canada family-law
What proportion of parenting time makes someone a &quot;primary parent&quot;?
<p>The terms &quot;primary parent,&quot; &quot;majority of parenting time,&quot; &quot;shared parenting time,&quot; and &quot;split parenting time&quot; are used to describe the division of parenting. What do these mean?</p>

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<h3>Child support</h3>
<p>In Canada, under the <a href="https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-97-175/FullText.html" rel="noreferrer">Federal Child Support Guidelines</a> (used when computing child support after a divorce, and in most or all provinces after a separation), the terms are defined as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>majority of parenting time</em> &quot;means a period of time that is more than 60% of parenting time over the course of a year&quot; (s. 2(1));</li>
<li><em>shared parenting time</em> is when &quot;each spouse exercises not less than 40% of parenting time with a child over the course of a year&quot; (s. 9)</li>
<li><em>split parenting time</em> describes a situation where &quot;there are two or more children, and each spouse has the majority of parenting time with one or more of those children&quot; (s. 8).</li>
</ul>
<p>Which of these regimes a couple falls into is significant because it <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/child-enfant/guide/step6-etap6.html" rel="noreferrer">changes the approach to computing the amount owing for child support</a>.</p>
<h3>&quot;Primary parent&quot; outside of child support</h3>
<p>Outside of the computation of child support, there is no concrete definition for what makes someone a &quot;primary parent.&quot; Parenting arrangements or orders will just describe the division of parenting responsibilities, such as who has day-to-day care, control, and supervision of the child; decisions about residence, friends, activities, education, medical treatment, etc. Typically though, when the phrase &quot;primary parent&quot; is used, it describes the person with day-to-day care, control, and supervision of the child. But this isn't a descriptor that can be applied universally to the relationship. For example, a person might have &quot;primary parenting of the children over the holiday&quot; (<em>Wilson v Wilson</em>, <a href="https://canlii.ca/t/jxjjl#par163" rel="noreferrer">2023 ONSC 3387, at para 163</a>). Some courts are careful to place the term in quotes to emphasize that it isn't a precise term (e.g. &quot;she puts great stock in being the 'primary parent'&quot;: <em>Begum v Klippenstein</em>, <a href="https://canlii.ca/t/jxbhx#par86" rel="noreferrer">2023 ONSC 2970 at para 86</a>).</p>
