The provisions of the act are being implemented in stages.
Changes to increase enforcement capabilities:
New Trace and Locate Tools
- Payor information that the FRO can request (e.g., current telephone numbers, fax number, email address) has been expanded.
- All organizations, including trade unions, professional organizations and trusts, are now required to give the FRO information about a payor within 10 days of the demand for information.
Committing Defaulting Payor to Jail (Default Hearings)
- At a default hearing, the maximum jail term that a court can order for failure to pay support has increased from 90 days to 180 days.
- The only way that the defaulting payor can be released from jail early is by paying the support the court has ordered.
Third Party Financial Disclosure (Default Hearings)
- At a default hearing, a court can order a third party who is financially connected to a defaulting payor to make financial disclosure. The FRO no longer has to prove that the third party is sheltering any of the payor's income or assets in order to obtain a third party's financial statement.
Drivers' Licence Suspension
Changes related to driver's licence suspensions include:
- changes emphasizing the importance of including payment terms on a refraining order; and
- changes clarifying that deadlines for a payor to take steps to avoid a licence suspension cannot be extended.
Changes to improve fairness:
Ending Support Payments
The Director will have discretion to:
- stop enforcing ongoing support if the person who receives the support does not respond to an allegation that the support obligation has ended;
- enforce a lower support payment if both parties agree that the number of children entitled to that support decreases in certain cases, or if certain conditions are met.
Withdrawal from the FRO
- If the payor is not in compliance (as defined in the regulation) with the payment obligations, the recipient can withdraw from the FRO unilaterally (i.e., without the payor's consent).
- If the payor is in compliance, both the payor and recipient must agree to withdraw from the FRO.
- In all cases, if the ongoing support is assigned to a social service agency, that agency must also consent to the withdrawal from the FRO.
Paternity test costs
- The FRO will collect the paternity testing costs when a support order requires a payor to reimburse a recipient for these costs.
Changes to improve efficiency:
- Support recipients must now receive payments from the FRO by direct deposit (electronic payments). Employers and other regular income sources will be encouraged to make payments to the FRO electronically.
- The court now has a number of additional powers at a default hearing. Depending on the facts of the case and the evidence heard, a court may make an interim or final default order including any of the terms below:
- Requiring a third party who is financially connected to the payor to file a financial statement.
- Start a motion to change the support order.
- Imprisonment up to 180 days unless arrears are paid.
- Support recipients are now required to give the FRO their current telephone numbers in addition to their current address.
- The new act provides the FRO with the authority to pass regulations creating recommended standard terms for support orders.
- The new act also updates the terminology so that it conforms with the language used in other provincial legislation and regulations (e.g., the Courts of Justice Act and the Family Law Rules).
Upcoming changes
Upcoming legislative amendments will enable the FRO to:
- calculate and collect interest at a standard rate for support arrears; (Currently, recipients perform these calculations.)
- report defaulting payors to specified professional and occupational bodies;
- suspend specified hunting and sport fishing licences; and
- locate defaulting payors by posting their names, pictures and other specified identifying information on the Internet.
See also:
Changes to legislation as of June 30, 2006