The formation of a “parental union” regime for unmarried parents is about to come to fruition. Eleven years after Eric c. Lola, the National Assembly unanimously adopted the CAQ reform of marital law on Thursday. Here’s what it will change for common-law couples.
From June 2025, couples who have or adopt children outside of the marital or civil union regime will automatically integrate the new Quebec parental union regime. Instituted through Bill 56 by the Minister of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette, it creates new rights, but also new obligations for unmarried parents.
Among these: the sharing of common property in the event of separation. With its new law, Quebec will establish next year “a parental union heritage”, made up of the family’s residences, their furniture and their vehicles. When a union ends, it will be shared equally between the two spouses.
Only people with children after June 29, 2025 will be automatically enrolled in the new plan. If they want to withdraw, they will have to proceed by notarial deed. Unmarried couples who had children before the change in the law will have to expressly request to join the regime by making “a positive gesture”, as Minister Jolin-Barrette described it.
As its name suggests, parental union will not apply to couples without children. By tabling his reform, Minister Jolin-Barrette said he wanted to prevent Quebecers from being “forced married”.
As for married people, a spouse in a parental union will be able to inherit from the other in the event of death, as long as the couple had been “living together for at least one year”. After a divorce, he can request a “compensatory benefit” from the court.
Still differences with marriage
Marital and parental union regimes also differ on several points. If RRSPs and pension plans are part of the family assets of married couples, they have not been included in the division of property of future couples in parental union.
This decision by Minister Jolin-Barrette startled more than one person when the bill was tabled in March. In a special consultation, the Council on the Status of Women denounced the creation of a two-tier system favoring men in the event of a separation. “Both the overall income and the retirement and investment income of women aged 65 and over are lower than those of men,” he recalled.
The law will not change anything. In its final version, it continues to exclude RRSPs and pension plans from the parental union regime. These will therefore return in their entirety to their holder in the event of a rupture. The maintenance obligation that married people have towards each other will also not apply to couples in a parental union.
In Quebec, 42% of couples live in a common-law union, according to the Quebec Statistics Institute. This is more than in Sweden (33%), the United Kingdom (21%) and France (18%), according to Statistics Canada.
Judicial violence
According to Simon Jolin-Barrette, “law 56” will also allow members of a separated couple to protect themselves from “judicial violence”. This concept, raised more and more often in Quebec courts, refers to legal actions taken by an individual to continue to maintain control over a former life partner.
The bill adopted Thursday effectively provides that a “court which declares that a request […] is of an abusive nature condemns the party who introduced this request […] to pay damages.
“We are thus giving the courts the tools to detect this type of abuse in matters of family law and […] sanction them,” rejoiced Mr. Jolin-Barrette on Thursday, a few minutes before drafting his bill.