A long-distance parenting plan in Saskatchewan is a written parenting arrangement, made under the Divorce Act and The Children's Law Act, 2020, that structures parenting time and decision-making responsibility when parents live far apart. Saskatchewan courts approve plans that serve the child's best interests, and a relocating parent must give at least 60 days' written notice under Divorce Act § 16.9.
Key Facts: Divorce and Parenting in Saskatchewan
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Filing Fee | CAD $200 (uncontested/joint petition) or $300 (contested), plus $95 Application for Judgment and $10 Certificate of Divorce |
| Waiting Period | 1-year separation to prove marriage breakdown; divorce becomes final 31 days after the judgment |
| Residency Requirement | One spouse habitually resident in Saskatchewan for at least 1 year before filing (Divorce Act § 3(1)) |
| Grounds | No-fault (1-year separation), plus adultery and cruelty (Divorce Act § 8(2)) |
| Property Division Type | Equal division of family property under The Family Property Act (statutory equalization) |
Disclaimer on fees: As of January 2026. Verify current amounts with your local Court of King's Bench registry, as Saskatchewan periodically adjusts its fee schedule.
What Is a Long-Distance Parenting Plan in Saskatchewan?
A long distance parenting plan in Saskatchewan is a detailed written schedule governing parenting time, decision-making responsibility, virtual contact, travel logistics, and cost-sharing when parents are separated by significant geographic distance. Saskatchewan courts treat these plans under the same best-interests standard as any parenting arrangement, but they demand more specificity because spontaneous mid-week visits are impossible when parents live 400 kilometres or several time zones apart.
These arrangements arise in three common situations: one parent relocates within Saskatchewan (for example, Regina to La Ronge, roughly 550 kilometres apart); one parent moves to another province such as Alberta or Ontario; or one parent moves internationally for work or family reasons. In each case, the plan replaces frequent short visits with longer, less frequent blocks of parenting time supplemented by structured remote parenting. A well-drafted plan reduces conflict by answering logistical questions in advance rather than leaving them to negotiation every school break. If you are early in the process, a personalized divorce roadmap can help you sequence the parenting-plan decisions alongside filing and financial steps.
The Legal Framework: Divorce Act and The Children's Law Act, 2020
Two statutes govern parenting arrangements in Saskatchewan. Married or divorcing parents fall under the federal Divorce Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. 3 (2nd Supp.), while unmarried parents and certain provincial matters proceed under The Children's Law Act, 2020, SS 2020, c 2. Both apply the best interests of the child as the only consideration a court may weigh when making a parenting order.
The 2021 amendments to the Divorce Act (in force since March 1, 2021) replaced the outdated words "custody" and "access" with "parenting time" and "decision-making responsibility." Saskatchewan's Children's Law Act, 2020 adopted parallel language. Under Divorce Act § 16, a court must give primary consideration to a child's physical, emotional, and psychological safety, security, and well-being. The Act lists factors including the child's needs given their age and stage of development, the nature of each parent's relationship with the child, each parent's willingness to support the child's relationship with the other parent, and any history of family violence. Distance itself is not a disqualifier — a parent living far away retains full standing to seek meaningful parenting time and a share of major decisions. To understand the terminology, our overview of child custody arrangements explains how these concepts map onto real schedules.
Decision-Making Responsibility Across Distance
Decision-making responsibility is the authority to make significant choices about a child's health, education, religion, and major extracurricular activities, and it can be shared even when parents live hundreds of kilometres apart. Under The Children's Law Act, 2020, Saskatchewan parents who lived together after the child's birth presumptively hold joint decision-making responsibility, and physical distance does not automatically shift that authority to the nearer parent.
In a long-distance context, courts and parents typically allocate decision-making in one of three ways. Joint decision-making requires both parents to confer and agree on major issues, using email or video calls to consult before school registration or non-emergency medical treatment. Divided decision-making assigns specific spheres to each parent — for example, the parent with primary parenting time controls day-to-day education decisions while both must agree on elective surgery. Sole decision-making grants one parent final authority, often chosen when high conflict makes real-time consultation impractical. Even a parent living out of province should insist the plan include direct access to school portals, medical records, and report cards, because Saskatchewan courts expect both parents to stay informed. A workable clause names a default decision-maker for time-sensitive emergencies while preserving a 48-hour consultation window for everything else, preventing distance from becoming an excuse to exclude the other parent.
Structuring Parenting Time When Parents Live Far Apart
When parents live far apart, Saskatchewan long-distance parenting time typically concentrates into extended blocks — the majority of summer vacation, alternating spring and winter breaks, and several long weekends — rather than a weekly rotation. A common template gives the out-of-province parent six to eight weeks in summer, half of the December holiday, the full spring break in alternating years, and three or four long weekends across the school year.
The governing question is always the child's best interests under Divorce Act § 16, and Saskatchewan judges scrutinize whether a proposed block schedule keeps the child's bond with both parents intact. Age drives the design: infants and toddlers need shorter, more frequent contact to maintain attachment, so a plan for a two-year-old might front-load video calls and shorter visits, while a twelve-year-old can comfortably spend a continuous month with a distant parent. School calendars anchor the schedule — Saskatchewan's public school year generally runs early September through late June, giving roughly nine weeks of summer to divide. The plan should state exact pickup and drop-off dates, times, and locations for each break, name the airport or midway exchange point, and specify who accompanies a young child during travel. Precise dates matter: vague language like "reasonable summer time" invites disputes, whereas "July 1 to August 15 in even years" is enforceable. Compare the trade-offs of a negotiated versus court-imposed schedule in our guide to equitable distribution considerations that often accompany parenting negotiations.
Virtual Visitation and Technology Provisions
Virtual visitation — sometimes called virtual parenting time, FaceTime custody, or remote parenting — is scheduled video and voice contact that keeps a distant parent involved between in-person visits, and Saskatchewan courts routinely include it in long-distance parenting orders. A typical clause guarantees the out-of-province parent at least three video calls per week of 20 to 30 minutes each, scheduled at consistent times that respect the child's routine and any time-zone difference.
Technology contact is not a substitute for physical parenting time, but the Divorce Act's best-interests analysis recognizes it as a meaningful way to preserve the parent-child relationship across distance. Effective virtual visitation clauses address five practical points: the platform (FaceTime, Zoom, WhatsApp, or Google Meet); the frequency and duration of calls; who initiates and who ensures the child is available; privacy, meaning the receiving parent should not monitor or record the conversation; and flexibility for missed calls due to illness or activities, with a make-up call within 48 hours. For school-age children, the plan can add asynchronous contact — the distant parent helping with homework by shared document, reading a bedtime story over video, or texting directly with a teen. Saskatchewan parents increasingly treat remote parenting as a daily thread rather than an occasional event, and building specific, enforceable technology provisions into the order prevents one parent from quietly letting virtual contact lapse.
Relocation Rules: The 60-Day Notice Requirement
A Saskatchewan parent who has parenting time or decision-making responsibility and intends to relocate must give at least 60 days' written notice to every other person with parenting time, decision-making responsibility, or contact, under Divorce Act § 16.9. The notice must state the expected relocation date, the new address and contact information, and a concrete proposal for how parenting time and decision-making will be adjusted after the move.
After receiving valid notice, the non-relocating parent has 30 days to file an objection, and if none is filed the relocation may proceed. When an objection is filed, a court decides using the general best-interests factors plus the specific relocation factors in Divorce Act § 16.92: the reasons for the move, its impact on the child, how much time the child spends with each parent, whether the parties followed the notice rules, whether any existing order restricts the child's geographic location, and the reasonableness of the proposed new parenting arrangements. The 2021 amendments also introduced a burden-of-proof framework tied to how time is shared — where parenting time is roughly equal, the relocating parent must show the move is in the child's best interests; where the child spends the vast majority of time with the relocating parent, the objecting parent carries the burden. A court may waive or modify the notice requirements where there is a risk of family violence. Our detailed explainer on relocation with children after divorce walks through how these provisions play out in real cases.
Travel, Transportation, and Cost Allocation
Saskatchewan long-distance parenting plans should assign responsibility for travel logistics and expenses explicitly, because interprovincial or international visits can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars per exchange. A frequent approach splits travel costs proportionally to income, mirrors the child support income-sharing logic, and designates who books flights, who accompanies a young child, and where the exchange occurs.
Courts have no fixed formula for travel costs, so the parties must build the allocation into their plan or ask the court to order one as part of the parenting arrangement. Common structures include: the relocating parent bears the majority of travel costs because their move created the distance; a 50/50 split regardless of who moved; or a proportionate split matching each parent's share of the combined income. The plan should specify the class of travel, whether an unaccompanied-minor fee applies (airlines typically charge $100 to $150 CAD each way for children traveling alone), and a fallback if flights are cancelled by weather — a real concern for Saskatchewan winters. Travel costs interact with child support: Saskatchewan follows the Federal Child Support Guidelines, and extraordinary travel expenses can be treated as a special or extraordinary expense shared under section 7 of the Guidelines. Use our child support calculator to estimate the base support obligation before layering in travel costs.
Building Your Long-Distance Parenting Plan: A Practical Checklist
A complete Saskatchewan long-distance parenting plan should address ten core elements so that no recurring situation is left to improvised negotiation. Plans filed as part of a divorce are reviewed against the best-interests standard, and a thorough, specific document is far more likely to be approved and far less likely to generate future litigation.
Include each of the following:
- Parenting time schedule with exact dates for summer, winter break, spring break, and long weekends, stated year over year.
- Decision-making responsibility allocation (joint, divided, or sole) with a consultation timeline and an emergency default.
- Virtual visitation schedule specifying platform, frequency, duration, and make-up rules.
- Travel and transportation clause naming the exchange location, who accompanies the child, and cost allocation.
- Communication protocol between parents (email or a co-parenting app) and expected response times.
- Holiday and special-occasion rotation, including birthdays, Thanksgiving, and religious or cultural events.
- Information-sharing rights for school, medical, and extracurricular records.
- Relocation and notice terms restating the 60-day requirement.
- Dispute-resolution method, such as mediation before returning to court.
- Review clause setting a date to revisit the schedule as the child ages.
Long-Distance Parenting Time Models Compared
| Model | Best For | Typical Structure | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extended summer block | School-age children, out-of-province parent | 6-8 weeks summer + half of winter break + alternating spring break | 500+ km / interprovincial |
| Monthly long weekend | Nearer distant parent, driving distance | One 3-4 day weekend per month + shared holidays | 200-500 km |
| Frequent virtual + quarterly visits | Toddlers, international distance | Daily video contact + one week every 3 months | International |
| Alternating holidays | Two working parents, moderate distance | Rotating major holidays + split summer | 300-600 km |
If your situation involves contested decisions or a proposed move, it is worth consulting a professional early; you can find a divorce attorney who handles Saskatchewan parenting matters.
Modifying a Parenting Order When Circumstances Change
A Saskatchewan parenting order can be varied when there has been a material change in circumstances affecting the child since the last order, such as a new job, a further move, a change in the child's needs, or a breakdown in the existing schedule. The parent seeking the change applies to the Court of King's Bench, and the court re-applies the best-interests test under the Divorce Act rather than simply preserving the status quo.
A material change is a genuine, unanticipated shift — not merely a parent's preference for a different schedule. Common triggers for modifying a long-distance plan include a child starting high school (which may reduce summer availability due to jobs or activities), a distant parent relocating closer or farther, or repeated non-compliance with virtual visitation. Because relocation is itself a material change, a parent contemplating a move should combine the Divorce Act § 16.9 notice process with a variation application. Saskatchewan encourages parents to resolve variations through mediation or a negotiated consent order before litigating, which is faster and less expensive than a contested hearing. Filing a consent variation typically costs far less than the several-thousand-dollar range of a contested motion, and it keeps decision-making in the parents' hands. Whatever the trigger, the plan's built-in review clause makes periodic updates routine rather than adversarial.