Divorce Act reforms delayed to next March
OTTAWA — The federal government has delayed implementing reforms to Canada’s Divorce Act just as family law experts are bracing for a surge of women seeking divorces after being cooped up for months with abusive partners during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The reforms were to go into effect on July 1 but Justice Minister David Lametti announced last week that implementation has been postponed until next March.
The reforms will, for the first time, provide a comprehensive definition of family violence and require the courts to take into account any instances of abuse when making decisions about parenting.
Pamela Cross, legal director for Luke’s Place, a support centre in Oshawa, Ont., for women leaving abusive relationships, said the delay is another example of government policy decisions failing to take into account the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on women.
“Danger as a result of women being forced to shelter at home with their abusers has gone up,” which the government only belatedly recognized by providing increased funding for shelters, Cross said.
“But the Justice Department should also have taken into account the potential harm that’s caused by a [eight]-month delay in implementing the Divorce Act [reforms] …
It is extremely disappointing — that’s probably a mild term for it — that there still is a failure to adequately consider the gendered impact of all of these decisions.”
Those cases will now have to begin under the pre-reform Divorce Act, which she said “doesn’t offer nearly the depth or the nuance that the new Divorce Act does when it comes to understanding family violence.”
Indeed, the pre-reform act doesn’t address family violence at all, although courts have taken into consideration incidents of domestic violence.
Lametti blamed the delay on the pandemic.
It has shut down courts and preoccupied provincial governments, which he said now need more time to align their laws and regulations with the new federal law.
Wayne Barkauskas, former chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s family law section, said the profession is bracing for a “tsunami” of cases this fall and agreed with Cross’s assessment of the impact the delay will have on women leaving abusive relationships.
The reforms, which will apply only to legally married couples, are aimed at putting more emphasis on the interests of the child in parenting decisions.
Barkauskas said a short delay for such “dramatic and wide-ranging” changes is justified in the interests of ensuring everyone is ready to implement them.