By Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce · Updated
A numbered list of questions, a notice to attend oral questioning, or a letter demanding documents — whichever one has landed in your file, start the same way: work out exactly what it is asking you to produce, note the date it arrived, and open a record that ties each item to what eventually goes back. That record, more than anything else, is what determines whether a follow-up letter six weeks from now points to dates and documents or to a vague sense of where things stand. Checked for eight provinces. This guide's rule citations are checked against the rules of court in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. If your case is filed anywhere else in Canada, none of the specific rule numbers below apply to you — your own superior court's rules of court set the procedure instead, and the section at the end says what to do with that.
| Alberta family questioning | Rule 12.39(1) of the Alberta Rules of Court allows oral and written questioning of a person in the family proceedings the rule lists. |
|---|---|
| BC interrogatories gate | Under Rule 9-3(1), a party may serve interrogatories on another party only by consent or with the court's leave. |
| BC interrogatory answer period | A person served with interrogatories under Rule 9-3(4) must serve a sworn answer within 21 days, or another period the court sets. |
| BC duty to correct | Rule 9-3(11) requires a person who learns an interrogatory answer was inaccurate or incomplete to promptly serve a corrected affidavit. |
| Ontario questioning | Rule 20(1) of the Family Law Rules requires questioning under that rule to be oral, under oath or affirmation. |
| Quebec examinations | Under article 221 of the Code of Civil Procedure, pre-trial examinations happen only where the case protocol provides for them. |
| Federal child support documents | A paying spouse can be asked in writing, once a year at most, for the guideline documents from the three most recent tax years not already provided. |
| Federal non-disclosure consequence | Under section 23 of the Federal Child Support Guidelines, a court can draw an adverse inference and impute income where a spouse failed to meet an income disclosure obligation. |
Keeping track of dates like these across a stack of letters is exactly what SortMyDivorce does — start a free trial, no card needed.
Start by sorting the envelope, not by answering it. A numbered list you're meant to answer in writing, a notice telling you to attend on a date, and a letter asking you to produce specific documents are three different tasks, and mixing them into one pile is how a document request gets missed while a written question gets over-answered.
Written and oral questioning aren't always separate tracks. In Alberta, rule 12.39(1) of the Alberta Rules of Court lets a party question a person both orally and by written questions in the family proceedings the rule lists — the same case can carry both. In Ontario, rule 20(1) of the Family Law Rules requires questioning done under that rule to be oral, under oath or affirmation. In British Columbia, a party can only serve interrogatories — written questions in Form F22 — on another party by consent or with the court's leave, under Rule 9-3 of the Supreme Court Family Rules. In Quebec, pre-trial examinations happen only where the case protocol provides for them, on the terms, number and length the protocol sets, under article 221 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
A document demand can also arrive on its own, outside any of that. Where a Form F8 financial statement discloses a business or corporate interest, the other side can write asking for specific documents needed to verify the valuation or the income. And under the Federal Child Support Guidelines, a spouse paying child support can be asked in writing, no more than once a year, to produce the guideline documents for any of the three most recent tax years not already given. Neither of those is a discovery notice — file it the same way regardless.
Two dates live in that envelope, and they are not always the same day. The date on the covering letter is when it was written; the date of service is a separate fact from that, and the two can differ. Record both the moment the package arrives — which one the applicable deadline actually runs from is set out in the rule the letter cites, and that's worth reading rather than assuming.
Whatever period applies is usually stated in the rule the letter cites, or in the letter itself. Under Rule 9-3(4) of the British Columbia Supreme Court Family Rules, for example, a person served with interrogatories must serve a sworn answer within 21 days, or another period the court has ordered. Write the deadline down as a fixed date, not as a count of days from an event you'll have to reconstruct later.
One question, one folder. For each item on the list — a numbered question, a document request, a topic flagged for questioning — keep the documents that answer it together, labelled with the question number or the request it responds to. The alternative is finding the same bank statement twice: once for the written answers, and again when it comes up at questioning.
A simple table does the job: the question or item, what answers it, where that document lives, and the date it went out. Update the last column the day something is sent, not the week after — a date remembered is not the same as a date recorded.
Not every item can be closed the day it arrives. A document might not exist yet, might be held by someone else — a bank, an employer, an accountant — or might simply not be gathered yet. Flag those rather than leaving them blank: a blank row looks unfinished; a flagged row shows it has been considered and is waiting on something specific.
An answer already given can still need correcting later. Under Rule 9-3(11) of the British Columbia Supreme Court Family Rules, someone who has answered an interrogatory and later learns the answer was inaccurate or incomplete must promptly serve a corrected affidavit. Whatever your province, the same practical point holds: if a document surfaces after an answer has already gone out, that's a new entry in the file, not an edit to the old one — keep both, dated.
Oral questioning produces its own paperwork on top of whatever else is in the file. In British Columbia, the session is taken down in question-and-answer form, and copies of the transcript can be obtained, on payment of the registry's fee, by any party, the person who was questioned, or anyone else the court permits for a specific reason. Answers given at questioning can also be read into evidence or used at trial in the same proceeding — one more reason a precise record of what was actually said matters more than a general recollection of the session.
Not every question gets answered on the spot. A party can object to or refuse a question during oral questioning; the objection or refusal is recorded, and the court can later be asked to decide whether it has to be answered after all. Keep the transcript and any list of what's outstanding from that session as separate items in the file — one is a record of what was said, the other is a to-do list, and they don't stay accurate once they're merged.
Material produced through discovery also carries a restriction on where it can go next. In British Columbia, documents and answers obtained this way are subject to a deemed or implied undertaking limiting their use to the proceeding they were produced in, unless the court orders otherwise or the parties agree. Keep track of anything received under that restriction the same way as everything else in the file — the limit travels with the document, not with anyone's memory of it.
Keep two columns, not one running list. What you have served on the other side, with the date it went out, belongs in one column. What they have not yet produced — a question still open, a document still owed, an item still flagged — belongs in the other. A follow-up letter that names an item and the date it was sent reads differently from one that just says some things are still outstanding.
This is also where the record of your own answers earns its keep later. If an answer you gave is read into evidence or relied on at trial, the version that matters is the one you actually sent, on the date you sent it — not the version anyone remembers giving.
A refusal or an unanswered item doesn't resolve itself; someone has to bring it back to a judge. In British Columbia, an objection or refusal made during oral questioning is recorded at the time, and the court can later be asked to decide whether the question has to be answered — which is exactly why the objection needs to be on the record in the first place, not just remembered.
Financial disclosure carries its own consequence for non-compliance. Under section 23 of the Federal Child Support Guidelines, where a court proceeds to a hearing because a spouse failed to meet an income disclosure obligation, the court can draw an adverse inference against that spouse and impute income in whatever amount it considers appropriate. Whatever ends up in front of a judge in either scenario is drawn from the same file this page has been describing — what was asked, what was sent, what was refused, and on what date each of those things happened.
Alberta. Rule 12.39(1) of the Alberta Rules of Court is what lets a party question a person both orally and by written questioning in the family proceedings the rule lists.
British Columbia. Rule 9-3(1) of the Supreme Court Family Rules is what gates interrogatories: they can only be served on another party by consent or with the court's leave.
Ontario. Rule 20(4) of the Family Law Rules is what gates questioning outside a child protection case: a party gets information from another party with that party's consent, or by court order under rule 20(5).
Quebec. Article 221 of the Code of Civil Procedure is what gates pre-trial examinations: they happen only where the case protocol provides for them, on the terms it sets.
Manitoba. Rule 31.03(1) of the Court of King's Bench Rules is what settles who can be examined: a party may orally examine any other party adverse in interest, and more than once only with the court's leave.
New Brunswick. Rule 32.04(1) of the Rules of Court is what settles the form: an examination for discovery is oral or written, not both, unless the parties consent or the court gives leave.
Nova Scotia. Rule 18 of the Civil Procedure Rules is what settles the overlap: a party can question a witness by discovery unless the witness already answered that question in response to interrogatories.
Newfoundland and Labrador. Rule 30 of the Rules of the Supreme Court, 1986 is what settles the form: unless the court orders otherwise, an examination of a person in the province takes place before the Registrar or someone the Registrar appoints.
Everywhere else in Canada, the rules of court of the superior court where the matter is filed set the procedure and the response periods, and the covering letter you were sent usually names the rule it's relying on — look there first.
Both ask for an answer in writing, but they don't always arrive under the same rule. In British Columbia, interrogatories are a specific form — Form F22 — that can only be served by consent or with the court's leave under Rule 9-3; other written questioning can arrive under a different rule with no such gate. Check which rule the letter cites before assuming either applies.
During oral questioning in British Columbia, a party can object to or refuse a question; the objection is recorded at the time, and the court can be asked later to decide whether the question must be answered. Record the refusal and the reason given the moment it happens — reconstructing it afterward from memory is harder.
In British Columbia, the session is taken down in question-and-answer form, and copies can be obtained, on payment of the registry's fee, by any party, the person who was questioned, or anyone else the court permits. File it separately from any list of outstanding items the session produced.
In British Columbia, answers given during discovery can be read into evidence or used at trial in the same proceeding. That's a reason to treat every written answer as a final document, not a draft.
Under the Federal Child Support Guidelines, a spouse paying child support can be asked in writing for the guideline documents covering any of the three most recent tax years not already provided — but the request can only be made once a year. Track the date of the last request so you know when the next one is due.
It depends what was owed. In a child support case, if the matter reaches a hearing because a spouse failed to meet an income disclosure obligation, section 23 of the Federal Child Support Guidelines lets the court draw an adverse inference and impute income. In British Columbia, an unresolved refusal from oral questioning goes back to the court on the record made at the time — which is why that record needs to exist in the first place.
Last reviewed September 2026. Researched and written by Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice — laws, fees and forms change, so please confirm current details with the official sources above or a local family lawyer.
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