“Divorce jurisdiction under s. 3(1) of the Divorce Act depends on one of the spouses being “ordinarily resident in the province for at least one year immediately preceding the commencement of the proceeding.”
In my view the leading case on ordinary residence is still Thomson v. Minister of National Revenue (1945), 1946 CanLII 1 (SCC), [1946] S.C.R. 209 (S.C.C.). In that case, the tests enunciated include “residence in the course of the customary mode of life… contrasted with special or occasional or casual residence” (p. 224); and “one is ‘ordinarily resident’ in the place where in the settled routine of his life he regularly, normally or customarily lives” (p. 231). See also MacPherson v. MacPherson (1976), 1976 CanLII 854 (ON CA), 28 R.F.L. 106 (Ont. C.A.), p. 112:
In my opinion, the arrival of a person in a new locality with the intention of making a home in that locality for an indefinite period makes that person ordinarily resident in that community.
Also interesting is Macrae v. Macrae, [1949] P. 397 (Eng. C.A.), in which the following appears:
Ordinary residence is a thing which can be changed in a day. A man is ordinarily resident in a particular place up till a particular day. He then cuts the connection he has with that place… and makes arrangements to have his home somewhere else. Where there are indications that the place to which he moves is the place which he intends to make his home for, at any rate, an indefinite period, as from that date he is ordinarily resident at that place.”