1. Objectifs

Intentions :
The first section of this chapter «proceeds to describe the historical development of family provision in Canada. The next section outlines the key features of the different regimes in place today for family claims, revealing some unexpected elements: in Canada, one could say that the civil law offers more freedom to a testator than does the common law.» (p. 507)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
L’autrice et l’auteur analysent la législation concernant la liberté testamentaire et la réclamation en matière de patrimoine conformément au droit de la famille du Canada et du Québec.

Type de traitement des données :
Réflexion critique

3. Résumé

This chapter reveals that «[f]reedom of testation remains the dominant paradigm, and the starting point, across Canada. The limits that have been discussed, however, show that the testator’s authority is not what it was. The justifications for these limits are not always clear. The system in Quebec is the exception: legal obligations of support that are owed during life survive as claims against the estate, albeit with specific modalities that may postpone these claims to those of other creditors. Moral obligations are not part of the equation. This is the system which most preserves the testator’s freedom to decide, even if (as with indirect forms of family provision) it leaves the testator with a smaller estate to dispose of. [T]his freedom is particularly valued in the legal culture of Quebec. […] At the end of the day, in Canada the authority of the testator remains strongest in the civil law of Quebec, which paradoxically seems to have inherited from the common law of the eighteenth century a robust commitment to freedom of testation.» (p. 532-533)