When will the court entertain a motion to change a temporary support order after a settlement conference?

The circumstances in which the court would entertain a motion after a settlement conference or after the case is on the trial list will be exceptional. In general, a settlement conference is held when the parties have completed all necessary steps of disclosure and are in a position to address a final resolution of the case in a serious, comprehensive way. When a case is on the trial list, the parties should be ready for trial and it is rare that a motions judge would deal on affidavit evidence with one or more of the very issues that will be before the trial judge, with the benefit of oral evidence and cross-examination. In my view, the same principle applies as was stated recently by Aston J. in Hope v. Hope, (22 November 2000) Ottawa 99-FL-058926 (S.C.J.), with respect to a motion to change a temporary support order: I pause to observe that the court should generally be loath to embark upon a re-examination for interim support orders that, on their face, are not inappropriate. Fine-tuning of temporary orders, particularly retroactively, ought to be the rare exception so that parties are encouraged to move towards a final resolution of all issues rather than engaging in expensive skirmishes over relatively small amounts of money. *****