Ontario Court of Appeal Says An Increase in Parenting Time Justifies A Change To Child Support Payments

The Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed that a father’s increased parenting time with his children was enough to change the child support arrangement.

The parents, who divorced in 2015, have three children. The father, who became a quadriplegic after an accident in 2010, originally had less than 40% of parenting time when child support was set. But by 2017, he was spending over 40% of his time with the children. Under federal child support rules, this level of parenting time can justify a different way of calculating support.

Although they had planned to move to a 50-50 parenting time split by 2018, the mother didn’t agree to complete the transition. The father went to court, requesting equal parenting time, joint decision-making, and backdated child support based on both parents’ current incomes, he was earning around $160,000, while the mother’s income had risen to approximately $200,000.

The judge agreed that child support needed to be updated because the father now had the children often enough to meet the legal threshold. He ordered the mother to pay ongoing and retroactive support, but didn’t change parenting time or decision-making rights.

The mother appealed, stating that there hadn’t been a significant enough change to reopen the support issue, and that the father didn’t actually have the children more than 40% of the time. The Court of Appeal disagreed, saying the father’s records showed he had, in fact, met that threshold. His detailed tracking of overnights, holidays, and school breaks helped support his claim.

The court also stated that the judge handled the support calculation fairly and considered all the key factors, including the parents’ high incomes, their children’s steady lifestyle in both homes, and the fact that the original 2015 agreement already provided the mother with a financial advantage.

The appeal was dismissed, and the mother was ordered to pay $10,000 toward the father’s legal costs.

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