When does a parent’s deliberate obstruction of court-ordered parenting time justify the cancellation or reduction of child support? That question was addressed by the Supreme Court of British Columbia in K.A.N. v. N.L., 2025 BCSC 2477.
The litigation arose from a seven-year marriage, the birth of two children, and a divorce finalized in 2019. The post-separation history was marked by extreme conflict, generating no fewer than 25 court orders addressing parenting arrangements.
Following the parties’ separation in 2017, the Ministry of Children and Family Development implemented a safety plan that placed the children primarily in the father’s care and restricted the mother to supervised parenting time due to findings of physical mistreatment of the children.
By 2019, however, the parties had agreed to an equal parenting arrangement, which functioned without difficulty until January 2022. At that time, the mother obtained an ex parte protection order alleging that the father had a history of anger and violence and had threatened her with a knife. Notably, approximately one month earlier, the father had obtained an order reducing his child support obligation.
In February 2022, the mother applied to continue the protection order. That application was dismissed, with the court finding that the evidence demonstrated a pattern of false allegations made by the mother against the father.
Despite extensive psychological involvement and repeated court intervention, the mother’s sustained efforts to alienate the children from their father ultimately succeeded. In July 2023, the court ordered that the parties’ daughter be placed in the father’s care and that the son be admitted to a residential treatment program at B.C. Children’s Hospital, following which he was also to reside with the father.
The mother nevertheless continued to obstruct the court-ordered parenting arrangements. By October 2023, further enforcement orders were required and the mother was fined. Ultimately, the children ran away from the father to the mother’s residence, and by December 2025, the father had seen his children only twice during that year.
In the proceeding under review, the father sought two relatively novel forms of relief. First, he asked that his income for child support purposes be adjusted downward to account for substantial legal fees incurred as a direct result of the mother’s misconduct. Second, he sought a reduction of his child support obligation on the basis that the mother was in persistent breach of court orders governing parenting time.
The court began its analysis by considering whether the evidence established a basis to retroactively vary the child support order under the framework articulated in Colucci v. Colucci, 2021 SCC 24 and Cotter v. Cotter, 2015 BCSC 1730. Under that framework, the payor must first demonstrate a material change in circumstances since the last support order or agreement — one that is significant, enduring, not reasonably contemplated at the time, and that would likely have resulted in a different support order had it been known. If a material change is established, the court then exercises its discretion by weighing a number of non-exhaustive factors, including any reasonable excuse for delay, the conduct of the payor parent, the circumstances of the children, and the potential hardship of either party.
The father submitted that, having been awarded primary parenting pursuant to court order, he should not be required to pay child support during periods when the children were ordered to reside in his care. He further argued that he was compelled to liquidate RRSP assets to fund legal expenses arising directly from the mother’s repeated breaches of court orders. Those withdrawals were included in his guideline income, and he contended that they should therefore be excluded or deducted in calculating child support.
The evidence established that the father withdrew approximately $10,000 from his RRSPs in 2021, $57,000 in 2023, and approximately $164,000 in 2024 to pay legal fees necessitated by the ongoing litigation. The court concluded that it would be inequitable to treat those RRSP withdrawals as income for child support purposes, as doing so would allow the mother to benefit from her own misconduct.
Accordingly, the court reduced the father’s income by $57,000 in 2023 and by $7,645 in 2024. Turning to the request for a retroactive variation of child support based on the mother’s persistent breaches of parenting orders, the court relied on Williamson v. Williamson, 2016 BCCA 87. In that decision, the Court of Appeal recognized that a finding of parental alienation may, in appropriate circumstances, justify the suspension of child or spousal support as a coercive remedy to compel compliance with parenting orders. The court also considered Brownell v. Brownell, [1987] N.B.J. No.603 (NB QB), Jones v. Anhorn, 2000 BCCA 213 and R.L.G. v. S.A.F., [1999] S.J. No. 507 (SK QB), each of which affirms that child support may be suspended during periods in which a parent is wrongfully denied access to a child.
Accepting the father’s submissions, the court emphasized that such relief is reserved for the most exceptional and egregious cases. On the facts before it, the court ordered that ongoing child support be calculated on the basis that the father had 50 per cent parenting time.
The most troubling aspect of parental alienation cases is that the alienated parent often ultimately abandons efforts to maintain the relationship, as occurred here, thereby acquiescing in conduct that constitutes a form of child abuse.
**This article was first published in LAW360, a publication of LexisNexis Canada.