What is the onus on the claimant to establish entitlement to spousal support?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Odiorne v Odiorne, 2019 BCSC 1240 (CanLII):

The onus is on the claimant to establish entitlement to spousal support. In Bracklow v. Bracklow, 1999 CanLII 715 (SCC), [1999] 1 S.C.R. 420 at 431, Madam Justice McLachlin (as she then was) discussed the three conceptual grounds for spousal support: …the law recognizes three conceptual grounds for entitlement to spousal support: (1) compensatory; (2) contractual; and (3) non-compensatory. These three bases of support flow from the controlling statutory provisions and the relevant case law, and are more broadly animated by differing philosophies and theories of marriage and marital breakdown. [Emphasis in original.]

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