Ontario Family Law Act

The Family Law Act (R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3) is a statute passed by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1990, regulating the rights of spouses and dependants in regard to property, support, inheritance, prenuptial agreements, separation agreements, and other matters of family law. In 1999, this statute was the subject of a watershed ruling in M. v. H. by the Supreme Court of Canada that established the equality of spousal rights for same-sex couples under Canadian law.

The most recent digital version came into effect 24 July 2014. Consolidation Period: From May 28, 2015 to the e-Laws currency date. Last amendment: 2015, c. 9, s. 28.

According to the Preamble, the purpose of the law is "to encourage and strengthen the role of the family; . . . to recognize the equal position of spouses as individuals within marriage and to recognize marriage as a form of partnership; . . . to provide in law for the orderly and equitable settlement of the affairs of the spouses upon the breakdown of the partnership, and to provide for other mutual obligations in family relationships, including the equitable sharing by parents of responsibility for their children."

The law covers the following subjects relating to marriage and common-law marriage in the province of Ontario:

The law has been amended numerous times since its enactment and has been modified by court rulings, most notably in the case of M. v. H. by the Supreme Court of Canada on May 19, 1999. In that historic ruling, the court held that the equality provisions of Section Fifteen of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms require that the rights and benefits of common-law marriage be extended to same-sex couples as well as to different-sex couples.

In particular, the court struck down section 29 of the Act as being unconstitutional in its definition of spouse, which was restricted to heterosexual couples. The original 1990 wording of the section included this definition:

"spouse" means a spouse as defined in subsection 1 (1) [i.e., "either of two persons who are married to each other"], and in addition includes either of a man and woman who are not married to each other and have cohabited . . . continuously for a period of not less than three years."

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