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This article describes Quebec's filiation regime and explains some of the Roy Report's recommendations to reform parent-child relationships in Quebec. While this report is unlikely to lead to legislative change, it represents an important insight into issues animating family law in Quebec today. The Roy Report anchors filiation and family law to the 'interest of the child', a notion likely different from the best interests of the child in common law. The article offers some critical and comparative analysis of current and proposed rules. It makes this lesser known area of Quebec civil law accessible in English and to common lawyers in Canada. It hopes to promote a conversation between jurists from Quebec and common law jurisdictions, especially those where family law has recently been reformed.
In the civil law tradition, "filiation" denotes the legal relationship between a child and his or her parent(s), which entails various rights, powers, duties, and obligations. To keep up with profound social and technological changes when it comes to creating families, filiation has gone through tremendous transformations in Quebec over the past decades. In the 1970s and 1980s, filiation reforms were made in order to, amongst other things, address the situation of illegitimate children.1 In 1994, family rules in the Civil Code of Québec were modified to include more articles on assisted procreation for heterosexual couples and to clarify the status of children thereby conceived.2 This happened at the same time as the coming into force of the 'new' civil code in the province.3
In 2002, changes were made in order to create a space for, and allow legal recognition of, children of nonheterosexual couples and single mothers by choice.4 This phenomenon is not unique to Quebec and many Canadian jurisdictions have modified parentage rules to better reflect diverse family experiences and to facilitate the establishment of legal relationships in certain contexts.5 However, since 2002 in Quebec, little has happened in terms of family law reform, with the exception of the rules on adoption.6 Judges 7 and the legislature 8 are under pressure, and the significant limits of filial rules are becoming increasingly obvious.
An opportunity to revise filial rules arose in 2013, in the aftermath of Quebec (Attorney General) v A (also known as Eric v Lola)9...