Search the Divorce Act online, and you land in a wall of government pages and cross-references. The plain version: the Divorce Act is the federal law that tells Canadian courts when a legal marriage can end, and how they must deal with parenting and support after a separation.
It covers legally married spouses in every province and territory. It was rewritten in 2021 to retire the words “custody” and “access.” And it stops short of dividing anyone’s property, which is where most of the confusion starts.
What the Divorce Act is and who it applies to
The federal layer
The Divorce Act Canada applies the same way in every province, so the basic test for ending a marriage does not change when you move. It reaches only one group: people who are legally married. Common-law partners who separate cannot file under it and have to look to provincial law for support and property claims.
That split catches people off guard. A judge can end your marriage under the federal Act while the family home and the pension remain governed by provincial legislation, which is why a single separation agreement often has to satisfy two statutes at the same time. Nussbaum Law, an Ontario family law firm, handles both halves for married clients: its guide explains how the federal law governs divorce, parenting and support, while Ontario’s Family Law Act drives the equalization payment.
What it covers
Knowing which statute owns which issue saves you time on the court forms.
- Ending a legal marriage: The Act’s main job.
- One-year separation as proof of breakdown: Requires spouses to live apart for a minimum of one year before the divorce can be granted.
- Parenting time and decision-making responsibility: Terminology in use since 2021.
- Child support: Works with the Federal Child Support Guidelines.
- Spousal support: A court can order it after the divorce.
What counts as breakdown of the marriage
Proving breakdown through separation
Canada has a single legal ground for divorce: breakdown of the marriage. You do not need a list of grievances. While breakdown can technically be proven through adultery or physical and mental cruelty, the separation route works as follows:
One-year separation
You and your spouse have been living separate and apart for at least a year. Separation is a no-fault route: spouses need not allege adultery or cruelty, avoiding fault allegations that can exacerbate and prolong an expensive process. Statistics Canada counted 42,933 divorces in 2020, a rate of 5.6 per 1,000 married persons.
Living apart under the same roof
Spouses can be legally separated while still sharing a house, and that happens often when money is tight. Courts read “separate and apart” functionally rather than geographically. That may mean separate bedrooms and bank accounts, and no longer showing up to things as a couple. A judge will generally accept that the marriage ended in practice even though both driver’s licenses show the same address.
A 90-day window to try reconciling
Separating spouses can move back in together for up to 90 days to attempt a reconciliation without resetting the required one-year separation clock. If the reconciliation attempt does not work out, the clock simply resumes where it left off instead of restarting from day one.
What changed in 2021
“Custody” and “access” are gone
Older court orders and plenty of websites still use them. The old vocabulary encouraged separating parents to think in terms of winning and losing.
The words that replaced them
“Decision-making responsibility” is the successor to custody: who decides where a child goes to school and how their health care is handled, plus questions such as religious upbringing. “Parenting time” replaced access, and it means what it sounds like: the schedule of when a child is in each parent’s care. The Act also allows contact orders, which let a grandparent or another non-parent ask a court for time with a child.
Best interests, and nothing else
When a judge decides parenting, the best interests of the child are the only test. That means weighing a child’s physical, emotional, and psychological safety, and since 2021, family violence has been a factor the court must consider.
When evaluating best interests, courts must also consider the child’s views and preferences, weighing them according to the child’s age and maturity. Furthermore, the 2021 updates replaced vague relocation rules with clear deadlines: a parent planning to move with a child must give at least 60 days’ written notice to anyone else with parenting time or decision-making responsibility, giving the non-moving party 30 days to formally object.
Child support and spousal support
Child support is not really optional
Parents (and sometimes step-parents who acted in the place of a parent) owe their children financial support after a separation, and judges run the numbers through the Federal Child Support Guidelines using income and parenting time. Enforcement has teeth, too. In a case reported by CTV News, a British Columbia judge sentenced a father to 15 days in jail for repeatedly ignoring his child support debts.
Spousal support depends on the facts
No spouse is automatically entitled to it. A judge weighs how long the relationship lasted and the roles each person played inside it, then looks at what the lower-income spouse needs now. The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines give courts ranges for amount and duration, though they remain advisory rather than a formula a judge must apply.
If you are preparing to file in Ontario
Start by separating federal divorce issues from Ontario’s provincial forms and procedures. Use current language when you draft a parenting plan: “parenting time,” not “access.” Expect the divorce order itself to come last, too. Parenting schedules and financial support usually get settled, on paper and in the provincial forms Ontario families file, well before a judge signs the final certificate. Children, contested filings, a support dispute that will not settle: those are the files where a family lawyer can be useful, because counsel can translate a broad federal test into the specific order you are asking a judge to sign.
An explicit duty to try out-of-court resolution
Federal law now places a clear legal duty on spouses and their counsel to attempt resolving issues through family dispute resolution—such as mediation, collaborative law, or negotiation—before asking a judge to decide, unless safety issues or family violence make out-of-court processes inappropriate.
Where that leaves you
The federal Act formally ends a marriage and also addresses parenting and support, while property division generally sits outside it. Skip any advice written in the language of custody battles, because it predates the current law. Then work out whether the issue in front of you is a federal question or a provincial one before you spend money fighting about it.