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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'' are the same, there are significant differences 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 of property and debts, but the ''Family Law Act'' applies es to everyone, regardless of the nature of their family relationship. Both statutes deal with parenting children, children's parenting schedules, child support, and spousal support. 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 ins or outside of them, and that can have an important impact on your family law problem and the options available to you.
Both the ''Divorce Act'' and the ''Family Law Act'' rely on the [[Child Support Guidelines]] to calculate child support and the payment of children's special or extraordinary expenses. The Guidelines are a regulation to the ''Divorce Act'' and are adopted by the ''Family Law Act''.
===The Child Support Guidelines===
The [[Child Support Guidelines]], often referred to as just "the Guidelines," are a federal regulation that standardizes child support orders throughout Canada, except in Quebec. The Guidelines talk about how income is calculated and how children's special expenses are shared between parents, and provide a series of tables, one for each province and territory, which set out how much child support should be paid based on the payor's income and the number of children support is being paid for.
The Child Support Guidelines apply to anyone who is required to pay or entitled to receive child support, whether or not they are a married spouse, an unmarried spouse, a parent or a guardian.