The father at the centre of a constitutional challenge of Ontario’s child support law says he is “stunned” by the attention the case has received.“This is bigger than me,” said Wayne Watson outside Brampton Court Friday, where seven lawyers acting pro bono gathered to argue whether the law discriminates against adult children with disabilities.‎“This is for the government to look at,” said Watson, who has paid child support for Joshua, his estranged 22-year-old developmentally disabled son, since the boy was 4 and now wants to stop paying.“This is not my fight. I’m caught in the middle,” he said.Lawyers acting as “friends of the court” on behalf of Watson said it should be up to Queen’s Park — and not a judge — to decide if child support for disabled children of unmarried parents should continue into adulthood.“Laws are to be m‎ade by our elected officials,” lawyer Gary Joseph told Ontario Court Justice William Sullivan. “If there is a problem with the law . . . it should be subjected to the consideration of our provincial legislature with full debate and all of the stakeholders being able to have a say.”Under Ontario’s Family Law Act, which governs unmarried parents, adult children are eligible for child support only if they are in school full-time.But under the federal Divorce Act, an adult child who is unable to live independently due to disability, illness or other cause is eligible for support.As a result, Robyn Coates, the single mother who has raised Watson’s disabled son, launched the Charter challenge of Ontario’s law, claiming it discriminates against the disabled children of unmarried parents.Coates, an educational resource worker for students with special needs in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board, says she needs child support to help defray the costs of day programs and medical ...
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