Proposed Family Law Act Amendments Broaden Support Obligations to Disabled Adults
Under proposed recent amendments to the Family Law Act, parents will be required to support an adult child who has an illness, disability, or other issue that makes them unable to support themselves.
Bill 113, which is a NDP-backed private member’s Bill introduced late March 2017, contains amendments which reiterate that “every parent has an obligation to provide support, to the extent that the parent is capable of doing so, for his or her unmarried child.” The Bill then adds that this obligation extends to any child who is “unable, by reason of illness, disability or other cause, to obtain the necessaries of life.”
Currently, parents who are tasked with the care of adult children with disabilities are only able to obtain child support orders if they were married, with support being ordered as part of the separation and divorce process under the federal Divorce Act. At the moment, Ontario law does govern the rights and obligations of parents who are unmarried, but fails to specifically address the issue of support for disabled adult children. Bill 113 seeks to fill that gap in the provincial law.
The Bill’s introduction follows upon the recent court application on March 24, 2017 by a Brampton single mother named Robyn Coates, who asked an Ontario judge to rule that the yet-unamended Family Law Act discriminates against her 22-year old developmentally disabled son. The judge decided to reserve judgment, and when the ruling is handed down it will only affect Ms. Coates’ particular scenario.
However, the amendments to the Family Law Act under Bill 113 were introduced shortly after. The Bill is currently at the first-reading stage.
