Category Archives: Family

How the Canada Child Benefit Affects Separated Parents: The Post-relationship Breakdown Family Unit of Taxation

By: Kyle Gardiner

PDF Version: How the Canada Child Benefit Affects Separated Parents: The Post-relationship Breakdown Family Unit of Taxation

Matter Commented On: The Liberal Government’s Fall Economic Update, Indexing Canada Child Benefit Payments to Inflation

In its fall economic update last Tuesday, the Liberals announced that beginning in July 2018, Canada Child Benefit (CCB) payments will be increased amidst a smaller-than-expected deficit (of $18.4 billion this year, down from the spring projection of $25.5 billion), and a generally favourable economic outlook. This increase of $5.6 billion over five years is significant because it addresses what was the primary criticism of the CCB when it first came into place – that the benefit amounts were not indexed to inflation. The Liberals previously committed to indexing the amount to inflation if they were re-elected in 2019, and this upward adjustment represents a realization of that promise.

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Property Division for Common-law Couples: The Problem, the Project, and the Proposals

By: Laura Buckingham

PDF Version: Property Division for Common-law Couples: The Problem, the Project, and the Proposals

Report Commented On: Alberta Law Reform Institute, Property Division: Common Law Couples and Adult Interdependent Partners, Report for Discussion 30

The Alberta Law Reform Institute (ALRI) is considering how to improve the law of property division for common-law partners. It recently published Property Division: Common Law Couples and Adult Interdependent Partners, Report for Discussion 30. The report reviews the issues with the existing law and makes preliminary recommendations for reform. ALRI is now seeking feedback on its preliminary recommendations, before it makes final recommendations to the government of Alberta. Continue reading →

Anticipating the SCC’s Direction in Balev: The ABCA in Thompson v Thompson Emphasizes a ‘Child-centered’ Approach to the Hague Convention

By: Rudiger Tscherning

PDF Version: Anticipating the SCC’s Direction in Balev: The ABCA in Thompson v Thompson Emphasizes a ‘Child-centered’ Approach to the Hague Convention

Case Commented On: Thompson v Thompson, 2017 ABCA 299 (CanLII)

On November 9, 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) will hear an appeal in Office of the Children’s Lawyer v JPB and CRB (Supreme Court of Canada, Leave to Appeal (37250)) (Balev), a case which raises important issues about the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. For an overview of the background and issues arising from the Balev litigation, see my earlier posts here and here.

The appeal in Balev involves the key issue of whether the habitual residence of a child can change for purposes of the Hague Convention during the period of a father’s time-limited consent (which permitted the children to attend school in Canada). If so, the mother in that case would not have wrongfully retained the children in Ontario within the Hague Convention’s prompt return mechanism. The appeal is likely to engage questions around how best to determine the habitual residence of a child. Should it be through a “child-centered” approach, a “parental intentions only” approach, or both? Continue reading →

The Effect of Well Abandonment and Reclamation Obligations for the Valuation of Matrimonial Property

By: Nigel Bankes

PDF Version: The Effect of Well Abandonment and Reclamation Obligations for the Valuation of Matrimonial Property

Case Commented On: Walker v Walker, 2017 SKQB 195 (CanLII)

Judicial decisions on the legal nature of abandonment and reclamation obligations may arise in the strangest of ways. Take this matrimonial property case, for example, in which Mr. Walker (Darcy) was seeking to argue that his assets should be discounted on the basis that a small oil and gas company (Outback) that he controlled had net abandonment and reclamation liabilities. Part of the challenge that he faced in making this argument was of course that the liabilities in question were the liabilities of the corporation. While a director or controlling mind of a corporation might ordinarily take some comfort from this state of affairs, in this case counsel for Darcy tried to suggest that his client would inevitably face personal liability under the terms of Saskatchewan’s The Environmental Management and Protection Act, 2010, SS 2010, c E-10.22 [EMPA] and The Oil and Gas Conservation Act, RSS 1978, c O-2 [OGCA] and s 59 of The Oil and Gas Conservation Regulations, 2012, RRS c O-2 Reg 6 [OGCR]. Actually the argument was even stranger insofar as Mrs. Walker (Becky) was also a director of the company (Outback) and thus might face the same liability should Darcy be correct. Continue reading →

CRILF Reviews Federal Divorce Data for Alberta

By: John-Paul Boyd

PDF Version: CRILF Reviews Federal Divorce Data for Alberta

Report Commented On: Analysis of Data from the Federal Justice Divorce File Review Study: Report on Findings for Alberta, 2011

The Department of Justice undertook the Federal Justice Divorce File Review Study in 2003, a project which wound up gathering enormous amounts of information about families going through divorce from courts across Canada. Three waves of data were collected, in 2005, 2008 and 2011. In 2015, the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family (CRILF) was granted access to the third tranche of data collected from the Calgary registry of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench.

The Institute has now released its report on that data, focusing on the timelines between separation and key events in the divorce process, parenting orders and child support orders, and analyzing the data by gender and the mention of family violence. Although the Institute’s findings are interesting, the data collected are not representative of divorce files in Canada, nor of divorce files in Alberta, for two main reasons. First, it appears that many of the 328 court files reviewed for the Study were uncontested desk order divorce applications; 75.9% of cases only had one order in the court file and 95.7% of those orders were final orders. Second, the coders who gathered the data were instructed to ensure that every third or fourth file they reviewed was “thicker,” thus oversampling files expected to have a higher degree of complexity. Continue reading →