“The Applicant father submits that the CIBC RESP is the property of the parties and that this Court has the authority to split the jointly subscribed CIBC RESP into two plans such that each party would be the sole subscriber of a plan.
Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether the CIBC RESP is the property of the parties, the Applicant did not identify the statutory authority to make the Order sought, although he did rely on Virc v. Blair, 2016 ONSC 49, 80 R.F.L. (7th) 124; Popovski v. Pirkova, 2017 ONSC 2363, [2017] O.J. No. 1888; Chong v. Donnelly, 2021 ONSC 5263, [2021] O.J. No. 4105; and Christakos v. De Caires, 2016 ONSC 702, [2016] O.J. No. 512.
In Christakos, the Court ordered that the parties shall equally divide any RESPs accumulated during the marriage on a 50/50 basis. However, this decision is not helpful as it appears to have been made on consent. There is no discussion in the decision of the circumstances or analysis that led to this relief being granted.
In none of the other cases relied upon by the Applicant did the Court split an RESP into two plans. Instead, in Virc and Chong, the Court indicated that withdrawals from an RESP could be used to offset their contributions towards section 7 expenses for post-secondary education expenses: See Virc, para. 425(b) and Chong, paras. 73, 75 and 76. Finally, Popovski states that nothing more than funds withdrawn from an RESP can be taken into account in apportioning a parent’s obligations to contribute to the cost of post-secondary education.
I am not satisfied that this Court has the legal authority to order that an RESP be split into two other RESPs. The Applicant father’s motion to split the CIBC RESP is dismissed.”