What factors will a judge consider when deciding whether to split a husband's non-exempt property equally?

The Matrimonial Property Act tells a judge which factors to consider, and it tells him to split the non-exempt property equally unless doing so would be unjust or inequitable. That does not mean that he is to split it equally only when the financial contributions are equal: Elsom v. Elsom (1989) 1989 CanLII 100 (SCC), 59 D.L.R. (4th) 591, 598 (S.C.C.). The split and the financial contributions need not be the same.

The appellant did not suggest that the trial judge misunderstood any of the evidence bearing on this issue, or that he overlooked any relevant factor. Clearly he did not. Rather the appellant asks that we substitute for the weight which the trial judge gave, a different weight. For example, he suggests that a more just division of his property would be something like (say) 60:40 and that her property should also be divided unequally. Applied to the whole, that would produce a split even closer to 50:50, and we cannot make such a comparatively small change unless there was a clear factual or legal error leading to it. We cannot say that the assessment we would have arrived at independently is greatly different. Nor can we merely substitute our assessment of weight for the trial judge's assessment: Elsom v. Elsom, supra, at 597-8. Therefore, we do not accept this first ground of appeal.