Case information

Charter of Rights — Right to liberty — Equality rights — Search and seizure — Family law — Child support — Ongoing and retroactive child support — Special expenses — Application judge awarding mother of two children a portion of her retroactive child support claim and no retroactive special expense claims — Order terminating child support at age 25 years — Whether Charter rights of non-party step-father who was ordered to pay child support were violated — Whether guidance is required on child support obligation framework for step-parents across Canada and on retroactive child support framework for domestic agreements — Whether there should be restrictions on child support being contingent on the disclosure of personal information of non-party children and step-father who have not been served notice — Whether guidance is required on limiting child support at age of 25 or to one undergraduate degree

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

The applicant mother and respondent father had two children together, a son born in 1996 and a daughter in 2002. The parties were divorced in 2003 and filed a joint affidavit that set out the agreement that they had reached including the amount of child support that would be paid by the father until each child reached the age of 18 years. The parties agreed that the mother would buy the father out of this interest in the matrimonial home. The amount of child support payable by the father would be offset by the amount that the mother was to pay to the father to buy out his interest. Both parties remarried and the father had two more children with his new wife. The mother brought an application for retroactive and ongoing child support and for retroactive and ongoing special expenses for the children. Retroactive child support for a portion of the period claimed by the mother was awarded, as was ongoing child support, to be terminated as each of the children reach the age of 25 years, subject to certain conditions being met. Retroactive expenses under s. 7 of the Federal Child Support Guidelines, SOR/97-175 were disallowed. Going forward, s. 7 expenses were to be divided in proportion to the parties’ respective household incomes. The appeal judge struck out five of the conditions that the application judge had imposed on the father’s child support obligation. Otherwise, the application judge’s decision remained intact. The mother’s further appeal from this decision was dismissed.