Family Law Reform

Let me open by wishing everyone the best of the season!

We at the Law Commission of Ontario were delighted this week to hear the Attorney General announce the government’s plan to reform the family law system. The plan is to use the concept of “four pillars” to establish the fundamental changes that will allow the evolution of the system as time goes on. These are necessary reforms: increased information, greater access to legal services, more use in appropriate cases of different forms of dispute resolution and triage (ensuring that families are sent in the right direction in the system). The Attorney is not alone in thinking the famly law system needs work, although he is “alone” in being able to do something about it. Many others have identified problems and put their minds to solutions.
The general view seems to be that there needs to be work at the front end of the process. This is the government’s focus and it is also the focus of a group established by the OBA and ADR Institute. (The LCO has had observer status with this group, enabling us to ensure that we aren’t duplicating efforts.) Not that there aren’t many other aspects of family law requiring careful revisiting: the court structure, coordination between criminal and family courts (work is being done in this area, too), ensuring that the legal meaning of family keeps up with sociological changes, the matrimonial home regime and on and on.

We are in the midst of our consultation phase with our own project, speaking to both users of and workers in the system. It is in the nature of law commission work that we can dig more deeply, take more time (even if it sometimes seems that others are ahead of us!) and provide more extensive and nuanced recommendations. At least that’s our plan. The government’s reforms will mean we won’t have to deal with these issues as we might have and instead can focus on refinements in the system and in particular consider how families in different Ontario cultural and other communities might have different needs from each other. There’s lots more to do and plenty of work for everybody, as they say.