Here’s a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision, R.P. v. R.C., which confirms that variation of support orders is possible due to a drop in income, but rejected the ex-husband’s application for variation on the basic ground that he didn’t file any evidence to show that there had been a material change in his income since the time of the original order.
It’s baffling why Dave Foley wouldn’t provide the documents to prove his reduced income. Especially if he’s publicly complaining the support amount is more that his current income.
Why would he even bother going to court?
Damn - *that’s *what I should’ve asked him when we were in line to board…nah, still glad I went with the whole “ants working together” angle…
;)
The obvious implication is that he’s hiding income from the court and he prefers being “banned” from Canada to actually revealing his financial condition.
But that’s just speculation.
Having heard his Marc Maron interview, it seems to me he is still tremendously angry with his first wife – he claims she was abusive – I don’t know whether only emotionally or also physically – and he would prefer this kind of outlaw status rather than giving an inch to her. People can get extremely irrational when it comes to break ups and divorce.
For example, here is a list of items that are typically required by a Canadian court in order to properly decide or vary child and/or spousal support:
a) Copies of the last three income tax returns and Notices of Assessment the person would have received from the relevant income tax authority;
b) Copies of the last three pay stubs from the person’s employment (perhaps not applicable to Foley, but in his case, some demonstration of payments received by him over the last, say, year, would do);
c) Copies of statements from bank accounts on which the person’s name appears (whether the bank account is held in their name alone or jointly with anyone else), for the last six months;
d) Copies of credit card statements for any credit cards the person has (again, in the person’s name alone or jointly with any other party), for the last three months;
e) Copies of any documentation recording payments that the person receives on a regular (monthly, yearly, etc.) basis; and
f) Copies of any receipts that the person has for expenses paid out on behalf of the children of the marriage. This might include clothing, expenses for sports (e.g. participating in a soccer league), music or dance lessons, etc.
It’s quite a list, but neither impossible nor unreasonable–certainly, I have clients who are capable of pulling such documentation together in a reasonable period of time. I’m sure that Foley, who may have an accountant looking after his financial interests and paperwork, could provide it. Why he can’t or won’t, I don’t know; but the above is all it would take for Foley to support his application to vary.
Note that in the Supreme Court case mentioned above, the guy didn’t provide any of that information when the spousal support was originally fixed in 1991; he merely stipulated his ability to pay the suggested amount in lieu of providing documentation (which was allowed under the Quebec family court rules). So when he asked for an adjustment in 2008, he would have needed to provide 1991 information as well as 2008 information. That’s probably a little bit trickier (who keeps 17 year old credit card bills?).
I don’t know if that’s Mr. Foley’s situation, though.
True - but the problem the ex-husband faced in that case was he didn’t even say that he was having trouble pulling the information together. He simply declined to put in any evidence at all on that point.