Canada’s top court ruled Friday that common-law spouses in Quebec are not entitled to support after a break-up — a decision that could affect the largest concentration of unmarried couples in the world.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the notion that couples in common-law relationships make a conscious choice to avoid the trappings and responsibilities of marriage.
However, the court acknowledged that a “myriad of factors” may be at play and “that the decision to live together as unmarried spouses may, for some, not in fact be a choice at all.”
Slightly more than 38 percent of couples or an estimated 1.4 million people in Quebec, according to the last census in 2011, are in a common-law relationship.
Every other Canadian province has extended spousal support to unmarried spouses that apply after set minimum periods of cohabitation, citing a focus on the impact of separation and divorce on an “economically vulnerable spouse, usually the wife.”
The ruling, however, could force a review of their laws.
This case involved a couple who met in Brazil in 1992 when he was a rising entertainment business mogul and she was a teenager. Three years later, she moved from her birth country to Quebec to live with him, and they had three children.
After seven years, they separated in 2002.
She got the house and Can$34,000 in monthly child support. But she also sought alimony from her billionaire former partner, after her attempts at a modelling career failed.
The Supreme Court upheld lower court decisions denying her bid.
A publication ban prevents identifying the couple.
No alimony after common-law break-up in Quebec: top court
