In some Canadian provinces, a child can have more than two parents. What’s the situation in Quebec? Can three people be recognized as the official parents of a child? Stay tuned, as the Superior Court of Québec is set to answer this question in the coming months.
Intimate relationships and family structures in Canada are constantly evolving. However, multi-parent families have been regulated by law for over 15 years.
The actual number of multi-parent families in Canada – whether recognized by law or not – is difficult to estimate due to a lack of official statistics. This doesn’t mean that multi-parent families don’t exist.
Their legal status varies across Canada, however. Some provinces allow multiple parenthood, while others prohibit it. Ontario was the first to recognize a family with more than two parents in 2007. In Quebec, the status quo remains unchanged: multiple parenthood is neither permitted nor prohibited, pending a decision by the Superior Court of Québec which should come by the end of December 2024.
What is a multi-parent family?
The concept of a multi-parent family is different in practice than it is according to the law. In Quebec, multi-parent families exist without having legal status.
In practice, a multi-parent family is a family in which more than two people have children together and want to take on parental responsibilities and obligations.
Multi-parent families can take on many forms, for example:
- a couple and a sperm or ovule donor
- three or more friends
- three or more people in a polyamorous relationship
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Did you know? Around one in five people in Canada and the USA have been involved in a polyamorous or open relationship. Many of these people have children. Polyamorous relationships include any type of intimate relationship in which partners allow themselves to have sexual or emotional relations (or both) outside their relationship as a couple. Polyamory is different from polygamy, which is the act of marrying more than one person at a given time. Polygamy is prohibited in Canada under the Criminal Code and is punishable by imprisonment. |
In the eyes of the law, a multi-parent family “exists” when more than two people are allowed to be on a child’s birth certificate. This is a family in which more than two people have the legal status of parents, allowing them to make important decisions about their child.
In provinces where multi-parent families are not permitted, a maximum of two people can have the legal status – and therefore the responsibilities and obligations – of a parent. If other people also wish to care for a child, they must be authorized to do so by the parents or the court. The role of this person or persons would then be limited to making day-to-day decisions about the child.
A legal status that is changing across the country
Four Canadian provinces currently recognize multi-parent families.
This state of affairs is recent. The change was set in motion when multi-parent families asked courts to extend the maximum number of parents, then set to two. One by one, the courts of Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, British Columbia and Saskatchewan recognized multi-parent families. As a result, four such families obtained legal status.
To clarify and standardize when multi-parent families would gain legal recognition, Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan then passed laws recognizing multi-parent families under certain conditions:
- Families can have a maximum of four parents,
- Those wishing to be parents must have written and signed a parental project agreement before the child’s birth.
For their part, Alberta and Manitoba created laws that prevented more than two people from being legally recognized as parents. The civil administration in these two provinces must refuse applications where more than two people are applying for legal status as parents.
The question hasn’t been settled yet in the other Canadian provinces and territories, where multi-parent families are neither permitted, nor prohibited. This is the case in Quebec.
In Quebec, the question will be decided soon
The matter should be clarified by December. In 2022, a member of a “throuple” (a three-person couple) asked the Superior Court of Québec to declare that he was the child’s father, and to recognize that a child can have more than two parents.
The two women and one man forming this throuple chose to have a child and raise it together. All three wish to share parental responsibilities and obligations. Pending the court’s decision, the Directeur de l’état civil (registrar of civil status) has only registered the name of one of the women on the child’s birth certificate. This means that for the time being, the child only has one parent in the eyes of the law.
As with many decisions in family law, this one will likely impact the child. Consequently, the court’s decision will be based on the best interests of the child.