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{{JP Boyd on Family Law TOC}}
The most important pieces of legislation in about family law in British Columbia are the provincial ''[[Family Law Act]]'' and the federal ''[[Divorce Act]]''. There is also a very important federal regulation, the [[Child Support Guidelines]], and an important academic paper, the [[Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines]]. You may also run into other provincial and federal laws, like the ''[http://canlii.ca/t/8481 Name Act]'', the ''[http://canlii.ca/t/848q Partition of Property Act],'' or the ''[http://canlii.ca/t/7vfd Canada Pension Plan]'', which weren't written just for family law disputes but may still relate to your situation. There are also some international treaties that might apply, most commonly the [http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=conventions.text&cid=24 Hague Convention on Child Abduction] and the [http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx UN Convention on the Rights of the Child].
This section describes the primary legislation on family law, and briefly reviews some of the more important secondary legislation and international treaties touching on family law issues.
The federal ''[[Divorce Act]]'', the provincial ''[[Family Law Act]],'' and the federal [[Child Support Guidelines]] are central to family law in British Columbia. While some of the subjects covered by the ''Divorce Act'' and the ''Family Law Act'' overlap, there are significant distinctions between the two laws that you need to be aware of.
Only the ''[[Divorce Act]]'' deals with divorce, and the ''Divorce Act'' only applies to married spouses. Only the ''[[Family Law Act]]'' deals with the guardianship of children and the division of property and debts, but the ''Family Law Act'' applies to everyone, regardless of the nature of their family relationship. Both acts deal with parenting children, children's parenting schedules, child support, and spousal support. Both laws rely on the [[Child Support Guidelines]] to calculate child support and the payment of children's special or extraordinary expenses.
One of the most important distinctions between the two laws, as we'll talk about later, is how they define important terms like ''spouse'', ''parent'', and ''child''. Depending on the particular law you're dealing with, you may fall inside these definitions or outside of them, and that can have an important impact on your family law problem and the options available to you.