In Canada, the Divorce Act permits a spouse to seek a divorce if the other spouse has committed cruelty. But this does not entitle the victim to collect compensation for emotional distress. In fact, Canadian law minimizes the relevance of spousal misconduct when determining the issues of custody, access, support and division of property.

No. Child support is to provide the children with food, clothing, shelter and the necessities of life. It is not appropriate to deprive children of this because the other parent has acted unreasonably. There are other remedies available such as a change in custody or access, or a motion to find the other parent in contempt.

In the 2003 decision of Walsh v. Walsh, the wife asked the judge to order her ex-husband to pay a shortfall of child support in the sum of $43,000 for the past few years because his income rose.

In 1997, the court ordered her ex-husband to pay child support pursuant to the Child Support Guidelines based on an income of $175,000. In 2002, the wife discovered that her ex-husband’s income ranged between $214,000 and $376,000 per year for the past few years resulting in a shortfall of approximately $43,000, which her ex-husband should have paid in child support.

The court held that her ex-husband knew that his child support obligation was based on his income, but chose not to disclose his income voluntarily. In the court’s view, he could not now hide behind the defence that the children should not have the benefit of his increased income for this period because his wife did not request his income tax returns until 2002. The ex-husband was ordered to pay the entire shortfall in child support within 45 days.