Quebec government to launch public consultations into updating family law

The Canadian Press 
Published Friday, March 15, 2019 10:39AM EDT 

In a bid to update Quebec’s family laws, the provincial government will launch public consultations in late April, Justice Minister Sonia LeBel announced on Friday.

Speaking in Trois-Rivieres, LeBel said a regional tour will be held starting April 29 and lasting until June.

In November, the Coalition Avenir Quebec government said it would look into updating the province’s laws to reflect new family realities, especially those concerning children of separated common-law parents.

In 2015 Universite de Montreal law professor Alain Roy issued a report on financial support for such children.

“The current laws have not kept pace with the evolution” of the realities of contemporary conjugal and parental life, said LeBel.

She noted that since 1985 one in two marriages end in divorce, compared to one in ten in 1970.