hatch of the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Family Division, will discuss the Court’s new Child Protection Model and how the idea of “who is family?” can play a role in legal cases involving issues in child welfare and adoption.

Hosted in partnership with the Vanier Institute for the Family

REGISTER

About the Speaker

Associate Chief Justice Hatch was appointed to the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench (Family Division) in June 2013, and was appointed Associate Chief Justice of the Family Division in May 2020. She is Chair of the Child Protection Oversight and Implementation Committee and the Triage Implementation Committee of the Family Division, and is currently Chair of the Statutory Rules Committee of the Court of King’s Bench.

Associate Chief Justice Hatch is Chair of the Judicial Committee on Inter-jurisdictional Child Protection of the Canadian Judicial Council. She also serves on the Judicial Independence Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council.

Prior to her appointment to the Bench, Associate Chief Justice Hatch practised family law and wills and estate litigation. She represented parents in child protection matters early in her career, and subsequently acted as counsel for two Indigenous agencies for over 20 years.

Associate Chief Justice Hatch was chair of the St. Boniface Hospital and Research Foundation and The Estate Planning Council of Winnipeg. She served on the Board of Governors of The University of Manitoba, and was also a sessional instructor for the Legal Negotiation course at the Faculty of Law. She is a Life Council member of the Manitoba Bar Association.

Associate Chief Justice Hatch has presented papers on child protection for the National Judicial Institute, the Canadian Chapter of the International Association of Women Judges, and the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice, and papers on family law and estates and trusts issues in programs that were jointly organized by The Court of King’s Bench (Family Division), The Law Society of Manitoba and the Manitoba Bar Association. She is also the author of articles that have been published in the Estates and Trusts Reports and in publications of The Law Society of Manitoba Legal Studies Department.