One parent may be required to pay the other child support after a separation or divorce. Both have a legal responsibility to provide financial support to their offspring and judges may refuse to grant a divorce if they are not satisfied that reasonable arrangements have been made for the children.

After a divorce or the end of an adult interdependent relationship (often referred to as common law), one partner often has to pay either child or spousal support. That could result from a court order or an agreement with the ex-partner.

The Office of the Child and Youth Advocate (OCYA) is an office independent from the government, Children’s Services or Youth Justice. It is mandated to provide individual and systemic advocacy for children and youth receiving “designated services” as defined under the Child and Youth Advocate Act.

In Alberta, the presumptive rule is that following a relationship breakdown the birth parents – or those standing in place of a birth parent – must pay support until the child turns 18 and is considered an adult.

If you are acting as a step-parent for a child, either in a marriage or as adult interdependent partner (commonly referred to as a common law partner), you may be expected to pay child support if your partner dies.

A child’s welfare is of utmost concern to family court judges in a divorce. According to s.16(1) of the Divorce Act: “The court shall take into consideration only the best interests of the child of the marriage in making a parenting order or a contact order.”

A recent Alberta Court of Appeal decision has upended a long-held precedent on how to determine income when deciding on child support if the spouse is intentionally under-employed or unemployed.

Discussing personal wealth and financial matters can be uncomfortable. To many, these are private matters best kept private.

Calculating child support is usually pretty straight forward when one parent is the primary parent – determine income, number of children, then look it up in the guidelines. However, when you are in a shared parenting arrangement, child support is governed by section 9 of the Federal Child Support Guidelines.

During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Courts in Alberta have altered their operations, policies and procedures with a view to helping to contain or prevent the spread of COVID-19 while maintaining, as much as possible, access to justice.

In Michel v. Graydon, a 2020 Supreme Court of Canada decision, it was held that the court can retroactively adjust child support amounts for non-married couples even after the child is no longer a child of the relationship if the provincial statute allows for it.