Division of Pension Benefits Upon Marriage Breakdown, Consultation Memorandum 1

This report is to review the recommendations that were made in Report 48, Matrimonial Property: Division Benefits upon Marriage Breakdown, to see whether and how it should be revised. Report 48 made recommendations for changes in the law to make the division process fairer, more efficient and less costly, and to protect the interests of all concerned, including spouses, other beneficiaries, employers and plan administrators. This memorandum consists of a series of questions which are [...]

By |2021-02-10T14:29:26-07:00September 1st, 1995|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Administration of Family Law: The Unified Family Court: Constitutional Opinions, Research Paper 11

This paper comprises opinions by Professor W.R. Lederman, Q.C., and Professor P.N. McDonald, on the constitutional validity (at the time of publication) of a unified family court in Alberta, including both federally appointed and provincially appointed judges (i.e. judges appointed by the Governor General in Council and the Lieutenant Governor in Council). Professor McDonald's opinion is actually comprised of a number of smaller opinions written in 1976 and 1977, which include responses to some other [...]

By |2021-02-08T13:41:58-07:00May 4th, 1978|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Matrimonial Support Failures: Reasons, Profiles and Perceptions of Individuals Involved: Volume 1 Summary Report, Volume 2 Technical Reports, Research Paper 13

This report was created in order to aid the reform of the matrimonial and child support system in Alberta. Before its publication, there was little data regarding the reasons for failure in the (then) extant system. The report analyzes data from the Supreme Court (now Court of Queen's Bench) in Edmonton and Calgary, the Family Courts in Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge, and Grande Prairie, door-to-door surveys of those involved with maintenance orders, and a study of [...]

By |2021-02-08T13:42:22-07:00March 3rd, 1981|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Conference Materials, International Invitational Conference on Matrimonial and Child Support, 27-30 May 1981, Research Paper 14

This report is a summary of a conference held to discuss the results of Research Paper #13, Matrimonial Support Failures: Reasons, Profiles and Perceptions of Individuals Involved. The report includes four speeches given at that conference, viz.: "Paying of Maintenance in Sweden," by Anders Agell; "Matrimonial Support Failures: Reasons, Profiles, and Perceptions of Individuals Involved, a Commentary," by Judith Cassetty; "Maintenance in Britain," by Colin Gibson; and "The Economics of Divorce: Social and Economic Consequences [...]

By |2021-02-08T13:50:18-07:00October 3rd, 1982|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Survey of Adult Living Arrangements: A Technical Report, Research Paper 15

This paper is a survey of issues related to couples living together outside of marriage. It addresses the attitudes of non-maritally cohabitants toward relevant legal issues, the reasons that the couples chose to nonmaritally cohabitate, and the reasons that they chose to continue living that way. The survey also addresses the socio-economic characteristics of non-married and married cohabitants, as well as the characteristics of their family life.

By |2021-02-08T13:42:39-07:00November 3rd, 1984|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Court-Connected Family Mediation Programs in Canada, Research Paper 20

This paper addresses the use of (non-litigated) mediation as an adjunct to litigation within the court system. The paper surveys: the mediation process (as it was at the time of publication), with a discussion of its advantages and disadvantages compared to litigation; the different mediation programs available (at the time of publication); descriptions of child-protection mediation programs released immediately prior to publication in British Columbia and Nova Scotia; and the empirical effectiveness of mediation programs [...]

By |2021-02-08T13:55:14-07:00May 3rd, 1994|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Recognition of Rights and Obligations in Same Sex Relationships, Research Paper 21

In 1999, in M. v. H. (1999), 171 DLR (4th) 577 (SCC), the Supreme Court of Canada determined that any legislation which provided access to court-enforced spousal support rights to opposite-sex unmarried couples, while denying that access to equivalent same-sex couples, was unconstitutional (in that it violated s 15(1) of the Charter and was not saved by s 1) This paper surveys Alberta legislation current to the time of publication, and determines there are several points on inconsistency between [...]

By |2020-08-05T12:18:13-06:00January 3rd, 2002|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Matrimonial Property Act: Valuation Date, Report for Discussion 25

The Matrimonial Property Act was enacted in 1978 and provides a method of sharing matrimonial property between spouses on marriage breakdown. What property is available for sharing and how is it valued? Since 2005, the law applied by the courts is that the property must be valued at trial. In reviewing Alberta cases since 2009, this date is problematic. It is an uncertain future date, assumes spouses will litigate to trial, and discourages earlier party driven settlements. [...]

By |2020-08-05T12:18:27-06:00November 2nd, 2014|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Family Law v. 18.4–Child Guardianship, Custody and Access, Report for Discussion 18.4

As addressed in the other reports in this series, Alberta law relating to the care of children (at the time of this report's publication) included a variety of statutory provisions that were out-dated, inconsistent, and/or had uncertain scope. For this reason, this report begins from a "clean slate" in trying to define (i) child guardianship, (ii) custody, and (iii) access, and to determine how these issues can be decided in order to protect the best [...]

By |2022-09-26T13:36:38-06:00October 2nd, 1998|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Family Law v. 18.3–Child Support, Report for Discussion 18.3

This report was written to address five concerns about child support law at the time of its publication, viz.: the inadequacy of child support awarded; inconsistency of award between similar families; inefficiency in assessment; inequality based on "legitimacy" of birth; and unaddressed complexities based on the inter-relation between spousal support, custody of children, and child support. This report expounds recommendations for a new approach to child support, which is meant to foster equality for all [...]

By |2022-09-26T13:35:17-06:00October 2nd, 1998|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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