‘Intentionally underemployed’: BC missionary who moved to South America must still pay spousal support 

A BC business owner whose salary dropped from $80,000 to $3,000 a year when he decided to move to Ecuador and become a missionary is still on the hook to his ex-wife for maintenance payments after a BC court upheld that he was “intentionally underemployed.”

Missionary and part-time English teacher Kevin Wayne Young appealed the court’s ruling that he pay $642 each month to his ex-wife and argued the judge had failed to take into account his actual earning capacity in Canada.

However, in an April 17 decision, a panel of three Court of Appeal Justices dismissed all of Young’s arguments.

“(Young has a) legal obligation to support his former spouse based on the income he could be earning had he remained in this country,” Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon said in the decision. “I appreciate that Mr. Young feels called to work as a missionary in Ecuador, something that has been his ambition since early adulthood. But that decision was entirely a matter of personal preference.”

The decision says Young had run a successful commercial floor cleaning business, making $80,000 a year. 

After his divorce in 2021, and with his children now being adults, he consented to paying spousal support of $1,070 each month. Going forward, the couple agreed to base payments on their previous year’s tax returns.

However, in 2023, Young moved to Ecuador, remarried and now has a “simple” life.

“Mr. Young earns a modest income of $3,000 a year teaching English part-time. He spends most of his time doing unpaid missionary work,” the decision reads.

He recalculated his spousal support payments based on his new income and paid his ex-wife $167 per month. 

The judge in the original case wasn’t sold.

“I would say that moving to Ecuador to do missionary work, when in actual fact you’re perfectly capable of making far more money than that… it’s not something that works,” the judge said. “It is simply not open to you to make lifestyle decisions that result in such a… tiny income.”

In 2024, Young upped the payments to $368 a month before he stopped paying altogether after learning his ex-wife had qualified as a care aid and was working.

After one court appearance, the judge finalized the order for Young to pay $642 per month, basing the calculation on his ex-wife earning $50,000, and his earnings being $70,000.

“You’re paying… your ex-wife’s support on the footing that she made sacrifices during your married life. She wasn’t part of the workforce, she didn’t gain skills and contacts,” the judge said.

The payments would end after 10 years.

In his appeal, Young argued the court had miscalculated his income and he was only able to make US$6 an hour teaching English part-time in Ecuador.

“Mr. Young says that the judge paid too much attention to what he had earned in the past, and not enough to what he could actually earn now in Canada,” the decision reads.

Young argued that even back in Canada, his income would be reduced to $50,000 and he had not succeeded in rebuilding his client base to pre-pandemic levels. He’d since sold the company.

He made several arguments in his appeal, but all were dismissed.

“Once a court finds that a payor is intentionally underemployed, the payor’s current income is not determinative,” Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon said in the decision, leaving Young on the hook for the maintenance payments regardless of his current situation.