A constitutional challenge scheduled to play out in a Brampton court on Friday hinges on two little words: “I Do.”The case involves a single mother who claims Ontario’s child support law discriminates against disabled children of unmarried parents.If a couple is divorced, a disabled child is eligible for support into adulthood. But if the parents were never married, support ends when the child is 18 or no longer in school full-time.“I am very excited this case is going forward,” said Robyn Coates, who has been fighting her son’s estranged father for continued child support for the past four years.“Initially, it was just for myself,” she said. “But when I see how many other women and their families could potentially benefit from this in terms of being able to provide the kind of quality of life I want to provide for my son, it’s very exciting.”Coates says her developmentally disabled son, Joshua, who is 22 but reads and writes at a Grade 2 level, will likely continue to live with her and require her financial support indefinitely.She believes his father, Wayne Watson, should continue to pay support, as he has been doing since Joshua was 4.If Coates and Watson had been married and divorced, he wouldn’t be off the hook because under the federal Divorce Act, disabled adult children are eligible for child support whether or not they are still in school.But Ontario’s Family Law Act, which covers child support for unmarried parents, makes no provision for adult disabled children.“If children of divorced parents can claim support for both education and disability beyond age 18, then children born to parents who were never married should enjoy the same rights,” Coates said.If the case succeeds, thousands of single parents and their adult disabled children would gain the right to claim child support in Ontario, says a lawyer acting on behalf of two groups with interven ...
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