Let’s say you and your Ex are separated. He or she takes a trip overseas and – without any notice to you – comes back with a surprise divorce decree from another country.
You might be wondering: Does this impact my entitlement to spousal support under Ontario law?
In an important decision called Rasaei v. Bahman, the Ontario court provides clarity and modernizes the law in this scenario.
The case involved spouses who married in 2008; for the next 10 years they lived together mostly in Bahrain. They moved to Ontario in 2019, and had one child together who was now 14 years old.
Their separation was rather dramatic: After a heated argument in June of 2019, the husband packed his bags and immediately returned to Bahrain. A mere five days later – and unbeknownst to the wife – he obtained a divorce in that country. This was apparently achieved through a “divorce ceremony” in his office, with two local witnesses.
With that, the husband considered the marriage over. He did not bother to advise the wife.
Fast forward a few years. The wife, still in Ontario, concluded that her husband might be cheating, based on a text message she received. To her mind at least, this was the turning point for a formal separation from the husband. She began the court process in Ontario soon after, aiming to resolve parenting, support and property issues in the local courts.
The husband presented himself to the Ontario court, objecting that he already had a legal Bahrain divorce in-hand; this would disentitle the wife from any spousal support at all under the Canadian federal Divorce Act. (Under that legislation, a foreign divorce can be recognized as being valid under Ontario law, and may preclude an Ontario court from ordering spousal support).
The wife in turn questioned the legal validity of the Bahrain divorce ceremony in the first place. But even if it was valid, she argued that getting support under the Ontario Family Law Act (FLA), rather than the Divorce Act, was still an option. (The FLA does not recognize foreign divorces the way the federal Divorce Act does.)
This was the legal quandary that the court was asked to tackle. To do so, it examined the interplay between the laws around foreign divorce on the one hand, and the entitlement to spousal support on the other. It concluded:
- The FLA and other Ontario family laws must be interpreted broadly and fairly.
- Merely because a divorce has taken place, this does not necessarily preclude an Ontario court from ordering spousal support under the provincial FLA.
- The law had to be interpreted so that it does not reward a party like the husband for trying to avoid his support obligations by simply running off to get a divorce in another country.
- Public policy would also preclude a support payor like the husband from trying to avoid his or her financial obligations in this way.
This more progressive approach was admittedly in stark contrast to what the Ontario Court of Appeal had concluded in several prior cases, where it ruled that a foreign divorce erased a support obligation under both the Divorce Act and the Family Law Act. But then, in 2024, the Appeal Court declared that the existing position was “ripe for reconsideration”, writing:
To exclude persons from being able to claim support under provincial legislation, when they would have otherwise been entitled to it, but for a foreign, or even a domestic divorce, is not consistent with the overall purpose of the legislation, or with the specific statutory purposes of spousal support in particular …
… [T]here is no good reason to bestow upon one spouse or the other, some kind of advantage from obtaining a foreign divorce, before the support obligation can be adjudicated, where there is an adequate connection to Ontario.
In the end, the court in Rasaei v. Bahman declined to recognize the Bahrain divorce, and instead confirmed the wife’s entitlement to spousal support under the federal Divorce Act. Importantly, the court concluded that even if that divorce could be recognized, this did not preclude granting similar relief under the provincial FLA. The foreign divorce did not interrupt the potential support entitlements under either piece of legislation.
If you and your Ex are separated, and they return from a trip abroad with a putative divorce order in their pocket, give our offices a call. We can give you some tailored legal advice on your next steps.
For the full text of the decision, see:
Rasaei v. Bahman, 2025 ONSC 2074 <https://canlii.ca/t/kbd6k>
