SPOUSAL SUPPORT OR ALIMONY IN CANADA

 (The new social security for women only or why we hate men.)

The Federal Department of Justice is due to release draft spousal support guidelines this Fall, according to two articles by Cristin Schmitz in the Lawyers Weekly published August 13, 2004. This is the culmination of a Federal initiative started in 2001 to develop a set of spousal support guidelines for Canada.
 

Unlike the Federal Child Support Guidelines, the spousal support guidelines will not be mandatory. (So therefore they will be open for interpretation by politically motivated ambitious judges.)

The Federal Department of Justice commissioned the spousal support guidelines in an effort to promote some level of consistency, (They mean uncertainty.)certainty and fairness in spousal support awards across Canada. At present, there are wide discrepancies in spousal support awards in different provinces and regions of the country. (With no controlling body to investigate wrong doing or abuse.)

Although the spousal support guidelines have not yet been released to the legal community or the public for review, information has been released about the general format of the proposed guidelines. According to the Lawyers Weekly articles, there will be two formulas for the spousal support guidelines. One general formula will apply to marriages where the parties have no dependent children, and the other to marriages where there are dependent children. (Be advised that a Judge at his whim can make the children of your spouse from a previous relationship YOURS for the purpose of child support.)

The guidelines propose a range of duration of support of 6 months to 1 year for each year of marriage. The support obligation would be indefinite if the marriage lasted more than 5 years and if, by adding the age of the applicant spouse and the number of years of marriage together, the total is 65 or more.

So to all you people married for 5 years good luck for fairness. What happened to the original ideolgy that spousal support was so the other person could again become self sufficient. The Canadian Justice System then expects this to be fair and enforceable world wide through by-lateral agreements.

Wake up Canada you are allowing this legal abuse to continue!
 

You may contact us by writing to editor@civilrightsblog.org  with any comments or ideas for this forum site.