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Fathers Battling Injustice
Lyn Cockburn Article
Posted By: Sean Cummings
Date: Friday, 31 March 2000, at 8:25 a.m.
Dear Editor:
I read Lyn Cockburn's critique of a series of articles by Donna Laframboise with great interest. While I agree with Ms. Cockburn's assertion that there is a danger when we generalize the problems that many groups face it would be wrong to understate the problems that divorced fathers experience.
Ms Cockburn writes:
"Last year, the province sent out some 690 notices threatening to suspend driver's licences of parents behind on their payments -- which happily, motivated some to pay up - Manitoba collected $45 million (up about $10 million from the year before) from deadbeat parents, yet, at the end of 1999, $44.9 million in child support payments remained unpaid"
It would be interesting to see if Ms. Cockburn would be prepared to dig a little deeper to determine just how significant a problem non-payment of child support truly is.
Most provincial maintenance enforcement offices are bound provincial legislation that empowers the office to collect unpaid support. I am wondering if Ms. Cockburn asked the local Director of Maintenance Enforcement what percentage of the 690 cases that had notices sent out were wilfully refusing to pay support and what percentage were in arrears.
Moreover, if a parent is in arrears for unpaid support due to illness, job loss, high debt, or support obligations for other children - does this make that parent a deadbeat?
Obviously if a parent cannot afford to pay an existing support order they are unable to pay a lawyer to decode the difficult mathematical calculations that are required to determine if a parent has a legitimate case of undue hardship. Remember, under the new child support guidelines the only provision in place to lower an award in these cases is the undue hardship clause - if a parent can't afford a lawyer, they can't afford to go to court!
Another important question is: how much does it cost taxpayers to run an office of maintenance enforcement? If $44.9 million is yet unpaid - how much will it cost taxpayers to collect it?
Donna Laframboise' series of articles did not generalize any group nor do they deny the existence of deadbeat parents. They shed light on a SERIOUS problem with the entire divorce process in Canada and finally showed how the system is failing children and parents miserably.
There is no epidemic of deadbeat dads in Canada! There never was! Even Carolina Giliberti, the chief researcher from the Federal Justice Department has publicly indicated that the number of willful defaulters of child support in Canada is less than 10%!
It kind of makes you wonder why there is a war on divorced fathers in the first place.
While I am thankful that Ms. Cockburn is at least writing about divorce issues, I wait with bated breath for her to write an article about finding solutions.
Sean Cummings Executive Director Halifax Divorced Parents' Resources www.divorceself-help.com
Ph: 902-466-0434
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