You immigrate to Canada. Your wife dies. You leave your son at boarding school in India. When your son has school breaks, he stays in India with your sister and brother’s families and your father. In 2012, which was included in the base year in issue, you spent about 10 weeks with your son on two separate visits. You had set up and regularly contributed to an RESP account and you were working full-time while qualifying for your profession in Manitoba. Your son hasn’t been in Canada during your entire residence here.
Has your son “resided with you” so that you are entitled to the Child Tax Benefit for him? Yes, according to Justice Hogan.
To come to his decision, Justice Hogan relied on these cases:
Bouchard v. The Queen, where the Court awarded the CCTB to a single father while he was incarcerated.
Fiogbe – parents would not necessarily become ineligible for the CCTB if their child had to stay in hospital for an extended period of time.
Penner v. The Queen – a parent will not be precluded from receiving the CCTB while a child is in boarding school.
Charafeddine v. The Queen, where Sheridan J. held that the appellant had met the requirement of residing with her children despite the fact that her children had been abducted by their father and were in Lebanon.
“[22] Given my finding that the Appellant and D would have been living together during the period at issue were it not for the unforeseen death of the Appellant’s wife, I conclude that the Appellant and D can be considered as having constructively resided together from August 2011 through June 2012. The CCTB regime was designed to support families in their efforts to meet their basic needs and improve their economic circumstances. I do not believe that the legislative intent behind the residency requirement was to exclude otherwise eligible families who have had to adapt to unfortunate circumstances.”