Case information

Family law — Child support — Income — Imputation — Costs — Charter of rights — Public reporting — Whether appellate court erred in upholding imputation of income under ss. 18 and 19 of Federal Child Support Guidelines, SOR/97-175 — Whether appellate court erred in upholding corporate add-backs, especially to declared wages, capital cost allowances and interest attributed to corporate assets — Whether imposing significant cost awards against self-represented litigant breaches procedural fairness and access to justice — Whether public reporting of judicial decisions referencing litigation conduct, absent appropriate safeguards, infringes applicant’s rights under Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ss. 15 and 28.

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 parties have a child born in 2015. The applicant had been steadily employed until shortly before the child’s birth and he owned several rental properties. In November 2015, an interim order required the applicant to pay child support of $1,200 per month, but did not state the income attributed to the applicant in order to set that payment. In 2017, shared parallel parenting was ordered with primary care to the respondent; child support set at $994 per month payable by the applicant as of April 1, 2017. Several years later, the applicant applied to vary the child support. At that time, he gave evidence that the rental properties were held by a company of which he was the sole shareholder, officer and director. The application to vary the child support order was granted. As there had been a material error in calculating the amount of pre-tax corporate income to be imputed to the applicant, the appeal was allowed in part and a rehearing was ordered in relation to that aspect of the matter and costs were also to be redetermined. Upon rehearing, the child support order was varied and costs in the amount of $15,520 were awarded to the respondent. On appeal, a motion to adduce new evidence and the appeal were dismissed.

---

---

---