“The Court of Appeal for Ontario, in Manchanda, supra [2016 ONCA 909] teaches lower courts that willful non-compliance must be considered egregious and exceptional. Although that case dealt with financial disclosure, there is nothing to suggest that willful non-compliance with support and/or costs orders should be treated differently. In Holly v. Greco, 2019 ONCA 464, the Court of Appeal for Ontario endorsed this analysis for a child support order, upholding the motion judge’s analysis in striking the appellant’s answer and claim on the basis that the appellant’s failure to pay child support was “flagrant and willful” and that this conduct was one of the exceptional and egregious cases that fit within the test for striking pleadings: paras. 7 and 10.
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Considering all the evidence on the motion, the respondent’s failure to comply with the orders rises above fecklessness. I find that the respondent’s conduct is contumacious and that his failure to comply with the two orders is willful, deliberate and flagrant.
In considering the sanction to be imposed having regard to r. 1(8) and (8.4), I find that the appropriate consequence is to strike the respondent’s answer, but with an opportunity to avoid that consequence by paying all arrears within a specified time. The only exception would be the preservation of the respondent’s claim for divorce.”