Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Whether the adult son, enrolled full-time in a university program and living with his mother, remained a “child” entitled to support under the Family Law Act.
• Credibility of the father’s evidence regarding his alleged unemployment, financial hardship, and lack of income, including unexplained bank deposits and inconsistent schooling/employment history.
• Application of the existing consent order imputing the father’s income at $35,000 and whether there was a material change in circumstances justifying a different income for support purposes.
• The mother’s entitlement to retroactive adjustment of child support based on the father’s higher actual income in 2022–2024 and his failure to provide timely financial disclosure as the order required.
• Determination of the appropriate quantum of ongoing child support under the Child Support Guidelines where income is imputed and employment status is disputed.
• Whether child support should terminate on the agreed April 30, 2026 date or extend further if the child pursues additional post-secondary studies, such as teacher’s college or law school.

Facts of the case
The case of Mangafic v. Brihmi arises out of a long-running dispute between separated parents over child support for their only child, Darian Ahmed Brihmi, born March 1, 2001. Their relationship ended in 2001, and over the years there have been multiple Motions to Change dealing with support, with the most recent prior order issued by Justice Henderson on February 21, 2023, based on consent minutes of settlement. Under that consent order, the father’s income for child support purposes was to be the greater of his actual income or an imputed income of $35,000, with an annual disclosure and adjustment mechanism. The order also provided a termination date for child support of no later than April 30, 2026, subject to the child’s right to bring his own application.
At the time of this new motion, Darian was in his fourth year of a Bachelor of Arts program at King’s College. He lived with his mother, attended school full-time Monday to Friday, and worked part-time as a waiter at Red Lobster, earning about $11,000 per year with 8–10 hours of work per week. He received OSAP funding and modest income from his job, but the mother and maternal grandmother covered many core living and educational expenses, including food, school-related costs, utilities, rent, braces, and other incidentals. The maternal grandmother, Eva Mangafic, also assisted significantly with items such as winter clothing, lunch money, hydro bills and credit card payments, reflecting an ongoing financial dependency.
The father, by contrast, asserted that Darian, as an adult in his mid-twenties, should no longer be considered dependent because he could be working full time instead of studying. He also claimed that his own circumstances had changed materially. He told the court he had not worked since January 2024, alleged undue hardship, and pointed to arrears in his phone, internet and rent, as well as outstanding student loan debt. He blamed his financial position on needing to be available for a younger child said to have ADHD and on being supported by his wife, family, and friends. He further maintained that neither he nor his wife had income and that they were surviving on family help and child tax benefits.
However, the evidentiary record did not support the father’s narrative. His 2024 Notice of Assessment showed income of $40,579, indicating that he was in fact working in 2024. Bank statements for 2025 revealed multiple cash ATM deposits and e-transfers, which he attributed vaguely to family support, without satisfactory documentation. His evidence about his education history and a Canada-Ontario student loan was inconsistent: he first claimed not to have engaged in retraining since 2001, but later admissions and other indicators suggested attendance at security training in 2021–2022. His wife’s testimony that they had no income, that neither of them worked, and that family entirely supported them was also found to be vague and self-serving, particularly in light of her own past work and the unexplained funds in the father’s bank account.
The court also heard from the father’s friend, called to confirm he had lent money to the father, but this evidence was of little probative value beyond establishing that some financial assistance had been offered informally. By contrast, the son’s evidence was accepted as candid and reliable: he explained his course of study, work hours, income level, and the extent of financial support he received from his mother and grandmother. There were no insurance or commercial policy terms in issue in this case; it centered purely on statutory and guideline-based child support obligations and the enforcement and variation of a prior family court order.
Both parents brought competing Motions to Change the 2023 consent order. The father sought to vary several support paragraphs to terminate child support for Darian retroactively as of his eighteenth birthday (March 1, 2019), and alternatively, to reduce or end support based on his alleged unemployment and undue hardship. The mother, in turn, sought to vary the order so that child support would be based on the father’s actual income for 2022, 2023 and 2024, consistent with the disclosure-and-adjustment clause, and also asked that support continue past Darian’s expected graduation in April 2026 if he pursued further studies such as teacher’s college.

Key legal and evidentiary issues
The court first had to decide whether Darian remained a “child” entitled to support under the Family Law Act despite being over 24. Prior case law establishes that, when a child has reached the age of majority, the parent claiming support bears the initial onus to show dependency, often by demonstrating full-time enrollment in appropriate education. Once entitlement has been established, however, a party seeking to change or terminate support on a motion to change must prove a material change in circumstances, including that the adult child is no longer dependent.
The mother met her burden through documentary evidence of Darian’s full-time university enrollment and his testimony about his ongoing studies and living situation. The father argued that Darian’s age alone, along with his capacity to work full-time, should end support, but the court rejected this, emphasizing that age is not determinative when the child remains in full-time post-secondary education and financially reliant on a parent.
The second core issue was whether there had been a material change in the father’s income justifying a variation of the imputed income set in the consent order. The father asserted that he was effectively unemployed and suffering financial hardship. The court scrutinized his tax returns, bank statements, student loan records, and his and his wife’s oral evidence. Discrepancies in his accounts about his work history, schooling, the source of deposited funds, and the absence of proof of job search efforts or medical support for his claim about needing to stay home due to his younger child’s ADHD undermined his credibility.
This credibility assessment was central. The judge found that the father was either intentionally not earning income in hopes of ending his support obligations or was working and failing to report income. Given that his 2024 Notice of Assessment still showed substantial earnings and that he provided no persuasive evidence of genuine, involuntary unemployment or undue hardship, the court concluded that there was no material change in his circumstances warranting a reduction or termination of the imputed income.
The third major issue involved the mother’s request for a retroactive adjustment of child support. Under Justice Henderson’s order, the father’s income was to be the greater of his actual income or the $35,000 imputed figure, and both parties were obliged to exchange income disclosure annually by June 1, with any support adjustments to follow by July 1. The father failed to provide timely disclosure and only produced his tax information when he launched his Motion to Change. That disclosure revealed that his actual incomes in 2022 and 2023 exceeded the imputed baseline, and that he had also earned more than he claimed in 2024.
Because the existing order already required yearly adjustment based on actual income, the court treated the calculation of retroactive support as an enforcement of the consent terms rather than a fresh exercise of discretion requiring proof of a material change. The judge also considered the father’s payment history: he had stopped making voluntary payments in January 2024, and only garnishments via the Family Responsibility Office continued, suggesting a lack of good faith in meeting his support obligations.
Finally, the court addressed whether support should extend beyond April 30, 2026 if Darian pursued further post-secondary education such as teacher’s college or law school. While case law recognizes that a young adult who continues into a further degree can remain a child of the marriage for support purposes, the parties had already agreed to a firm termination date in the 2023 consent order. There was no evidence before the court about why that termination date had been selected or how circumstances had changed since the agreement to justify extending it. In the absence of such evidence, the court was not prepared to vary the termination provision.

The court’s analysis and decision
On the issue of Darian’s dependency, the court accepted the mother’s and Darian’s evidence that he lived at home, studied full-time, and did not earn enough from part-time work to support himself. His OSAP funding and modest employment income did not displace the substantial financial support still required from his mother and grandmother. The father, by contrast, provided only arguments based on age and speculative capacity to work full-time. The judge therefore found that Darian remained dependent for the purpose of child support and that entitlement to support continued.
Regarding the father’s motion to change his income and terminate or reduce support, the court held that he had not satisfied the onus to demonstrate a material change. The 2024 Notice of Assessment showing $40,579 in income starkly contradicted his claim of having no work since January 2024. His vague explanations for the source of significant cash deposits and e-transfers, the inconsistencies about his education history and student loan, and his failure to offer any documentary proof of job searches or medical evidence connected to his younger son’s ADHD all weighed heavily against him. The court described his circumstances as self-inflicted, concluding he was either intentionally unemployed or under-employed to avoid support or was earning unreported income.
In these circumstances, the court declined to vary the imputed income in the consent order. The existing term that his income would be the greater of his actual earnings or $35,000 remained in place, and for prospective purposes, the court fixed his child support obligation according to that imputed figure under the 2025 Child Support Guidelines. For one child and an income of $35,000, the guideline support was $284 per month, and this amount was ordered payable from January 1, 2025 onward, continuing monthly until the previously agreed termination date, April 30, 2026, unless otherwise ordered in future proceedings initiated by the child.
On the mother’s request for retroactive support, the court applied the terms of the 2023 order. Using the father’s Notices of Assessment, it recalculated what his child support would have been had his payments reflected his higher actual incomes in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The resulting guideline amounts exceeded the $304 per month he had actually been paying, yielding a total underpayment of $3,832.92 over the three-year period. The court concluded that a separate finding of material change was unnecessary because this adjustment was mandated by the existing order, and the father’s failure to provide income disclosure and to voluntarily adjust his payments should not advantage him.
In relation to the requested extension of support beyond April 2026, the court acknowledged that a child who pursues further schooling after completing an initial degree can, in principle, remain a child of the marriage for support purposes. Nonetheless, it emphasized that the parties had negotiated and consented to a clear termination date in Justice Henderson’s order, and neither party presented evidence explaining why that date was chosen or what had changed since then. Without such evidence, the court declined to vary the termination clause. Accordingly, child support remains scheduled to cease on April 30, 2026, subject to any future proceedings that Darian himself may bring.

Outcome and successful party
In the result, the father’s motion to terminate or reduce child support was dismissed, and the court declined to find that his employment and income situation had changed materially in a way that would justify a variation in his favor. The mother’s position that Darian remained dependent was accepted, the father’s imputed income of $35,000 was maintained for guideline purposes, and ongoing child support was fixed at $284 per month from January 1, 2025, until the previously agreed termination date of April 30, 2026. The mother also succeeded in obtaining retroactive child support of $3,832.92 for the years 2022–2024, payable in installments of $200 per month commencing January 1, 2026. While the judge invited brief written submissions on costs and made no specific costs award at this stage, leaving any such amount undetermined, the substance of the relief granted shows that the mother was the successful party overall, with a quantifiable monetary result in her favor consisting of the $3,832.92 retroactive award plus the ordered ongoing monthly support of $284, and any potential costs yet to be assessed cannot presently be calculated.