Canada — the whole site

Each link leads to the page of the site devoted to that topic for this country. The general topic sits at the top of each of those pages.

The country in brief

Location map — Canada — Canada. Simplified location map — Natural Earth data, public domain.

Canada, 40 million people, splits family law between Ottawa and the provinces: the federal Divorce Act — reformed in 2021 to speak of parenting time and family violence — governs divorce, while each province regulates marriage formalities, property division and common-law couples, whose rights range from near-marital in British Columbia to almost none in Quebec. Same-sex marriage has been legal nationwide since 2005 and abortion has had no criminal law since 1988.

The pages below cover the common-law provinces and the federal rules; Quebec, with its own Civil Code, is treated in the French version of the site. Each theme gives the Canadian rule, the provincial variations that matter most, and the services — family courts, shelters, privacy commissioners — that residents and newcomers can use.

Canada — the whole site

The country in brief

Advice

Health

Sexuality