Re: “Ask the Registrar”

Dear Sirs/Mesdames
There was an article in Volume 10, No. 1 in February, 1998 of BarTalk called “Ask the Registrar”. At page 18, the question was put as to whether there was still a difference in the age of a child under the Family Relations Act and the Divorce Act, to which the answer was no. That is misleading, as a reference to s. 2(1) of the 1985 Divorce Act as amended and the definition of “child of the marriage” will show.

Yours truly,
Gerald R. Green

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Dear Sir/Mesdames:
I think that one response in the February 1998 (Volume 10, No.1) BarTalk edition of “Ask the Registrar” may be “half right”. The question was asked “Is there still a difference in the age of a child under the Family Relations Act and the Divorce Act?”. The response was that there is no longer a difference as “child of the marriage” in the Divorce Act now refers to the “age of majority”. This is correct as far as it goes. The answer, however, can leave the impression that the respective statutory definitons are identical. They are not. Under the provincial legislation the definition of child terminates at the age of 19. Under the Divorce Act (even as revised) the status of “child of the marriage” can certainly include as individual “of majority or over and under their (parents’) charge but unable by reason of illness, disability, or other cause to withdraw from their charge or obtain the necessaries of life”. In other words, under the terms of the Divorce Act (as opposed to the Family Relations Act), the status can continue into majority.

Yours very truly,
Douglas C. Baker

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Mark R. Slay, Michael B. Ellis, John Waddell, and Klaus H. Priebe, for your complimentary letters and words

These letters were published in the April 1998 issue of BarTalk.