Court File and Parties

COURT FILE NO.: FS-09-065571-00 DATE: 2016-06-13

ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

B E T W E E N:

LI CHENG Applicant

Christopher Goldson, agent for Counsel Wen Wu, for the Applicant

- and -

YANGZHOU LIU a.k.a. Yang Zhou Liu, a.k.a. Steele Liu Respondent

Steven Fehrle, for the Respondent

HEARD: January 21, 2016, at Brampton, Ontario

Price J.

Reasons for Order

NATURE OF PROCEEDING

[1] Mr. Liu has avoided paying child and spousal support, at different times, by navigating the courts of China and Canada in such a way as to prevent each, in deference to the other, from making support orders against him. Unlike the child in the fable, who throws stones at two giants while they sleep, causing each to slay the other in the belief that he was the aggressor, Mr. Liu has disabled the courts in Canada and China by causing each, in deference to the other, to take no action at all.

[2] In 2010, Mr. Liu challenged the jurisdiction of the court in Canada by asserting that he had begun a divorce proceeding in China which could more conveniently determine the issues, as Ms. Cheng and the parties’ daughter live there. He thereby obtained a stay from the court in Canada of a divorce proceeding that Ms. Cheng had begun here in 2009, a year before Mr. Liu began his proceeding in China. The court granted him the stay on the condition that he would cooperate with the court in China.

[3] Mr. Liu failed to make the necessary financial disclosure to the court in China. As a result, the Chinese court granted him a divorce, but deferred to the court in Canada any economic issues, including support, because Mr. Liu lives, works, and has his property here, and had failed to make adequate financial disclosure in China.

[4] Ms. Cheng has now applied to the court in Canada to lift its stay of her proceeding and entertain her application for support and equalization of net family property. Mr. Liu has responded with the argument that the court in Canada has no jurisdiction to grant Ms. Cheng support because the court in China has granted the parties a divorce.

ISSUE TO BE DETERMINED

[5] As Trial Management Conference judge, I must decide whether Ms. Cheng’s claims for support and division/equalization of property can proceed to trial in this court, or whether the issue of jurisdiction must be determined first. I must make this determination in a way that employs scarce judicial resources economically, to achieve the objectives of the Family Law Rules in securing the most expeditious, least costly, and just determination of the issues on their merits.

[6] In addressing the issue of jurisdiction, this court must decide whether it is precluded from assuming jurisdiction by the decision of our Court of Appeal in Okmyansky v. Okmyansky, 2007 ONCA 427, in 2007, which held that a court in Canada has no jurisdiction to grant support to a spouse whose marriage has been terminated by a divorce granted by a court elsewhere, or whether the facts of the Okmyansky case were so different from those of the present case that this court may entertain Ms. Cheng’s application for support and equalization, notwithstanding the parties’ Chinese divorce.

BACKGROUND FACTS

a) The parties’ marriage and separation

[7] Ms. Cheng is 43 years old. She is a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, and resides in Tai’an City, Shandong Province, in mainland China. She is employed there as an office clerk in a cable company. She never resided in, or visited, Canada.

[8] Mr. Liu is 45 years old. He is a Canadian citizen who, since at least 2005, has resided in the City of Mississauga, where he is employed as an engineer with an energy company. All of Mr. Liu’s assets, property, and sources of income are in Ontario.

[9] The parties married in China on August 7, 2006. After a short period of co-habitation, Mr. Liu returned to Canada. Ms. Cheng became pregnant and gave birth to the parties’ daughter in China on February 3, 2007.

[10] Mr. Liu says that the parties separated on December 14, 2007. Ms. Cheng says that they separated on January 15, 2008. The date of separation is not material to the jurisdiction issue, and need not be determined at this time.

b) The commencement of proceedings in Canada and in China

[11] Ms. Cheng began the present proceeding by an application to this court on March 27, 2009, in which she claimed divorce, child custody, child support, spousal support, and division of property. Mr. Liu delivered his Answer in that proceeding on April 28, 2009.

[12] Mr. Liu began his proceeding in China on February 8, 2010, eleven months after Ms. Cheng began her action in Ontario. Mr. Liu claimed divorce, child custody, access, support, and division of property, notwithstanding that Ms. Cheng had claimed similar relief in her application to this court a year earlier.

[13] Two case conferences were held in this court. The first was held on September 24, 2009, before Justice Seppi. Following that case conference, and on a motion by Ms. Cheng, Justice Quigley made an order dated February 17, 2010, directing Mr. Liu to pay temporary child support to Ms. Cheng, without prejudice to his right at trial to dispute the jurisdiction of the courts in Ontario.

[14] A second Case Conference took place on February 18, 2010, before Justice Delfrate. Disclosure and jurisdictional issues were discussed at that time.

c) Justice Baltman’s order staying proceedings in Ontario

[15] On April 15, 2010, Justice Baltman heard Mr. Liu’s motion disputing the jurisdiction of the courts in Ontario. Justice Baltman held, at paragraph 15 of her reasons, that the court in Ontario has jurisdiction to entertain Ms. Cheng’s application for divorce and corollary relief. She stated:

As the mother’s application is brought under the Divorce Act, that must be the first place of reference in determining the jurisdiction issue. Section 3(1) confers jurisdiction on a court in a province if either spouse has been ordinarily resident in the province for at least one year immediately preceding the commencement of the proceeding. No one disputes that the husband has been in Ontario for the requisite period and therefore this court has jurisdiction under the terms of that statute. If follows that this court also has jurisdiction, in principle, to deal with corollary relief such as custody and support pursuant to s. 7 of the Divorce Act.

However, and significantly, the mother concedes that the issues of custody and access must be adjudicated in China, where she and the child reside. In fact, both s. 6 of the Divorce Act, and s. 22 of the Children’s Law Reform Act, permit or require the court to decline jurisdiction on custody and access issues if the child is not resident here, for the very good reason that her best interests - the governing factor in determining custody and access - are best determined where she normally resides, as that is where the relevant evidence will be.

The mother therefore agrees that if she is successful on this motion, there will be two court cases, one in China and one in Ontario. I will address this unhappy prospect further below.

Moreover, when considering the property claim, s. 15 of the Family Law Act states that the “property rights of spouses arising out of the marital relationship are governed by the internal law of the place where both spouses had their last common habitual residence.” No one disputes that the parties’ marital relationship, however brief, occurred exclusively in China. Therefore if the property dispute proceeded in Ontario, the court would be required to apply Chinese law in reaching its decision.

The upshot is that while Ontario technically has jurisdiction to decide custody, property and support, custody must be litigated in China and property must be decided according to Chinese law. In any case, given the brevity and nature of the marriage, the division of marital property will be of no or little significance. The same can be said of spousal support. Even on the mother’s evidence, the couple has not lived together for more than ten days. That leaves child support as the pivotal issue. [Emphasis added]

[16] Justice Baltman proceeded to consider whether this court, or the Chinese family court, could more conveniently determine the issues arising from the parties’ separation. She held, for practical reasons, that the family court in China was the more convenient forum. In coming to this result, she followed this court’s earlier decision in Follwell v. Holmes, [2006] O.J. No. 4387, 152 A.C.W.S. (3d) 821 (S.C.), in 2006.

[17] Justice Baltman stated that her only hesitation in staying the proceeding in this court derived from her desire to ensure that any child support orders made in China could be enforced against Mr. Liu. She stated, at paras. 16-20, in this regard:

The governing test on the issue of forum non conveniens derives from the Supreme Court’s decision in Amchem Products Inc. v. British Columbia Workers’ Compensation Board, [1993] 1 S.C.R. 897, subsequently applied by the Ontario Court of Appeal in Muscutt v. Courcelles (2002), 60 O.R. (3d) 20, at para. 41. The factors to be considered are:

• The location of the majority of the parties
• The location of key witnesses and evidence
• Contractual provisions that specify applicable law or accord jurisdiction
• The avoidance of a multiplicity of proceedings
• The applicable law and its weight in comparison to the factual questions to be decided
• Geographical factors suggesting the natural forum
• Whether declining jurisdiction would deprive the plaintiff of a legitimate juridical advantage available in the domestic court

When I consider these factors, I conclude that the majority strongly favour China as the proper jurisdiction for this matter to be heard. The mother and daughter both reside there, and in fact have never set foot in Canada. Of necessity, China is where the issues of custody and access must be resolved. Moreover, the key issue in this case will be child support, and logically that should be decided in the same proceeding as custody and access. As Ricchetti J. recently noted in Attard v. Attard, 2010 ONSC 810, at para. 31:

Child support orders are not made in a vacuum. The court considers which party has custody, the amount of access, and other circumstances of the children and the parties. Sections 8, 9 and 10 of the Child Support Guidelines (Ontario) demonstrate there is or can be some link between child custody, access and support.

The mother’s reasoning would require two court actions, one in China and one in Ontario. Because child support follows custody and access, the Ontario action would have to await completion of the Chinese proceeding. This would result in a duplication of time, effort and money.

The mother argues that it makes more sense to decide child support in Ontario, because that is where the father lives and works. She suggests he has no genuine interest in custody or access, as he initially denied paternity and even after being proved the father has done nothing to support his daughter. According to the mother, his claim for custody is merely a tactical ploy to shift the litigation to China and postpone or minimize his obligations.

I am not convinced that such a cynical conclusion is justified. To be fair to the father, given the extreme brevity of their relationship, the distance between their homes and the fact that they knew very little of each other when Chang was conceived, it is understandable that he may initially have wondered whether he was the father. And once paternity was established, he did send some funds, albeit modest, to the mother for child support. I note he now resides with a son from a previous relationship, suggesting he is at least somewhat capable and interested in acting as a father. It may well be that, once the dust settles in this litigation, he will fulfill his role as a father to Chang to some meaningful degree. [Emphasis added]

[18] Justice Baltman stayed the present proceeding pursuant to section 106 of the Courts of Justice Act, R.S.O. 1990, Chap. C.43, s. 106, on terms designed to ensure that the court in China could effectively determine and enforce the corollary issues including, in particular, the issue of child support. She ordered:

1. The Respondent (Mr. Liu) shall comply with all procedural orders and rules of the courts of China in the case now pending there between the parties, including orders and rules relating to disclosure of documents and information and submission to questioning in China.
2. The Respondent shall comply with all substantive orders of the courts of China; and
3. If the Respondent fails to comply with any of the above terms, the Applicant may move in this court on a five-working days’ notice to the Respondent to lift the stay imposed by this order.

d) The intervening proceedings in China

[19] On July 21, 2010, the family court in China ordered each party to produce full disclosure of their true income within 30 days. On July 26, 2010, Mr. Liu filed a declaration claiming that he earned $150 per month in Ontario, the equivalent of approximately $7.00 per day. That assertion was false.

[20] Ms. Cheng and her lawyer were unaware, for the next year and a quarter, that Mr. Liu had breached the Chinese court’s order dated July 21, 2010, and had thereby also breached the conditions of Justice Baltman’s order staying Ms. Cheng’s divorce proceeding in Ontario, by failing to make full financial disclosure to the court in China.

[21] The reason why Ms. Cheng’s discovery of Mr. Liu’s breach was delayed can be found in a statement by Mr. Liu’s Chinese lawyer, Chunyan Xu, dated January 8, 2016, setting out a legal opinion on Chinese law, which Mr. Liu submitted to this court in evidence. It states:

In the Chinese legal system, the respective lawyers for the two parties do not directly exchange any documents, and will only submit relevant documents directly to the court. Therefore, I have no obligation and am not authorized to directly provide any evidence or documentation to Li Cheng’s lawyer. [Emphasis added]

[22] It was not until January 20, 2012, when the Chinese family court released its decision in Mr. Liu’s divorce proceeding, that Ms. Cheng learned that Mr. Liu had failed to make the required disclosure. The court stated, in its reasons:

This court ordered the Applicant to fully disclose within a timeframe his properties and income in Canada. However, the Applicant failed to disclose and he only provide(d) a Declaration. In the Declaration, the Applicant claimed that his income in Canada was $150 per month. [Emphasis added]

[23] The Chinese court granted Mr. Liu a divorce, and granted Ms. Cheng custody of the parties’ child. It then stated:

This Court determines… This Court shall not exercise its jurisdiction in determining the equalization, support and child support issues. [Emphasis added]

[24] Mr. Liu appealed from the Chinese family court’s decision to the Chinese Court of Appeal with regard to child support and equalization, but not with regard to spousal support. While Ms. Cheng could have returned immediately to the court in Ontario when she learned that Mr. Liu had breached the conditions of Justice Baltman’s order staying proceedings in this court, she chose instead to await the outcome of Mr. Liu’s appeal in China.

[25] After hearing Mr. Liu’s appeal, the Court of Appeal in China stated:

Mr. Liu’s appeal re child support and equalization is dismissed.

[26] In a further proceeding in China, in which Mr. Liu sought to have the Court of Appeal direct a new trial, the Court of Appeal in China stated:

The judgment of the Court of Appeal is final and binding on both parties.

[27] The Court of Appeal in China, in its decision dated September 7, 2012, upheld the decision of the Chinese family court in its entirety. It stated:

With respect the Appellant, Yangzhou Liu’s appeal in which he claimed that the trial court shall exercise its jurisdiction to determine the amount of the child support and division of the property. This Appellant (sic) Court has found and determined that the Respondent, Li Cheng does not have any family properties to be divided. All the assets and properties in dispute are located in Canada. Because the court was not able to determine the true income of Yangzhou Liu, the child support amount could not be determined. In addition, in the trial, the trial court has agreed to the Respondent’s claim that the Chinese court is not the best forum to determine this issue, therefore this Appellate Court rejected the Appellant’s appeal. [Emphasis added]

[28] Mr. Liu’s lawyer, Mr. Fehrle, submits that certain stamps and seals required by the Chinese court were not present on the documents that Mr. Liu tendered to the Chinese family court, which is why that court did not have his complete financial disclosure. Whether or not this is true, the fact is that Mr. Liu’s declaration to the Chinese family court regarding his income was clearly false.

e) The resumption of the proceeding in Ontario

[29] On February 28, 2014, Ms. Cheng moved for an order lifting the stay that Justice Baltman had imposed on April 15, 2010, to allow Ms. Cheng to proceed with her application for support and division of property in this court. The motion was to be heard April 1, 2014.

[30] Ms. Cheng delivered a supporting affidavit of Hui Su, a legal assistant in her lawyer’s office, sworn February 27, 2014, and supporting the jurisdiction of the court in Ontario to determine corollary issues of spousal and child support. She later delivered a further affidavit of Ms. Su, sworn June 15, 2015, and Mr. Liu filed his own opposing affidavit, sworn August 6, 2015. Ms. Cheng delivered two further affidavits, sworn August 24, 2015, and a further affidavit of Ms. Su in rebuttal, sworn January 11, 2016.

[31] At a Trial Management Conference on June 19, 2015, this court ordered, on its own initiative, that the trial would be bifurcated, so that the threshold issue of jurisdiction can be determined before scarce judicial resources are employed determining issues in respect of which the court’s jurisdiction is disputed. On January 15, 2016, Ms. Cheng set her proceeding down for trial in this court.

ANALYSIS AND LAW

a) General observations

[32] Ms. Cheng has already expended over $70,000 in legal costs in the proceedings in China and Ontario without securing corollary relief in either country. Mr. Liu has likely expended a similar sum. The parties estimate that the trial of the proceeding will require 5 days. The only court sittings available in Central West Region for trials of that length are in January and May each year, with the result that the earliest the parties can have their proceeding tried is in January 2017. Both parties have submitted affidavits that supply an ample evidentiary record upon which to base a determination of the issue of jurisdiction.

[33] Mr. Liu relies on the 2007 decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in Okmyansky v. Okmyansky, 2007 ONCA 427, to support his position that this court lacks jurisdiction to grant Ms. Cheng corollary relief after Mr. Liu has obtained a divorce order from China. For the reasons that follow, I find that the facts of the Okmyansky case are distinguishable from those of the present case, and that, in the particular facts of the present case, this court does have jurisdiction to make an order for support and division of property.

[34] If Mr. Liu wishes to maintain his objection to this court’s jurisdiction, he may seek leave to appeal from this ruling. Whatever the outcome, that threshold issue shall have been conclusively determined when the matter is ready to proceed to trial in January 2017, and the parties will not need to expend further resources at a 5 day trial whose eventual outcome would be uncertain by reason of disputed jurisdiction.

b) The Court of Appeal’s decision in Okmyansky

[35] The Court of Appeal for Ontario, in Okmyansky v. Okmyansky, 2007 ONCA 427, allowed an appeal by the husband from the ruling of a judge following a trial of the preliminary issue of jurisdiction. The trial judge held that the court in Ontario had jurisdiction to entertain the wife’s application for support under the Divorce Act or the Family Law Act in a proceeding the wife commenced in Ontario following a divorce that the husband obtained in Russia, where the parties had married in 1974. The motion judge held that notwithstanding that the Russian divorce was valid in Ontario, it would not be appropriate to stay the wife’s application because the parties’ last habitual residence had been in Ontario.

[36] In Okmyansky v. Okmyansky, 2007 ONCA 427, the Court of Appeal determined that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear an application for corollary relief that was commenced after the court in Russia had granted the parties a divorce. In the present case, no divorce order had been made at the time Ms. Cheng brought her application in Ontario. Justice Baltman held that in those circumstances, this court had jurisdiction to hear the application but because Ms. Cheng and the parties’ child resided in China, the courts of that nation were the most convenient forum.

c) When jurisdiction is to be determined

[37] The jurisdiction of the court is derived from facts that existed at the commencement of the proceeding. In Pearson v. Pearson and Meynard, [1951] O.R. 344 (H.C.), in 1951, Justice Gale, as he then was, stated:

The neat point that arises, therefore, is whether this Court, in an action for divorce commenced in Ontario when the husband is domiciled in Ontario, can grant a decree absolute after the husband has reverted to his domicile of origin elsewhere.

The case of Goulder v. Goulder, [1892] P. 240, appears to be authority for the assumption of such jurisdiction. There the facts as to domicile were complicated but the principle relevant to the problem is stated in the judgment of Lord Justice Lopes at p. 243 as follows:

"The English Divorce Court has jurisdiction to dissolve the marriage of any parties domiciled in England at the commencement of such proceedings, and this, independently of the residence of the parties, the allegiance of the parties, the domicile of the parties at the time of marriage, the place of the marriage, or the place where the matrimonial offence or offences have been committed. I have come to the conclusion that the petitioner and respondent at the time of the commencement of the divorce proceedings in this case (viz. 1889), were domiciled in England, and that, therefore, this Court has power to dissolve the marriage."

I cannot believe that the inclusion on two occasions of the words which I have italicized was casual. That judgment would, therefore, seem to provide clear support for the proposition that if the Court has jurisdiction when the action commences, that jurisdiction is not ousted by a change of domicile during the course of the proceedings. Confirmation for that view is also to be found in a case in the Supreme Court of the Union of South Africa. The case is Balfour v. Balfour, [1922-23] W.L.D. 133. [Emphasis added]

[38] The principle established in Pearson was approved and applied by the Court of Queen’s Bench in Alberta in Battagin v. Battagin (1980), 28 A.R. 586 in 1980. Although the holding in Pearson and in Battagin concerns the divorce itself, there is no reason, in my view, why it should be regarded as applying any less to corollary relief since if the court in Ontario possesses jurisdiction to grant a divorce, it also possesses jurisdiction to grant corollary relief. Although the court in Ontario would not exercise its jurisdiction to grant a divorce after the court in China has already done so, there is no reason why the court in Ontario, by reason of that divorce, cannot grant corollary relief when it possessed jurisdiction to do so at the commencement of the proceeding, only stayed the proceeding on conditions which were subsequently breached, and when the court in China has specifically declined to exercise jurisdiction over corollary relief of support and division of property, and has specifically stated that the court in Canada should determine those issues.

d) Efforts to oust the court’s jurisdiction

[39] Efforts to oust the jurisdiction of the court, or a party’s entitlement to statutory benefits, are generally frowned upon: see Diamond v. Sugar (1980), 30 O.R. (2d) 205, in 1980, and Bosch v. Bosch (1991), 6 O.R. (3d) 168, in 1991. It will not be permitted in this case. Ms. Cheng’s proceeding was commenced before Mr. Liu commenced his proceeding for the same relief in China and, for that reason, was entitled to priority. Ms. Cheng’s proceeding was stayed only provisionally, on conditions which Mr. Liu subsequently breached. It would be contrary to the interests of justice to permit Mr. Liu, by violating the conditions imposed by this court, and similarly violating the order of the Chinese court respecting financial disclosure, to oust the jurisdiction of this court based on a divorce obtained in that manner from the court in China.

e) International comity

[40] The Okmyansky v. Okmyansky, 2007 ONCA 427, Simmonds J.A., speaking for the majority, based her reasons, in large part, on considerations of international comity. That is, she held that the Ontario courts would defer to the jurisdiction of the courts in Russia, which had properly granted the couple in that case a divorce. In the present case, considerations of international comity do not arise, because no proceeding had been commenced in China at the time when Ms. Cheng brought her application in Ontario, and the courts in China have now determined that they will not exercise their jurisdiction over economic issues, including child support, and have therefore left it to the courts in Ontario to determine those issues.

[41] If the court in Ontario can sever the issue of divorce and permit it to proceed to a judgment before the issues of corollary relief are determined, which it frequently does, there is no reason why, after the issue of divorce has, in effect, been severed and determined in China, the court in Ontario cannot proceed to determine the issues of support and division/equalization of property, which it possessed jurisdiction at the outset to determine and which the Chinese courts have refused to determine.

[42] It would be a perverse result if, after the family court in China has explicitly declined to exercise jurisdiction over the issues of support and division of property, and invited the court in Canada to determine those issues, the court in Canada declined to do so on the ground that the court in China had granted a divorce and possessed the sole jurisdiction to determine the issues of corollary relief. If the court in Ontario were to take this approach, Ms. Cheng would be deprived of a remedy in either country.

f) Forum of necessity

[43] Parties should not be left without any forum to make their claim. In Van Breda v. Village Resorts Ltd., 2010 ONCA 84, 98 O.R. (3d) 721, in 2010, the Court of Appeal for Ontario concluded that the forum of necessity doctrine should be explicitly recognized. Justice Sharpe stated, on behalf of the Court:

Where there is no other forum in which the plaintiff can reasonably seek relief, there is a residual discretion to assume jurisdiction.

[44] In Muscutt v. Courcelles (2002), 60 O.R. (3d) 20, in 2002, the Ontario Court of Appeal set out an eight-factor test for determining in what circumstances Ontario could take jurisdiction over an out-of-province defendant. The Court in Muscutt held that there must be a “real and substantial connection” between the dispute and forum in order to take jurisdiction over an out-of-province defendant.

[45] In Van Breda, which involved Ontario residents suffering personal injuries in Cuba, the Court simplified the Muscutt test, condensing the eight-factor analysis into a two-step analysis. The court held two considerations, being the connection between forum and the plaintiff’s claim, and the connection between the forum and the defendant, to be the crux of the test, and the rest of the six factors (unfairness to the defendant in assuming jurisdiction, unfairness to the plaintiff in not assuming jurisdiction, involvement of other parties to the proceeding, the court’s willingness to recognize and enforce an extra-provincial judgment rendered on the same jurisdictional basis, whether the case is interprovincial or international in nature, and comity and the standards of jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement prevailing elsewhere) to be considered accordingly.

[46] Although the Court in Van Breda reached its conclusion in a civil context, and the doctrine was described as an exception to the Muscutt test requiring a real and substantial connection to the jurisdiction, many of the same policy issues (such as fairness and international comity) underlie determinations of jurisdiction in both the civil and family law context, and there is no reason why this equitable doctrine should not apply equally in a family context. Jurisdictions that have adopted the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act, which represents a statutory alternative to the Muscutt test and the forum of necessity doctrine, apply that Act to both civil and family proceedings.

[47] In summary, the Court of Appeal’s decision in Okmyansky is distinguishable based on the following facts in the present case:

1. Ms. Cheng commenced her proceeding in Ontario before Mr. Liu commenced his proceeding in China and well before the court in China granted him a divorce.
2. The court in Ontario stayed Ms. Cheng’s provisionally, on conditions that Mr. Liu later breached.
3. Mr. Liu procured his foreign divorce in a proceeding in which he misled the court in China by making a false declaration as to his income, and thereby prevented that court from determining the issue of support.
4. The court in China explicitly declined to exercise its jurisdiction over economic issues, including support and division of property, and explicitly left those issues for the court in Canada to determine.
5. Without the court in Canada assuming jurisdiction over the issues of support and division/equalization of property, Ms. Cheng will be left without any forum in which to make her claims.

[48] For these reasons, and in the particular circumstances of this case, I find that this court does have jurisdiction to determine the issues of support and division of property/equalization of net family property.

CONCLUSION AND ORDER

[49] Based on the foregoing, it is ordered that:

1. The Superior Court of Justice of Ontario has jurisdiction to determine the issues of child support, spousal support, and equalization of net family property.
2. If the parties are unable to agree on the costs of the first stage of the trial, they shall make written submissions, not to exceed four pages, and submit a Costs Outline, by June 30, 2016.

Price J.

Released: June 13, 2016