“In Bracklow, the Supreme Court of Canada found that there are “three different conceptual bases for spousal support obligations – contractual, compensatory and non-compensatory” (paragraph 37). At paragraph 41, in reference to s.15.2(6) of the Divorce Act, the Court stated:
“[E]conomic hardship . . . arising from the breakdown of the marriage” is capable of encompassing not only health or career disadvantages arising from the marriage breakdown properly the subject of compensation (perhaps more directly covered in s. 15.2(6)(a): see Payne on Divorce, supra, at pp. 251-53), but the mere fact that a person who formerly enjoyed intra-spousal entitlement to support now finds herself or himself without it. Looking only at compensation, one merely asks what loss the marriage or marriage breakup caused that would not have been suffered but for the marriage. But even where loss in this sense cannot be established, the breakup may cause economic hardship in a larger, non-compensatory sense.
Further, at paragraph 43, the court stated:
But while the focus of the Act may have shifted or broadened, it retains the older idea that spouses may have an obligation to meet or contribute to the needs of their former partners where they have the capacity to pay, even in the absence of a contractual or compensatory foundation for the obligation. Need alone may be enough.”