According to a local lawyer, changes to legislation around child support payments will help keep renegotiation deliberations out of court and significantly reduce legal fees for separated parents.

The Enforcement of Maintenance Orders Amendment Act of 2019, announced in late October, will amend the more than 20-year-old original Enforcement of Maintenance Orders Act and will clarify that the maintenance enforcement office can collect financial information, including banking information.

"One of the big changes that's coming down the pipe now," said Talon Regent of Regent Law, "is to allow maintenance enforcement to recalculate how much a payor ought to be paying for the welfare of their children. That recalculation doesn't just help the paying parent, it also helps the payee parent depending on everybody's circumstances."

Talon said that the changes will at least reduce if not eliminate time spent in court proceedings to renegotiate child support payments in the event that one parent's regular income amount changes.

"If somebody went from making $100,000 down to $30,000, maintenance enforcement didn't have much discretion to reduce the amount that payor should be paying. Likewise, if they were making $30,000 a year and suddenly they were making $100,000 a year now, the receiving parent and the children weren't able to collect on that extra income for the benefit of the children. Unfortunately up until this point, there's been a lot of limitations on what mainetance enforcement could actually do."

Regent explained that prior to the changes, parents had to either pay for a newly negotiated separation agreement or return to court.

"There was a huge access to justice issue where people couldn't achieve justice because there was a cost barrier to them. But now I can go back to these clients of mine and people at large in our community and say, 'you don't have to spend a dime on this; maintenance enforcement will work with you to ensure that this is done.' So it's going to have a real and immediate impact to ensure that people are paying how much they ought to be paying."

The changes also include alterations to the wording of the legislation itself, making it more accessible to any person who wishes to represent themselves in negotiations or proceedings. 

For more information about child support payment in Saskatchewan, click here.