Support Obligation Articles Tragedies at Both Ends A Selection of Articles From the Nation's Press

 

Check the collections below for articles from newspapers around the country.

The Darrin White Suicide story and follow up deals with the tragedy of support payors being ordered to pay more than is reasonable in their circumstances and the Blaine Tanner story and follow-up deals with the tragedy of a support payor who walks away from his responsibilities.

Articles of general family law related interest

Articles related to Same Sex Issues

Articles related to the proposed Custody and Access changes

The articles in these sections are added from time to time and are not a complete collection. They are designed to keep you informed as to how family law issues are discussed in the press. To stay up to date - buy and read the papers.

Contents

The Darrin White Suicide Tragedy and Related Articles

• Father's suicide becomes rallying cry for fairness in court - National Post, April 1, 2000
• Desperate father's suicide fuels family support debate - Winnipeg Free Press, April 1, 2000
• Funeral held for man being called a martyr in men's rights crusade - The Vancouver Province, April 1st, 2000
• Divorce is candy for the rich - The Globe and Mail, March 29, 2000
• How to end the war against divorced dads - National Post, March 28, 2000
• 'This is about punishing Dad'- National Post, March 28, 2000 (Part 3 of 3 part series)
  • Listing of "Father Friendly Organizations on the Web at end of the article
• 'This is madness' - National Post, March 27, 2000 (Part 2 of 3 part series)
• Pilloried, broke, alone - National Post, March 25, 2000 (Part 1 of 3 part series)
• Second wives' club - National Post, March 25, 2000
• "Dads risk suicide in custody fights" - VANCOUVER PROVINCE, March 24, 2000

• JUSTICE SYSTEM PUSHED FATHER - The Prince George Free Press, March 23, 2000

The Blaine Tanner "Deadbeat Dad" Story and Related Articles

• Taking more responsibility for deadbeats - Toronto Star, March 30, 2000

• Ohio backs Ontario's pursuit of deadbeat dad - Toronto Star, March 25, 2000
• Judge orders errant father to start paying up - Toronto Star, March 23, 2000
• Canada, U.S. reopen file on deadbeat dad - Toronto Star, March 11, 2000

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National Post
Tuesday, March 28, 2000

His former wife gets 96% of his take-home pay. Is that justice?

Last fall, three Ontario Court of Appeal judges rejected "Michael's" plea to reduce his family-support payments. In their view, there was no reason why he shouldn't continue paying $7,153 to his former wife each month -- $4,153 in child support, plus $3,000 in alimony.

The problem is that this represents 96% of Michael's monthly take-home pay. While the court included a severance package, bonuses and other earnings when calculating his income, the severance was a one-time thing when he switched jobs, and the other items can't be counted on.

From day to day, Michael lives on his annual $158,000 salary. His January, 2000, pay stubs show that, after deductions such as CPP, EI and income tax, he takes home $7,455 a month as the chief financial officer of a prominent corporation. (The National Post has granted him anonymity at the request of his employer.)

After making his court-ordered payments, Michael is left with $302 a month on which to live. In Toronto, even a single man on welfare is allotted more -- $520 a month. Put another way, of every dollar Michael earns, he keeps only 2¢, since 44¢ goes to employment deductions, 31¢ goes to child support and 23¢ goes to alimony.

Michael is not alone. From one end of the country to the other, divorced men are being financially ruined by excessive child- and spousal-support orders made by judges whose grasp of basic economics is weak. What's worse, these judges profoundly misunderstand how the removal of the tax deductibility of child-support payments in 1997 has affected support payers' lives.

Michael is the first to admit that, until recently, he has led a fairy tale existence. Always an overachiever and leader, he has won awards for both sports and academics and is one of the youngest people to make vice-president of a Fortune 500 company.

"I did not wake up six years ago and say: 'Today's the day I'm going to start destroying my life,' " he says. "But that's what happened. It's been a roller coaster, but it's all been down -- financially, emotionally, spiritually and physically. I'm close to bankrupt in all those elements now, and it's 100% as a result of this divorce."

In 1994, Michael, his then wife of 14 years and their three children lived in an $850,000, 9,000-square-foot home with an indoor pool. But the fairy tale began to unravel when his wife served him with divorce papers at the office.

To her credit, she made no unsavoury allegations against him. "Her only issue," he says, "is I never spent enough time with her. And that's a fair comment. I'm a little wiser now and I know the importance of that. But frankly, I was driving my career. You get caught up. We never went into the fact that we were going to put the kids in private school, but there's a price to pay."

Last summer, Michael consulted a trustee in bankruptcy who declared him insolvent, since he's going into debt by $4,000 a month. The bankruptcy report says that when child support stopped being tax-deductible, Michael went from paying no tax on the portion of his income earmarked for family-support payments to paying $3,398 tax each month on this amount.

It is precisely this tax bite that has eaten up Michael's chance at a sustainable life. "I have the greatest bank manager, but he kind of just drew a line in the sand," he says. "I have the greatest friends, but they drew a line in the sand. I have begged, borrowed, I've done everything I can. I've got three mortgages on [a modest $239,000] house that I've never had before. I've got a line of credit that's at the limit. I owe Revenue Canada, I owe Visa. I'm at a loss."

Nor can it be argued that Michael's former wife is suffering financially. One thousand tax-free dollars a week is such an obvious windfall that the Ontario Lottery Corp. runs a lottery in which this is, in fact, the prize. Not only does his former wife receive more than $4,000 in tax-free child support each month, she gets an additional $3,000 in spousal support. This adds up to $85,836 a year. Put another way, her income from Michael is roughly equivalent to that of someone paid a fully taxable $125,000 a year in the workforce.

Last December, she purchased a $375,000 home. According to her 1996 tax return, that year alone she donated $21,385 to charity.

Michael is trying to have the matter reheard in court but says, "Everything gets adjourned and there's always a legal reason why a motion can't go forward. This was supposed to go to a motion back in November and then it was set for December and then it was January. Now it's I don't know when."

The stakes are enormous. "I'm a chartered accountant," says Michael. "If I go bankrupt I lose my CA, then I lose my job. And even with one of the best lawyers in the country, I can't get anyone to deal with this."

Although last year's court of appeal ruling appears to take into account Michael's present circumstances, his lawyer was prevented from telling the judges about the bankruptcy report and from showing them Michael's pay stubs because there are strict rules about introducing new evidence at the appeal level.

Between them, the three judges apparently failed to realize how their ruling would translate in the real world. When Michael's financial ship sinks, his former wife's standard of living -- and that of the children -- will be profoundly affected. How anyone will benefit should the entire family find itself dependent on social assistance is a question no one seems to have asked.

In the past six years, Michael has occasionally fallen behind in his support payments. He says the highest his arrears have risen at any one time is $14,000. Nevertheless, his children are apparently being encouraged to think of him as a deadbeat.

"I talked to my 16-year-old son when [a recent Toronto Star article on deadbeat dads] came out. You know what he said to me? He said, 'Dad, did you read that article in The Star? Well that's what I think of you.' "

Regarding the appeal court decision, Michael says, "When you read [it], I'm scum. It comes across as, 'Here's this guy that's trying to circumvent the system.' The facts are I've paid $535,000 in support in the past six years. The facts are my kids are in private school and I pay for it. The facts are this woman lives in a $375,000 house that I bought. The facts are I work 70-hour weeks, and she has made almost no attempt to become self-sufficient.

"There's enough money to have a good life for everybody with what I make. I want to pay support. They're my kids and I want what's best for them. I want them to have a nice home. But the support has to be reasonable and fair."

Michael also points out that his reasons for getting up in the morning and striving at his high-performance career are becoming hazy. "I need to have hope and ambition and motivation. And this system discourages that. I have no hope. I'm not here to whine. I'm just here to tell what's happened to my life."

The stories are remarkably similar across the income spectrum. In 1997, Denis McKenzie, a Winnipeg postal worker, had a take-home pay of $1,900 a month after quitting a supplementary part-time supermarket job during an ugly divorce that included false sex abuse allegations against him. Having been ordered to pay $2,000 in monthly child and spousal support by one judge, he was forced on to welfare until another reduced his payments to a more manageable $910.

Wayne Archer, a firefighter living in Caledon, Ont., says that a 1991 child-support order for $750 a month for his son "represented 91% of my net pay at the time." (Part of his income was being deducted to repay an employer-sponsored loan.) "In desperation, I bought a camper and put it on the back of my pickup truck. I lived in that with my German shepherd for a year and a half during the coldest winter in 80 years. It was minus 21. The dog's water froze on the floor. Twelve-volt power, a cell phone -- that was my life."

In the mid-'90s, Dr. Robert Wright, a Clearbrook, B.C., dentist fled the country after serving jail time for failing to pay alimony. Although his payments of $900 a month for child support were up to date, in 1993 Wright ceased paying the monthly $2,500 ordered by the court in spousal support. At a trial late that year, a bankruptcy specialist with a prestigious accounting firm testified that Wright was a bona fide bankrupt. The judge rejected this evidence, finding Wright in contempt. He sent him to jail for 60 days.

Katherine McNeil, a child custody consultant who advocated on Wright's behalf, says "Dr. Wright made every effort before going bankrupt to get into court and have the court order reduced by the amount of spousal support only, not the child support. He was repeatedly thwarted by adjournments."

Even though his marriage had ended seven years earlier, few people seemed troubled by the fact that Wright was still expected to support his former wife. In 1993, he told the media that she "has been living with a local businessman for over three years in a very comfortable home with a minimal mortgage. They drive recent-model vehicles and have tropical vacations."

It didn't matter, remembers McNeil, "what the facts were. The courts and the support enforcement agency seemed intent on destroying this man and what remained of his relationship to his three children."

Since 1997, when federal child-support guidelines were put in place and child support stopped being tax-deductible, matters appear to have deteriorated. "My constituency office has received an extremely large number of constituents requesting our assistance in this particular area," wrote an Oshawa, Ont., MPP last year. Since May, 1997, "our office is hearing more and more of tragic financial situations for many support payers."

In British Columbia, MLA Linda Reid, the Liberal opposition's critic for children and families, agrees. "There's just some horrific stories out there. Folks are in my office on a regular basis. They're absolutely committed to doing the right thing for their offspring but they just cannot, for myriad reasons, make the system work for them. The national guidelines that came down in terms of what monthly support should look like, I don't take any issue with the content of that, but there's no flexibility."

Among the biggest flaws is the fact that these child-support guidelines are based on gross, rather than net, income. Judges use a table to determine how much a payer owes based on his income and the number of children involved. Many judges, however, then slap alimony on top of this -- ignoring the fact that a person who is mandated by the courts to pay alimony has a smaller pool of money from which to draw than his gross income on a table would suggest.

Another problem is that, as happened in Michael's case, judges estimate what a payer's income is likely to be, and base support awards on this amount. His ex-wife's lawyer, he says, has "always argued that I have an ability to make a lot more. Well, based on bonuses. But if people are on bonuses or commissions, their income is not guaranteed. So why is support guaranteed? I've recommended for six years now that they base it on my base salary and I'll pay some portion of the bonus when and if I receive it."

In the case of Denis McKenzie, when determining the postal worker's income, the judge added an additional $300 a year he would earn if he delivered extra flyers -- thus turning an option of earning more money into an obligation.

In other instances, courts have determined support payer's gross incomes by including overtime earnings in the calculations -- thereby locking these men into working long hours year after year.

Susan Baragar, a Winnipeg lawyer, points out how far such "deeming" of income is taken by the courts. "If I had a divorced dad who had a job and then quit because he didn't want to pay child support, you can be darn certain that the courts would deem income to him based on what his pay used to be. So if you're a man you're not allowed to go out and quit your job.

"But I've had a case where a woman had a $31,000-a-year job, went on maternity leave, came back and didn't like that job anymore. She thought she'd like to start her own business instead, so her income was reduced to zero -- and she didn't have to pay child support."

Indeed, instances in which judges have instructed men to pay regardless of their employment situation are common. In 1995, an Ontario police officer who routinely responded to family-law situations, took a leave of absence because, he said, he was having difficulty performing his job after experiencing first-hand the anti-male bias of the family courts.

"My sworn duties as a police officer demand that I perform those duties without discrimination," he wrote in an affidavit. "Frequently, I have advised disputing parents to consult with a lawyer to seek a fair and reasonable resolution in the family court. Given the discrimination I have been subjected to by the court [in his own divorce proceedings] I can no longer give that advice. I cannot at this time perform those duties in a fair and unbiased matter."

Deaf to his moral dilemma, Judge Kenneth Langdon called the leave of absence "a transparent and contumacious attempt to subvert the court order for support." Not only did the judge make a new order directing the officer to "take all necessary steps and do all necessary things to terminate his leave of absence and resume regular police duties immediately," he expressly forbid him from quitting his job or accepting an early retirement package. Ten months later, a second judge, Gladys Pardu, agreed that the leave of absence was "a reckless and retaliatory action by the husband."

Still another problem with the child-support system comes in the form of add-ons. While it's one thing to be assessed a given amount of support according to a government table, many men have discovered that child support can extend beyond that. Stan Gal, a divorced father described in yesterday's National Post, was ordered by a judge to pay $117 in monthly support above the guidelines for his adult daughter's university tuition.

While the guidelines indicate that Michael's monthly child support contribution should be $2,953, his ex-wife has been awarded an additional $1,200 a month in "extraordinary expenses for the children's education."

Edward Kruk, a social work professor at the University of British Columbia, says non-custodial parents are often ordered to pay twice the guideline amount or more. "With preschool children, a lot of dads who are asking for parenting time with their kids are being denied that and the kids are ending up in a daycare setting that fathers then have to pay for as special expenses," he says. "So suddenly the father's paying $1,000 a month -- $500 for the guideline amount and $500 for daycare costs."

This was not supposed to happen. Indeed, the federal-provincial task force that developed the guidelines argued, prior to their implementation, that "This method of determining the costs of children produces higher estimates of those costs than other methods, in part because it assumes to include all expenses, including daycare, and to apply to children of all ages."

A 1998 Senate report says there is "widespread confusion" among judges and lawyers over what kinds of expenses qualify as special or extraordinary. "The case law itself is taking completely contradictory views," reads the report. "Some judges apply an objective test, others a subjective test."

Finally, even the guidelines themselves are being challenged. Mike LaBerge, president of the Calgary chapter of the Equitable Child Maintenance and Access Society, argues that child support payments often dramatically exceed the actual costs of raising a child.

According to 1999 figures published by the Manitoba Department of Agriculture (the only government body in the country to compile such data), it costs $5,500 a year to raise a school-aged child, and up to $8,500 per year for a child attending daycare.

Alan Mirabelli, executive director of the Vanier Institute of the Family, confirms these are reasonable estimates of what parents can expect to spend on a generic child. Families with less money, he says, will obviously trim their costs by buying less expensive sneakers. Those with more will send their kids to pricey summer camps not reflected in these estimates.

Michael pays $16,600 a year for each of his three teenagers. Wayne Archer, who was reduced to living in a camper, pays $9,000 a year for his teenaged son.

LaBerge says that when you consider that these amounts represent "only one parent's share of the costs," our child support system appears to have been designed not merely to ensure that children's needs are met, but to transfer income from divorced fathers to divorced mothers.

"This is a legally imposed form of social welfare that you have no way out of," says LaBerge. "This is about punishing Dad, about making him pay.

"What you have to tell people is that these policies will hurt their boy. With divorce rates approaching 50%, their son has a one in two chance of being victimized by this system. Everyone says child support is about feeding the children, but it's not."

WHY MICHAEL KEEPS JUST 2 CENTS OF EVERY $1 HE EARNS:

Michael's gross pay for January 2000: $13,200.00

Minus deductions: *5,745.02

Net pay: 7,454.98

Minus child and spousal support: 7,153.00

What's left for Michael: $301.98

*DEDUCTIONS:

Income tax: $4925.38

Canada Pension Plan: 477.92

Employment insurance: 300.00

Long-term disability: 36.72

Social fund: 5.00

TOTAL: $5,745.02

WHAT HAPPENS TO EACH DOLLAR MICHAEL EARNS:

To standard employment deductions: 44 cents

To child support: 31 cents

To spousal support: 23 cents

To Michael: 2 cents

Sources: Michael's End of January 2000 Pay Stub and a 1999 Ontario Court of Appeal Decision

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RELATED SITES:

(Each link opens a new window)

FATHER FRIENDLY ORGANIZATIONS

American Coalition for Fathers and Children

A well funded, well organized American lobby group.

Children's Rights Council
"Works to assure children meaningful and continuing contact with both their parents."

Dads Can

An organization devoted to encouraging involved fatherhood.

Dads Canada

Strategies for men going through divorce.

Equitable Child Maintenance and Access Society

Devoted to the well being of children from separated and divorced families.

Fathers Are Capable Too

This site promotes the philosophy that = the best parent is both parents.

Fathers For Justice

Attempts to assist non-custodial parents with divorce-related problems.

Men's Educational Support Association

Devoted to educating and supporting fathers

The Second Wives Club

A U.S.-based online community for step moms and second wives.

Shared Parenting

A site dedicated to issues affecting non-custodial parents.

FATHER FRIENDLY RESOURCES

Alternative Dispute Resolution Resources

An American site geared to solving problems outside the courtroom, via mediation.

Balance: The Inclusive Vision of Gender Equality

Alberta-based on-line magazine.

The Child Support Guideline Problem

A great research paper that critiques the guideline approach to child support.

Divorce for Men

Run by Carey Linde, a Vancouver family law lawyer.

Everyman: A Men's Journal

An online magazine devoted to men's issues.

Family Law Centre

Resources put together by Gene Colman, a Toronto family law lawyer.

The Liberator

An American men's movement magazine.

Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology

Run by child support expert Roger Gay.

Razberry.com

The personal web site of National Post journalist Donna Laframboise

OTHER RESOURCES

Child Support Canada

A division of the Department of Justice, with links to Child Support guidelines and legislation.

Ontario Family Responsibility Office

The provincial body that administers and enforces support agreements in Ontario. The site lists many of the means by which agencies chase support payers who are in arrears.

National Child Support Enforcement Association

An American advocacy group for child support professionals.

Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (United States)

At the bottom of this page is a series of useful studies on child support, including a pair on using private agencies to collect payments.

Selected Statistics on Canadian Families and Family Law

November 1997 study compiled by the Department of Justice.

Special Joint Committee on Child Custody and Access

Contains minutes of all meetings.

Status of Women Canada

Federal government agency mandated to promote gender equality.

Joel Miller's Family Law Centre

A large Canadian-based site with comprehensive links to family law guidelines and legislation.

The Children's Voice

Advocates the dismantling of the adversarial system in Canadian family law.

Women's Justice Network

This page put together by a Canadian coalition of women's organizations discusses reactions to the Special Joint Committee on Custody and Access. Links to the dissenting reports of the Reform, NDP and Bloc Quebecois parties.

Spousal Support Under Canada's Divorce Act

A brief look at the issue of spousal support and how the law treats it.

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National Post
Monday, March 27, 2000

'This is madness'
Donna Laframboise

Divorced fathers who pay their child support find themselves trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare

Stan Gal's daughter, Vanessa, is 23 years old and works as a sales specialist at IBM Canada. Nevertheless, the Ontario government garnishees $322 for child support for her from his paycheque each month.

Gal, who is employed by the Regional Municipality of York, just north of Toronto, has been told the deductions will continue until his former wife, Halina Ogonek, acknowledges that their daughter is no longer attending university, or until he secures a court order to this effect.

Like many other divorced parents across the country, Gal, whose wife was awarded sole custody, has discovered that the child-support bureaucracy is a nightmare. There are no checks and balances to guard against such unwarranted payments, nor does it take into account the changes that occur in the lives of the people who pay this support.

If they find themselves unemployed, are forced into lower-paying or part-time jobs, are injured or on strike, they are told that in order to have their child-support obligations adjusted they must hire a lawyer to get a court order. Even in cases in which their child comes to live with them or is taken into foster care by child-protection authorities, it's the same story: Get a court order.

The 11 years since the separation have been financially difficult for Gal. Now, after supporting his daughter for a full five years past voting age, he is having difficulty proving she's no longer a full-time student.

In July, 1997, Gal and Ogonek signed an agreement in the presence of a court official that, after being typed up and endorsed by a judge, became a court order. It compels Ogonek to provide Gal with "written consent" so he can access "medical and educational information" regarding his children.

Six weeks later, Victor Slater, Ogonek's lawyer, informed Gal in writing: "In regard to medical releases and educational releases, none will be provided regarding Vanessa Lynn Gal. In regards [to the two boys, now age 13 and 17] please make your requests on a case by case basis and requests will be submitted to our client."

From 1995 on, Gal received a series of letters from Vanessa's high school telling him that since his daughter had reached the age of 18, the school was no longer allowed to forward her marks without her consent. "Vanessa has indicated to us that she does not wish us to release the information you have requested," the school told him.

When Vanessa, who still cashes her father's Christmas cheques, enrolled at McMaster University in late 1996, she continued to deny her father information. In July, 1998, in order to qualify for his workplace prescription drug plan, she provided him with a document confirming she'd been registered as a student in 1997-98. Although his insurance company requires a new letter confirming enrolment every academic year, no more letters have been forthcoming.

Gal's pain at the loss of his relationship with the child who used to ask him if she was the apple of his eye, and to whom he would respond "right to the core," is beyond measure. "I don't know a 23-year-old daughter," he says. "I know a 13-year-old daughter. There are a lot of things we've missed all these years."

But today, he is focused on one question: Is his daughter a full-time student or not? It's a question Vanessa Gal refuses to answer. When the National Post left her a voice-mail message at her IBM number, her mother returned the call. "You're harassing her at her workplace, and I don't want you to call her anymore," she said.

Gal is not opposed to paying child support. "I don't have a problem meeting my financial obligations toward my children. But there comes a point when you start feeling abused, and that's what I'm feeling right now."

With his two younger children also likely headed for post-secondary education, Gal fears he will be compelled to apply to the courts repeatedly in order to sort out matters that should be straightforward.

"This is madness," says Liberal senator Anne Cools. "Every single act that requires legal expertise is extravagantly expensive. Changing circumstances can necessitate going back again and again, a process that's beyond the financial reach of most people." It is also an enormous drain on court time.

In two separate private-members' bills, Cools and Liberal MP Roger Gallaway (Sarnia-Lambton) have taken aim at the situation in which Gal finds himself.

They say divorced parents should not be forced to pay support for children past the age of majority merely because these children remain in school. "Parents who are still married to one another have no legal obligation to finance post-secondary education," says Cools. "But divorced parents are being compelled by the courts to do so. It is a terrible discrimination on the basis of marital status."

Back in 1997, when amendments to the Divorce Act were passed, the House of Commons submitted a bill to the Senate that said an individual who had reached the age of majority could still qualify for child support due to illness, disability, "pursuit of reasonable education," or "other cause."

The Senate refused to pass the bill until the pursuit of education phrase was removed, but that hasn't stopped judges from routinely deciding higher education is an "other cause."

"The courts are doing it through the back door," says Cools. "Did Parliament ever intend the words 'or other cause' to include university education? The answer is no."

"There is an incomprehensible, illogical element to this law," adds Gallaway. "A 30-year-old can be declared a 'child' for the purposes of a post-secondary support order while a 14-year-old can be an adult for the purposes of criminal law."

One hundred and fifty kilometres north of Gal's home, another municipal employee in a smaller city recounts a similar chain of events. Concerned about protecting the privacy of his minor step-children, "Robert" requested that neither his community nor his name be revealed.

When Robert's first wife left him in 1987, he continued to raise his son and daughter in the matrimonial home. After finishing high school, his son attended community college between 1990 and 1993. Robert contributed half the education costs (tuition and living expenses), so his son wouldn't have to take out student loans.

In 1994, after dating a woman for several years, Robert remarried. Opposed to his second marriage, his 17-year-old daughter left home and moved in with a cousin. Two years later, shortly before beginning university, she moved in with her biological mother -- who then sued Robert for child support to fund their daughter's education.

"I'm not saying my daughter didn't deserve some money," says Robert. "She certainly did. We told her to come talk to us and we'd work something out. I had to phone and phone to get her to meet with me. And then, her words were: 'I don't have to talk to you. My mother and her lawyer say the judge will make you pay.' "

After a 10-minute hearing in January, 1997, Judge Thomas Wood ruled on the spot that Robert should contribute $1,000 a month to his daughter's education -- with no time limit attached. Although federal child support guidelines indicated that a parent who earned Robert's $47,000-a-year income should pay $600 per month in support for one child, the judge provided no justification for selecting an amount significantly higher.

In a heartbeat, Robert's take-home pay was cut in half. He appealed, and eight months later, the decision was upheld by a three-judge appeal court panel. That ruling, too, fails to provide explanations. It merely says: "This court orders that the Appeal is dismissed."

According to Robert, both his initial lawyer and his appeal counsel were so aghast at these decisions they forgave him a total of about $10,000 in legal fees between them.

In the past three years, Robert (whose payments ended only this past January), has paid $38,000 toward his adult daughter's post-secondary education. There was no corresponding court order compelling her biological mother to make any contribution. Nor did the courts inform this young woman that she herself had a responsibility to raise a portion of the funds.

As in Stan Gal's case, Robert's daughter refused to provide him with information about what courses she was taking or what marks she received. "It is not natural to expect someone to pay for a university education for offspring who won't even talk to them," says Cools. "It's simply not done."

Moreover, she says, this is playing both sides of the fence. "A person cannot move from being a child one moment to being an adult the next." Yet the senator can cite case law in which the same judge who says a divorced father should pay for an adult son's education declares, in the next breath, that the father has no right to have input into what school is attended since the son is an adult and entitled to make his own decisions.

In 1998, Robert's second wife made an oral presentation to a federal committee investigating divorce-related matters. She pointed out that while this surely had not been the intent of legislators, the child support she was receiving from her own former husband for her two minor children was, in effect, subsidizing the education of Robert's adult daughter.

"We could not possibly live on his income after that support order was made," she told the National Post. Still in debt, the couple now have no savings, are worried their ability to assist their remaining two children with post-secondary costs will be limited, and are anticipating their retirement years with consternation.

"It really bothers me when I read the 'deadbeat dad' headlines," says Robert's wife. "Because I think: 'You have no idea.' People have no idea. They don't believe it can be this bad. Even my brother-in-law, my sister's husband, said: 'You're not telling me everything, this can't happen in Canada.' And I said, 'It does happen in Canada, and I'm ashamed that it does.' "

But the "deadbeat dad" headlines get attention, even when they fly in the face of the facts. Postal worker Niall Campbell, an NDP candidate in the 1995 Manitoba provincial election, withdrew his candidacy following a Winnipeg Sun story with the banner headline "NDP deadbeat dad wants to be MLA."

In truth, Campbell was not a deadbeat. He was fully paid up on the support he owed his former wife for their younger child. But seven months earlier, the couple's 17-year-old son had left his mother's home in Regina and gone to live with his father in Winnipeg.

Campbell, who was waiting for a court date so the legal paperwork could catch up to his family's new circumstances, was guilty of nothing more than failing to continue sending $350 in monthly child support to his former wife for a child who was no longer residing with her.

But it wasn't just the media, his ex and government officials who insisted Preston should be condemned. Gary Doer, his party leader -- and now the Manitoba premier -- criticized him publicly. "In our system, the court makes a decision and you get the decision changed in court," Doer told the press, pointing out that Preston was also violating the NDP's internal policies.

Hazel McBride, a Toronto psychotherapist, tells a similar story concerning a child with suicidal tendencies whom she counselled for three years during the early 1990s. The child had been kicked out of the house by his mother and was living with his father, who was barely able to make ends meet after his pay was garnisheed for child-support arrears.

"The father was a hard worker," says McBride. "He worked two jobs, starting at six in the morning. He worked construction and he worked right through until 10 at night at another job. With the recession, he'd gotten laid off and that's how he'd dropped behind on his payments."

McBride says she phoned the child support offices on more than one occasion about this case. "I personally talked to the support people about that one. I was furious. And they basically said: 'It doesn't matter where the child is living, the court order is for the mother to have the support.' We had to try to find the child free medication, drug company samples, because the father couldn't afford the medication. And the mother, who was living extremely well because she had remarried and was certainly in no financial difficulty whatsoever, kept the money and would not forward anything."

In Winnipeg in 1998, support enforcement officials continued to garnishee Phillip's (not his real name) workers' compensation benefits and remit money to his former spouse months after his daughter (whose identity is protected by a publication ban) was removed from her mother's home by child protection authorities.

While a simple telephone call from one government office to another should have resolved the matter, Phillip was required to hire a lawyer and wait five months until the support order was terminated by a judge. He has never received a refund.

Ross Bailey, an aircraft maintenance engineer in Abbotsford, B.C., has a similar tale to tell about the unresponsiveness of the child support system to the realities of people's lives.

In late 1998 he wrote a distraught letter to Ujjal Dosanjh who at the time, as the attorney general, was responsible for the B.C. child support collection system.

Bailey explained that his former wife had moved with the couple's two children to New Brunswick five years earlier and that the long-distance phone, travel and accommodation costs he'd incurred trying to maintain contact were crippling.

While his support payments of $800 a month were based on a salary of $36,000 per year, as a result of the stress associated with his family situation, Bailey was laid off from his safety-sensitive job in 1997 and later rehired part-time. Because his gross pay that year was only $22,000, and because he was forced to hire a lawyer in New Brunswick, arrears began accumulating.

"I am still ordered to pay $800 per month, and in order to see my kids this summer I had to take a loan out and leverage my credit cards," his letter reads. "I am spending $1,300 a month more than I am earning ... I am told by [child support officials] that I must pay that child support no matter what my personal circumstances are or they will garnishee my wages when working or all of my UIC payments when laid off. What am I supposed to live on? How am I supposed to see my two children? How would I ever pay arrears of child support when I run out of borrowing power?"

Bailey's plea for help was seconded by John Van Dongen, his MLA (Liberal). Van Dongen told Dosanjh, now the premier of B.C., that he has known Bailey "personally for many years." He is, he wrote, "a sincere, honest and responsible father." The letter says Bailey had been advised by bankruptcy specialists that "a declaration of bankruptcy does not set aside or supersede a [child support order]. In other words, he understands that a family maintenance order overrides anything else including the normal living allowance granted under the law to a bankrupt person."

Van Dongen says Bailey was one of several men in similar circumstances who have contacted his office. "When a non-custodial parent loses their job ... the system takes far too long to respond," he wrote. "In Mr. Bailey's case, the requisite adjustment is taking years due to the manner in which the New Brunswick court and the B.C. court interact."

In his reply to Van Dongen, Dosanjh said court delays were beyond his control. After reiterating that Bailey was still responsible for the full $800 a month and was at risk of having his driver's, pilot's and aviation engineer's licences revoked, he ended his letter with the following: "This government considers child support a serious obligation and we are committed to ensuring that parents receive the assistance they need and that children receive the support they deserve. Thank you for writing."

Bailey has seen his children only twice in the past two years. After three years and thousands of dollars in legal bills, a New Brunswick court recently reduced his support payments to $635 a month.

"I am 48 years old and I have always been able and willing to solve my problems myself," says Bailey. "But I now find myself financially desperate. I just can't afford to pay for lawyers, child support and the thousands a year it costs me to see my kids. I can't survive on air. And there is no one to turn to for help."

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National Post
Saturday, March 25, 2000

Pilloried, broke, alone
Donna Laframboise

Divorced fathers get a bad rap for not supporting their children. The truth is, many can't. And, tragically, some are driven to desperate measures, including suicide

  Whenever fathers and divorce are discussed, one image dominates: the 'deadbeat dad,' the schmuck who'd rather drive a sports car than support his kids. Because I write about family matters, I'm regularly inundated with phone calls, faxes, letters and e-mail from divorced men. It's not news that divorced individuals have little good to say about their ex-spouses. What I'm interested in is whether the system assists people during this difficult time in their lives, or compounds their misery. From the aircraft engineer in British Columbia, to the postal worker on the prairies, to the fire fighter in Toronto, divorced fathers' stories are of a piece: Though society stereotypes these men relentlessly, most divorced dads pay their child support. Among those who don't, a small percentage wilfully refuse to (the villains you always hear about).

What you haven't been told is that the other men in arrears are too impoverished to pay, have been ordered to pay unreasonable amounts, have been paying for unreasonable lengths of time, or are the victims of bureaucratic foul-ups.

Today, and on Monday and Tuesday, the National Post will tell you the stories of fathers who have been driven to suicide by a system deaf to their pleas. We'll introduce you to a man who is still paying child support for a 23-year-old employed daughter. We'll tell you about an executive with take-home pay of $7,455 a month who is left with $302 after handing over child support and alimony to his ex-wife.

Their lives are being devastated by courts and governments who consider no measure too punitive in their war against "deadbeat dads."

Last July, in a run-down part of Regina, a 39-year-old divorced father tied a rope around his neck and hanged himself in his basement.

His children, ages eight, nine and 11, and an older adopted child, have not yet been told how their father died, so his family has requested that his real name be withheld. We'll call him Jim.

Jim was tall and thin, with dark eyes and hair. He worked as a mechanic at an auto dealership, specializing in transmission repair. In addition to four fatherless kids, he left behind grieving parents, two sisters and a brother.

And a neatly written, two-page suicide note: "The last five years has been very difficult emotionally and financially for me, since the separation I tried my best to support my children and make a living," it reads. "The end result was that it forced me into bankruptcy ... This is the only solution because I just see absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel."

Jim is not the only divorced father driven to desperate measures. Last week, police recovered the body of Darrin White, 34, of Prince George, B.C. Mr. White hanged himself after being ordered to pay $2,070 a month in family support -- even though he'd told the court he was on stress leave from work and had a take-home pay of about $1,000 a month. Despite doing everything in their power to live up to their obligations, many divorced men receive little sympathy.

In his letter, Jim protests that "not all fathers are deadbeats" and expresses his anguish at being stripped of "the right to parent" his children after his former wife was awarded sole custody.

"Twice in the past five years I wanted to take my own life but because of the love and the good times I had with my kids I could not go through with it," he wrote. "I hope someday my kids will understand and forgive me for leaving them."

In October, 1995, Andrew Renouf of Markham, Ont., left a similar suicide note. Describing how the Ontario government had seized all but 43 cents from his bank account on pay day three days earlier, he wrote: "I have no money for food or for gas for my car to enable me to work." Although he had tried to explain his situation to the child-support enforcement office, he said, "their answer was: 'we have a court order' several times. I have tried talking to the welfare people in Markham, [but] since I earned over $520 in the last month I am not eligible for assistance."

Mr. Renouf said in his note that he had no contact with his daughter in four years. "I do not even know if she is alive and well," it reads. "There is no further point in continuing my life. It is my intention to drive to a secluded area near my home, feed the gas exhaust into the car, take some sleeping pills and use the remaining gas in the car to end my life. I would have preferred to die with more dignity."

Hazel McBride, a Toronto suicide researcher and psychotherapist, says she has encountered a number of such cases since the early '90s. One involved a small businessman who'd faithfully made his child-support payments until the recession hit. After the support-enforcement office seized money from his business bank account, his business went under, his house was repossessed and he suffered a heart attack. Eventually, he blew his head off with a shotgun.

"These are not unusual cases," she says. "I had a man who came to see me, and he had cancer and had to leave his job as a long-distance truck driver. Being self-employed, he had no long-term disability. His wife had remarried and was living quite well, and she had the children. The only thing he had left was a house that he had inherited from his parents. Not a very big house. And once he made his support payments, he had no money for heat.

"It's one of the reasons I stopped doing the clinical work," says Dr. McBride, "because the stories were so terrible and there was so little you could do for people. This man said, 'I want to go out and kill myself. It won't get better.' And he was right, it wasn't going to get better."

Fathers pushed close to the breaking point rarely attract media attention because everyone assumes they are deadbeat dads. Government fact sheets call men whose support payments are in arrears "delinquent parents" who "hide from their child support debts" and need to be "forced to live up to their obligations."

The Ontario government claims that such parents owe $1.2-billion in outstanding support in that province alone, and that only 24% of registered support payers are in full compliance. A damning portrait of all divorced fathers has been painted.

But the issue is far more complicated. For starters, support-enforcement records are notoriously unreliable and out of date. Last year, Wayne Sagle of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., was told he owed $51,000 in arrears.

Only after the National Post contacted Mr. Sagle's former wife did the government admit the $51,000 was an illusion. With the former wife acknowledging the children had lived with their father since 1990, it became clear the real problem was out-of-date paperwork.

In another instance, months after a support payer committed suicide, Ontario's enforcement agency continues to send notices to one of his previous mailing addresses, and, no doubt, to count his arrears in the total tally of money owed. (One U.S. study found that up to 14% of the men listed as deadbeat dads in state records were, in fact, dead.)

In some Canadian provinces, men who religiously pay support every two weeks on pay day are classified as being in arrears for half of each month -- because the enforcement agencies' bookkeeping is based on a monthly cycle.

No research is available on Canadian child-support payers, but studies elsewhere indicate the vast majority of divorced men meet their obligations -- and that those who don't often have good reasons.

According to Roger Gay, an internationally recognized child-support expert based in Stockholm, the only meaningful child-support statistic is the percentage of support ordered by the courts that actually gets paid. In the U.S., he says, "fathers overall pay between 70% and 80% of what is due."

What's more, the highly publicized garnishments, suspension of drivers' licences, revocation of passports and jail sentences have accomplished little. Despite the efforts of the 50,000 people employed by the U.S. child-support collection bureaucracy -- which costs $4-billion a year -- Mr. Gay says the percentage of child support paid hasn't changed since the mid-'70s. "We've let too many years go by without admitting to the public that these measures have been a failure."

The difficulty in collecting the remaining 20% to 30% is due largely to the fact that the war against deadbeats is really a war against the poor -- against men who have always been economically marginal or have been impoverished by the divorce process itself.

According to the Institute on Poverty, half of non-paying fathers in Wisconsin earn less than $6,200 a year and only one in 10 earns more than $18,500 annually. Other research shows the unemployment rate is one of the most accurate predictors of child-support compliance. (Although even then, half the men who were out of work in one sample still managed to pay the full amount of support.)

In 1996, an Oklahoma child-enforcement officer, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, accused politicians "hungry for the perfect scapegoat," of demonizing non-paying fathers. "Most deadbeat dads are frightened, angry and depressed men," wrote the official, who admitted to putting hundreds of them behind bars.

"Not only are many deadbeat dads destitute, it is often their failure as providers which led their ex-wives to divorce them. I prosecuted one deadbeat dad who had been hospitalized for malnutrition and another who lived in the bed of a pick-up truck. Many times I prosecuted impoverished men on behalf of ex-wives who had remarried successful men and were living in comfortable conditions."

Yet the stereotype of the divorced father with scads of money who mean-spiritedly refuses to hand it over persists -- and negatively influences the courts.

In the words of Pauline Green, a Toronto family lawyer, "Some judges think men have gotten off much too easy in the past with things like child support. [Their position is:] 'that's it, I don't care what anybody says, I don't care what the excuses are.' "

Adds Susan Baragar, a Winnipeg lawyer and feminist: "There isn't equality within the family court. I mean, there's a standard joke among us family lawyers. We say: 'If you're the guy, just put on your helmet and duck.' There are injustices that go the other way, on a case by case basis. But generally speaking, I know if I represent the woman it's going to go easier for me in court."

While society insists that divorced fathers be "held accountable" some researchers are asking whether our desire for accountability results in persecution.

In Throwaway Dads, co-authors Ross Parke and Armin Brott present a litany of horror stories -- including the case of a janitor wrongly accused of murder. After spending nearly a decade in Texas prisons, the man was released, only to be handed a $22,000 bill for child-support arrears that accrued while he was behind bars.

Support payers are also automatically assumed to be in the wrong. In late 1997, George Roulier's former wife, Carol McIntosh, signed a sworn statement claiming he was in child-support arrears by $1,220. Five weeks later, the Ontario government instructed Mr. Roulier's employer to begin garnisheeing his pay cheque.

Rather than conducting an investigation, the enforcement agency appears instead to take support claimants at their word. "They told me they tried to send me a letter," says Mr. Roulier. "I said 'Okay, please send me a copy of that letter.' And they said, 'No, we won't do that.' "

Seven months later, when Mr. Roulier presented a judge with his cancelled cheques for the period in question, the judge declared he had paid "everything owing up to 31 Jan. '98 directly to Carol McIntosh" and that "there were no arrears of support."

Mr. Roulier is still trying to get a full refund for the arrears collected that the judge said were not owed. In September, 1998, the enforcement agency sent him some of the money.

But in October, David Costen, acting director of the agency that had failed to verify information before acting on it, washed his hands of the matter. "The question of whether or not the recipient has misinformed the plan or failed to provide accurate information," he wrote to Mr. Roulier, "is a legal matter between you and the recipient."

At the same time that society is demanding divorced dads pay up, our courts, governments and social services fail to recognize the huge effect losing daily contact with one's children has on men's ability to earn a living.

"No government and no court should be allowed to take a child from a parent unless there is a very, very, very good reason," says Dr. McBride. "Because to have a child ripped from you, it's the same as a child dying. It's absolutely uncivilized, barbaric and devastating for any parent. It's not uncommon for these people to suffer depressive breakdowns."

And while a large, expensive system exists to collect child support from divorced fathers, no parallel system helps ensure children's and father's rights to close and frequent contact.

After his marriage broke down in late 1997, Toronto firefighter Alan Heinz's wife told a court three job offers awaited her in Germany. He reluctantly agreed to her relocation there with the couple's daughter, who is now 3, but became disturbed when she went on welfare shortly afterward.

While no one in authority will help Mr. Heinz secure his daughter's return, the Youth Welfare Office in Neuss, Germany, is trying to collect child support from him in an attempt to recoup the social-assistance costs.

Mr. Heinz has gone bankrupt trying to fight a legal battle that has spread to two continents. At 41, he now lives in his parents' basement.

Edward Kruk, a professor of social work at the University of British Columbia who has studied divorced fathers for the past 15 years, says that despite the more active role many contemporary fathers take in their children's lives, "fathers today are less likely to obtain custody if they contest it in court than they were in the '70s."

In other words, society's message to divorced fathers is that the only thing required of them is money. It's a message some of them find too difficult to bear.

Among Jim's personal papers are documents indicating that, in the year prior to his death, his financial situation had worsened. In late 1998, he missed nearly three months of work due to a back injury. In mid-November of that year he received a letter from the Saskatchewan Worker's Compensation Board advising him his compensation benefits were being garnisheed.

According to an affidavit Jim signed a few months before his death, between August, 1998, and January, 1999, his expenses consistently exceeded his earnings by more than $100 a month.

Paying a modest $460 plus utilities for accommodation, he had spent only $40 on clothes in the past year, and only $52 on tools -- even though mechanics are expected to make regular tool purchases as a condition of their job.

George Seitz, a friend, says Jim lived in "a very rough neighbourhood, a place in Regina that I would not live, ever" because rents were cheap. When the two men got together with their children, Mr. Seitz rarely remembers Jim eating. "I think because of his financial position, he would buy his kids something and he wouldn't have anything himself."

As Jim's affidavit notes, out of a monthly take-home pay of about $1,650, "My most significant monthly expense is the [$800] support payments I make in relation to my children." But that wasn't good enough.

Although Jim had owned the matrimonial home prior to his marriage, which lasted five years, a judge granted his ex-wife a half interest in it when the couple divorced. Based on a formula that valued the house higher than it actually sold for, Jim was ordered to pay his former wife more than $8,000 and was held responsible for a $3,400 credit-card bill.

Arguing that he had no conceivable way of raising these funds, Jim attempted to declare bankruptcy. In March, 1998, Judge Maurice J. Herauf ruled that the amount of money in question "is not large and should be paid in full." He added, "It has to be made clear to the bankrupt that he will be held responsible for his actions."

In June, 1999, the same judge denied Jim's appeal, declaring that his "intransigence toward paying anything to his ex-wife on the property judgement is as apparent now as it was at the time of the discharge hearing."

At both these hearings, an extra $500 -- to cover the legal fees of his ex-wife, who vigorously opposed his bankruptcy -- was added to Jim's debt. The judge decreed that the now nearly $13,000 Jim owed would be deducted in $100 instalments from every pay cheque for the next six years, leaving him about $650 a month to live on.

Less than two weeks after he lost the appeal, Jim's family buried him in a Regina cemetery. Neither his former wife nor his children attended his funeral.

Three years after Andrew Renouf asphyxiated himself in his car near Markham, Ont., because he, too, could see no way out, a small group of people held a memorial service outside the provincial support-enforcement office.

During his sermon, Rev. Alan Stewart, of Toronto's Westview Presbyterian Church, made the following remarks: "The terrible reality of this story is that everyone lost. A daughter lost her father, a former wife lost her support, society lost a good and productive member and Andrew lost the most precious thing: his life. Surely a system that makes everyone a loser has got to be wrong."

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National Post
Saturday, March 25, 2000

Second wives' club
Donna Laframboise

Treating divorced men harshly is often justified in the name of supporting women and children. But the offspring, female relatives and second wives of these men are profoundly harmed by the current state of affairs. Many second marriages, for example, don't survive the associated stress. What follows are observations and insights (from interviews, e-mails and letters) that I've received from members of the second-wives' club, the women who are not generally heard from in discussions of divorce.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I cannot live like this anymore. Bio-mom tells my husband when he shall be a father (when she needs a sitter). Bio-mom was the one who wanted the divorce, bio-mom never got up with the babies, bio-mom gets $1200 /month tax free for three kids (one is 16 and doesn't even live with her).

Bio-mom has lied to the kids, gotten the kids to lie to us, has left 8- and 9-year-old at home alone on a Saturday night. She's done some damage, and it's only going to get worse. Why are the good fathers getting put in the same category as the deadbeats? God, is there someone out there who can help?

We just want a little fairness, maybe joint custody or equal access. They are half his, too!

Barbara, Manitoba

I don't like speaking in front of people, and when I went to the [1998 federal hearings on child custody and access] it was the hardest thing I ever did. I had been told it would be 10 people in a room, but it was a media frenzy: hundreds of people, cameras, you name it. What I told myself was: 'I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this so the next sucker down the road gets fair treatment.' It's too late for us, but hopefully it won't happen to somebody else.

In the end, it's his [adult] daughter who has paid the highest price. That's what I said in my speech, when I couldn't get my last line out because I had too big a lump. The victims in this case are my children, myself, my husband, but ultimately the biggest victim here is his daughter. Because the system gave her an incentive to turn her back on the person that raised and cared for her. Her father is a good man, but she's doing without him as an adult.

Mrs. R, Ontario

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In Oct. 1998, my husband fell off a roof while working (he's a self-employed carpenter) and broke both his heels. We had always paid child support of $200 a month for the past seven years -- and we have the receipts to prove it. But when he fell, I had been unemployed for about a year. He couldn't pay his child support because he had nothing: no pogey, no insurance, no compensation.

Well, that didn't seem to bother his ex. In fact, in the middle of all this, she announced she was moving to Toronto and needed MORE child support! We felt like we were dealing with somebody in outer space, since he was in a wheelchair and couldn't even wash his hair or go to the bathroom. He's just starting to get around now, but he'll never walk normally and never be a carpenter again.

Long story short, in Oct. 1999 we had to go to court and pay $500 to get the payments reduced. The only reason we were able to do so is I found a full-time job and we were able to convince a lawyer that we would pay him in increments. But the court order was PROVISIONAL, so until it goes through the Ontario courts, which could be months, he is still labeled a Deadbeat who owes one year's worth of child support which is going up every month.

Melynda, New Brunswick

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I have reached the end of my rope over this situation and I don't know whom else to talk to. I married my husband in 1990. Even in those early days, there were constant legal battles with his first wife over child support and visitation. His first wife made false allegations, withheld visitation and generally harassed us.

On one occasion she came unannounced to my house when my husband was at work and abandoned her then 6-year-old daughter, telling me: 'take her, she's yours.' It was not until 12 hours later that she sent her boyfriend to pick up the child.

On another occasion she kicked our front door with enough force to crack it. [On another] she told me she would 'destroy my life, my career, and my marriage.' Little did I know then that that is precisely what she would end up doing.

After eight-and-a-half years of his preoccupation with his first wife, the final straw came in September 1998. It was [this judgment] that caused me to file for a separation. Had I known that his first wife could continually go to court and ask for and get increases by judges who were sympathetic to her lies and allegations, I would never have married him.

Mrs. O, Ontario

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VANCOUVER PROVINCE
Friday, March 24, 2000

"Dads risk suicide in custody fights"

Clare Ogilvie
Staff Reporter The Province
Colin Price, The Province

Judicial discretion is narrowed by Ottawa's financial guidelines, introduced in 1998, says retired justice Lloyd McKenzie, spokesman for the B.C. Supreme Court.

Fathers fighting for custody of their kids often consider suicide when times are tough.

"Seventy per cent of the fathers I talk to seriously think of suicide," said Paul Hidlebaugh, who used to run an advocacy group for children in custody battles and is an advocate of fathers' rights.

The Chilliwack father was saddened but not surprised by the suicide of Darrin White.

White, of Prince George, was in a difficult custody and divorce case and was facing a spousal assault charge when he hanged himself this month.

Hidlebaugh said fathers feel the justice system is unfairly biased toward women, making it almost impossible for men to get fair access to children or to pay reasonable support.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks is the difficulty fathers have in getting joint custody, which is available only if both sides agree.

"Lawyers tell their female clients not to agree to joint custody because it can limit the amount of support they can get from the father," said Hidlebaugh.

Since guidelines were introduced in May 1998, support for children has been based on the gross income of the payer, generally the father.

"That's ludicrous," said Hidlebaugh, who was left with only $500 a month for rent and expenses by court order.

Jeffrey Asher, a professor at Dawson College in Montreal and an expert on men and suicides, believes the stress of separation and divorce is just too much for some men.

"This is a grim decision. When fathers lose their function as fathers, or are replaced by the new partner, the devastating loss deprives some of them of all hope for the future."

The suicide rate for divorced dads is twice that of divorced moms.

Frightening facts like this prompted the federal government to overhaul the Divorce Act and change income tax laws in 1997.

Said retired B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lloyd McKenzie, now a spokesman for the court: "The guidelines are an effort by the federal government to simplify things . . . but it is not easy stuff by a long shot.

"The most difficult part of the judge's job in this type of case is to decide on issues of credibility because the judge hears different versions of the facts and the judge must decide where the truth lies."

In the Prince George case, White's supporters say a court order to pay support totalling more than twice his earnings drove him to suicide.

But, said McKenzie, the judge could only use the guidelines and go on the evidence, which showed that White's average annual earnings were $60,000. The low income at the time of the case was due to a stress leave expected to last only a few weeks, the judge found.

Said McKenzie: "While there is always room for discretion the amount of judicial discretion is narrowed by the guidelines."

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The Prince George Free Press
Thursday, March 23, 2000

JUSTICE SYSTEM PUSHED FATHER

Daughter says dad was a victim of "sexist" courts

By Michell Lang free Press staff writer

The daughter of a Prince George man who committed suicide in the face of a nasty divorce battle says the justice system is sexist and needs to do more to help men.

Thirty four year-old Darrin Bruce White, a locomotive engineer, hung himself in the woods close to the University of Northern B.C. on March 11.

Mr. White took his life after the court ordered him out of his house with two days notice and asked him to pay three-quarters of his income to his ex-wife and three children, according to the Parent and Child Advocacy Coalition, a local divorce lobby group that was assisting Mr. White.

His daughter from a previous marraige, 14 year-old Ashlee Barnett-White, says her father simply couldn't fight the system.

"I am angry at the justice system... No one would listen to my father, no one would give him a chance to speak. In this century everyone hears the woman and not the man. This is a sexist matter that needs to be dealt with," writes Ms. White in an e-mail.

Todd Eckert, president of the Parent and Child Advocacy Coalition, agrees with Ms. White's observations, saying Mr. White's death is directly related to the divorce action, which was biased in favour of his ex-wife. Mr. Eckert notes that there were at least three court proceedings against Mr. White including criminal charges and that he had appeared before the courts as many as eight times in two weeks.

"This could happen to anybody, any happily married family that goes through a brutally nasty divorce. You lose your house, you lose everything you've ever worked for. Finally Mr. White lost his life, "says Mr. Eckert.

Mr. Eckert says this issue is a national epidemic and divorce battles like Mr. White's happen every week. His group advocates for reforms to the system, sayng there should be shared parenting legistlation in place and revisions to child support guidlines. He argues that under the current guidlines, sposal support is in essence included in child support but that spousal support is often awarded in addition.

But Madeline white, Mr. White's ex-wife, does not believe the court proceedings were the reason for Mr. White's death. She says he had been depressed for a year and believes his mental illness may have been the reason for his suicide. She says he was able to make the support payments, but he hadn't. In fact, Ms. White says he paid her children only $20 since January.

Ms. White believes the Parent and Child Advocacy coalition protects "deadbeat dads" who don't want to pay child support and she believes they hurt, not helped her ex-husband.

"I explained to my kids that they need both parents. But thanks to this coalition they don't have both parents anymore," she says.

Whether Mr. White's problems were personal or the result of the system in crisis, the Parent and Child Advocacy Coalition wants answers about his suicide. Mr. Eckert and Peter Ostrowski, a policy instructor at UNBC, are asking the coroner to conduct a public inquest into Mr. White's death to see if his divorce played a role. Mr.Eckert also wants a judicial review of the judge presiding over the case.

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The Blaine Tanner "Deadbeat Dad" Story and Related Articles

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The Toronto Star
Saturday, March 30, 2000

Taking more responsibility for deadbeats

WHY DO WE call them deadbeats, when they are very much alive - simply hiding from their responsibilities to their children?

In the wake of Star investigations into three deadbeat dads, this newspaper has been deluged with hundreds of calls and e-mails from parents detailing their nightmares.

By Dale Brazao
Toronto Star Investigative Reporter

Ordinary people, at their wits' end, begging for help.

And with 128,000 deadbeats in the province owing more than $1.2 billion in child and spousal support, that makes for a lot of heartache.

Their stories are painful: one parent struggling to make ends meet on welfare while the deadbeat dad lives in a mansion and drives a fancy sports car; a father who moved all his assets into his parents' names to keep them from his ex-wife and four children; the dud who doesn't pay his parking fines, let alone put 50 bucks in an envelope for the daughter he hasn't seen in at least six years.

Since The Star detailed these cases, all three men have been served with notices for default hearings by the Family Responsibility Office, whose job it is to enforce the support orders.

``If The Star can find these people, why can't the government?'' asks Renate Diorio, founder of the 500-member Families Against Deadbeats.

Good question.

Take the case of Mark Suddick, who owes his ex-wife Harriett Levesque and daughter Valerie more than $103,000. The province had written him off and sent Harriett a letter saying that even a collection agency could not locate him or any of his assets.

The Star found him in Markham, where he had been working as a parts delivery man for more than a year. Suddick, who has made only one payment of $140 in the past eight years, has now made two in the past month - one for $154 and another for $124.

``He's supposed to pay me $855 a month, but any amount is welcome when you haven't received anything in eight years,'' Levesque said yesterday. ``It couldn't come at a better time. I'm unemployed, my benefits haven't kicked in and my car just died.''

Esther Davids says she is at the end of her rope after pursuing her ex-husband Marvin through the courts for the past five years in an attempt to make him pay the $84,000 owed to her and their four children.

Marvin Davids was ordered in 1998 to pay child and spousal support of $5,500 a month. At the time of their divorce, the courts said, he was making about $168,000 a year. Marvin appealed, lost, then filed for bankruptcy. So far he has paid her a total of $550 since November.

``I guess he wants to see me on welfare. And that's where I might end up if the courts can't make him pay what he owes us.''

The most poignant case is that of Blaine Tanner, who is living the good life in Cleveland while his former wife and three children make do on government assistance in Brampton.

But now that The Star has exposed his life of luxury, a judge has ordered him to pay $1,900 a month on an interim basis until the courts deal with the $500,000 he owes in arrears.

``The system is designed to protect the deadbeat,'' Esther Davids says.

Even the Privacy Act works against spouses who are owed money. While encouraged to provide all the information they can on their errant exes, they are not entitled to know what the province is doing to collect their money.

Attorney-General Jim Flaherty admits the system could work better. He wants to close the books on some 42,000 cases where payments are being made regularly. But critics say that's a shell game and not a solution.

The answer may lie in tougher enforcement and tax breaks. More suspension of passports and drivers' licences. Make the payments tax-deductible to encourage full compliance.

But first the government has to find them. And if it's unwilling to put in the time to track down deadbeats, as The Star did, it should turn that job over to the private sector.

***************

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The Toronto Star
Saturday, March 25, 2000

Ohio backs Ontario's pursuit of deadbeat dad

`Never had a case where someone owes so much'

By Patricia Orwen and Dale Brazao
Toronto Star Staff Reporters

The heat is on the deadbeat on both sides of the border.

Ohio officials say they plan to force Blaine Tanner to pay child support, immediately after they were alerted - and embarrassed - by media reports of his luxurious life in a posh Cleveland suburb.

``I've been in this job 14 years, and I've never had a case where someone owes so much,'' said Bob Grano, a government lawyer in Cuyahoga County.

Tanner, 47, owes his three children, who live in Brampton with his ex-wife, more than $500,000 in arrears.

An Ontario judge this week ordered the former Brampton millionaire to pay $1,900 a month on an interim basis until a final ruling is made.

But even before the judge's ruling, lawyers with the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office had moved on Tanner, after learning he hadn't paid his kids a penny in nine years.

Tanner was advised this week that the prosecutor's office would begin demanding a portion of his $5,400-a-month salary and sending the money to Ontario for his children, two of whom are disabled.

His Cleveland lawyer has 20 days to file a notice of objection to the county's decision. Grano said the county will also attempt to file the 1991 Ontario court order that ordered Tanner to pay $4,000 monthly.

Ohio is one of many U.S. states that have signed a reciprocal agreement with Ontario to prevent debtors from fleeing their responsibilities by moving across the border.

``Even if we can't collect the $4,000 a month from the first court order, we will collect the $1,900 a month,'' said Grano, adding that his office was unaware of the Tanner case until The Star, and later the Cleveland Plain Dealer, reported it.

Tanner moved to Ohio after marrying prominent Cleveland civil rights lawyer Ellen Simon in December, 1997.

He kept his new life and new wife a secret from his ex-wife and children.

Tanner returned to Canada last week to hear his Toronto lawyer, Harold Niman, argue that the 1991 order is unenforceable because it is ``contrary to public policy.''

Tanner now says he is willing to pay child support but wants the $500,000 in arrears wiped out. His debt makes him one of the worst of the province's 128,000 deadbeats, who collectively owe their spouses and children more than $1.2 billion.

Justice Jack Belleghem ordered Tanner to start paying $1,900 a month and gave him 10 days to pay his ex-wife $9,740 in arrears.

The matter of whether the 1991 order is enforceable goes back to court in Milton April 26.

During his visit to Canada, Tanner also was slapped with a subpoena from Ontario's Family Responsibility Office to attend a default hearing to explain why he ignored the order to pay support. That hearing is slated for April 28 in Brampton.

Tanner was convicted of tax evasion in 1994 and fraud-related charges in 1975. He declared bankruptcy in 1996 and continued to claim poverty.

But last month, a Toronto Star reporter found him living in a stately Georgian-style house in Shaker Heights, Cleveland's poshest neighbourhood, and driving to his job as a financier in a $50,000 Volvo.

His lifestyle contrasts dramatically with that of his former wife, Pamela Tanner, and their three children, who have been on welfare since 1992, the year Tanner left for England with his girlfriend.

He returned to Canada in 1994 to begin serving a six-month sentence for tax evasion. He was also ordered to pay a $100,000 fine or face another six months in jail.

Justice officials say Tanner never paid the $100,000, but they're at a loss to explain why he was not jailed again. Tanner received a pardon from the National Parole Board last June.

U.S. Immigration officials in Cleveland told The Star they have reopened Tanner's file and are checking the information he provided in his application for permanent residency and a work permit.

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The Toronto Star
Saturday, March 23, 2000

Judge orders errant father to start paying up
By Dale Brazao and Patricia Orwen
Toronto Star Staff Reporters

A former Brampton millionaire who has not paid a penny in child support in the last nine years has been ordered to pay his three children $1,900 a month until a judge makes a final ruling on the case.

Blaine Tanner, 47, also was slapped with a subpoena from the province's Family Responsibility Office yesterday ordering him to appear at a default hearing in a Brampton court next month.

Tanner's child-support arrears total more than $500,000, plus interest. The massive debt earns him the dubious distinction of being among the top six of Ontario's 128,000 deadbeat parents.

``Mr. Tanner does not come to court with clean hands,'' Mr. Justice Jack Belleghem said yesterday in the Superior Court of Justice in Milton.

Tanner was in court yesterday to argue that the 1991 court-ordered child support - $4,000 a month - was invalid, and therefore the $500,000 arrears should be wiped out.

Convicted of tax evasion in 1994 and fraud-related charges in 1975, Tanner has over the years claimed he was too poor to support his children - two of whom are disabled.

Just last month Tanner claimed he was unemployed and had no money, but a Toronto Star reporter found him living in a stately Georgian-style house in the posh Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights with his new wife, prominent civil rights lawyer Ellen Simon.

The Star interviewed Tanner just after he arrived at work in a $50,000 black Volvo.

Yesterday, Belleghem said he was put in a position of imputing Tanner's income, due to the lack of financial disclosure. The judge calculated that Tanner earns $125,000 a year, based on Tanner's own court affidavit stating that he is now ``drawing'' $5,400 U.S. a month from one of his companies, Guardian Capital.

After allowing for conversion to Canadian funds and income tax, Belleghem arrived at a yearly salary of $125,000.

Yesterday the judge deferred the issue of the validity of the 1991 child-support order until April 26, but ordered Tanner to pay - within 10 days - $9,740 in child support and $15,000 as a security deposit to his former wife, Pamela Tanner.

Tanner's ex-wife and three children have been subsisting on government assistance since 1992.

``It's been a living hell,'' Pamela Tanner, 45, told reporters. ``We went from living in a million-dollar home with an indoor pool to welfare.

``It is really inconceivable that a father would not have to pay any child support and would evade his responsibilities all these years. He's got money for one of the top lawyers in Toronto and basically he's supporting the lawyers' children and not his own.''

Tanner sat stonefaced in the front row of the court as his lawyer, Harold Niman, said the 1991 child-support order was structured so that Pamela Tanner could avoid paying income tax on it.

Niman said the support order was ``contrary to public policy'' and ``must be declared void and unenforceable.''

The judge said he was ``completely flabbergasted'' by Niman's arguments, adding he was having trouble seeing the judgment as a deliberate attempt to beat the taxman. ``The bottom line is that your client (Blaine Tanner) had to pay that tax,'' said Belleghem.

Before the proceedings were finished, Tanner left the courthouse trailed by reporters, including one from a Cleveland newspaper.

``This is a matrimonial matter,'' Tanner said.

Niman later told reporters he had been instructed to settle the case and hoped Pamela Tanner will retain a lawyer to expedite the matter. But Tanner's ex-wife, who has been representing herself, told court she couldn't afford a lawyer.

Yesterday Tanner complied with a February court order to pay $15,000 to Pamela Tanner for reimbursement of expenses and $10,000 to the Ministry of Community and Social Services. If Tanner pays the $500,000 he owes under the terms of the support order, $150,000 will go to the ministry to cover the cost of supporting the Tanner children on welfare.

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The Toronto Star
March 11, 2000

Canada, U.S. reopen file on deadbeat dad
- Canada, U.S. reopen file on deadbeat dad
- Revelations of criminal record pique interest

By Dale Brazao and Patricia Orwen
Toronto Star Staff Reporters

Federal authorities in Canada and the United States say they are reopening their files on an Ontario deadbeat dad who owes more than $500,000 in support to his three children.

Blaine Alfred Tanner, who emigrated to the United States after marrying a prominent Cleveland lawyer in late 1997, has a criminal record in Canada for fraud and income tax evasion.

American officials now want to know how he explained his criminal history - which normally prevents entry into the U.S. - in his application for permanent residency.

A Star investigation last Saturday exposed Tanner as one of Canada's top deadbeat dads.

Provincial officials say he ranks in the top six of the province's 128,000 deadbeats, who collectively owe more than $1.2 billion.

The province's Family Responsibility Office has revoked Tanner's passport but has never been able to collect a cent from him in the nine years since a judge ordered him to pay his kids $4,000 a month.

The Star investigation also disclosed Tanner's record of fraud-related offences dating back to 1975, and that has prompted U.S. immigration officials to review his immigration file, said Mark Hansen, district director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

``There are certain offences that preclude you, even if you are married to a U.S. citizen,'' Hansen told The Star.

Tanner served just two months of the six-month sentence after pleading guilty to evading more than $360,000 in income tax in connection with $1.3 million in federal tax credits.

He was given three years to pay the fine or go back to jail.

``This article has reopened the whole issue (of Tanner's unpaid fine for tax evasion),'' said Janet Henchey, the federal government lawyer who prosecuted Tanner.

The former Brampton millionaire declared bankruptcy in 1996 and has claimed ever since that he has had no money - and basically no job - to support his children, two of whom are handicapped.

And while Tanner lives in the lap of luxury with his new wife, Cleveland civil rights lawyer Ellen Simon, his ex-wife Pam Tanner and his three children are subsisting on government disability assistance in Brampton.

The 46-year-old financier claimed in a November, 1999 affidavit: ``I am not even employed,'' adding he is completely dependent on Simon for financial support.

A month ago, his Toronto lawyer, Donald LeFeuvre, was before a judge in a Brampton court saying his client ``does not have any source of income.''

Two days later, Tanner's Cleveland lawyer, Neil Gurney, faxed a letter to The Star warning the newspaper not to publish any article on Tanner saying: ``Mr. Tanner has been, and continues to be involved in various business transactions.''

In a telephone interview yesterday, Gurney said Tanner's circumstances have changed between his affidavit of Nov. 30 and his letter of Feb. 11, and he is now working.

In a bid to wipe out his $501,000 plus interest in support arrears, Tanner's ninth lawyer in nine years will argue in an Ontario court later this month that Tanner is too poor to pay.

Meanwhile, The Star has learned that Tanner contacted Royal & SunAlliance this week and moved more than $272,000 out of an account with that insurance company.

The money was held in Simon's name.

Officials at Royal & SunAlliance told The Star the company has ``withdrawn sponsorship'' of Tanner's licence to sell life insurance and investments, over the lack of business he brought in during the last two years.

Eric Langille, who managed a Royal & SunAlliance branch in Dartmouth, N.S., said last year he considered taking Tanner as a partner in his company, Maritime Financial Services.

Langille said he understood Tanner had something to do with an ``investment operation of lawyers'' and once worked as fund manager for an investment company in Europe.

The two discussed a deal to move hundreds of millions of dollars in pension money from the U.S. into Canada, Langille said.

But Langille's query to the National Parole Board in April, 1999, as to whether Tanner had been pardoned was never answered, and the deal didn't materialize, he said.