Canadian Federal Justice and corresponding Provincial departments have produced a child support payment report recommending overriding divorce court settlements, previously agreed by both parties, lawyers and courts, raising child support awards by an average of 30 percent. A Toronto Globe and Mail story of Jan 27, 1995 says Justice Minister Allan Rock's proposed formula would increase average payments by non-custodial parents with incomes of $30,000 by up to 65 percent.
An alliance of father's groups, non-custodial parents' organizations, co-parenting associations, grandparents' groups and second spouses associations have formed an alliance, called the NAANCP to fight for a fair and reasonable alternative to Federal Justice Minister Allan Rock's feminist plan. The NAANCP, National Alliance for the Advancement of Non-Custodial Parents aims to help represent the views of non-custodial parents and the children's rights to support and parenting from both parents The interests of children of divorce is our first priority. NAANCP submitted a brief to the Canadian Ministry of Justice on the importance of non-adversarial, negotiated approaches to co-parenting after divorce. NAANCP sought intervenor status on behalf of non-custodial parents and fathers in the important Thibaudeau case at the Supreme Court, however, the Supreme Court was only allowed to hear from women's groups representing only custodial parents. NAANCP also sent a brief to the United National on the 1994 International Year of the Family, making a case that Canada's treatment of non- custodial parents violates Canada's commitment under the convention of the Rights of the Child to both parents.
We see the following problems with the Allan Rock formula:
This formula has been developed with no consultation with organizations representing non-custodial parents. Furthermore neither the federal nor the provincial governments have any mechanisms for seeking input from those expected to pay this increase.
The plan doesn't take into consideration income of custodial parents. Any rational plan for child support would require both parents to take responsibility for child support, and consider both their incomes. Revenue Canada reports that a majority of divorcing parents have incomes in the same tax bracket. Yet this plan ignores the income of the custodial parent. For example, one non-custodial father said his annual income was $92,000 but his semi-monthly net pay after deducting child support was $700. His ex-spouse, remarried, has a family income of over $250,000. Imagine the effect of a 30 percent increase in child support on this father. Let us not forget that the custodial parent has the benefit of all the child tax credits and equivalent to married deductions. A non-custodial parent paying support has none of these credits or deductions, even if caring for the children most or all of the time.
This increase is beyond the ability to pay for most non-custodial parents: responses from our members who are expected to pay this increase show virtually all say a 30 percent increase will be beyond their ability to pay. Most say their children will suffer serious deprivations during their parenting due to the loss of this money could leave them homeless and destitute. Many non-custodial parents complain that this money, which they are forced to pay to government bureaucrats, even if they have never missed or delayed a payment, bears no relation to the actual cost of raising children. They say there is no way to ensuring how this increased money will be spent, never mind any accounting for what existing "support" is spent on.
A political reality is that for every parent receiving support, one is paying. Receiving more typically doesn't bring votes on election day custodial parents are renowned for being ungrateful. But every man -- and it is almost exclusively men who are currently paying the higher support awards--who can't pay 30-65 percent more and is jailed, has a mother and father, sisters and friends, perhaps a second wife and stepchildren, all of whom will remember the politician who voted for the straw which broke the camel's back. Will these people pay higher taxes for the government bureaucrats to enforce 30-65 percent increases?
No relationship to marginal costs of raising children: the proposed formula for one child is based on Statistics Canada figures for two adults. Assuming that a couple with one child needs 30 percent more income than a childless couple, governments have arbitrarily decided that existing child support amounts should be increased by 30 percent. Extending this illogic, the Justice study has concluded that, without allowing for regional variations in housing, food or other costs across Canada, it costs almost fourteen times as much to raise a child if the father's income is $120,000 and he has one child, compared to a non-custodial parent with 3 kids and income of $20,000. The study suggests minimum child support of $44,848 for three children when fathers are in a 48 percent tax bracket. This sounds more like a good salary for the custodial parent than the actual costs. Canada's experiences in native residential schools, when children were taken from caring parents, and scandals in orphanages in Quebec, when custodial religious orders declared children mentally retarded to get more support money, should give us pause if we think that children should be raised by those doing it for the money rather than two self-supporting parents.
No one can doubt that this proposal targets fathers. Increasingly, fathers are defined by their cash surrender value, rather than the parenting they do. Rock's plan defines child support in terms of how much more money women can expect from men. When Rock's proposal proves unworkable, we can expect an increase in custodial parents denying access to non-custodial parents in revenge or to pressure for payments higher than ordered by the Courts. According to the Canadian Department of Justice, there are already more court cases in Ontario about fathers seeking to see their children than mothers seeking support. With this proposal, we can expect the courts to be even more clogged with access disputes and children disadvantaged through lack of access to their fathers, depriving children of their fathers contrary to Canada's commitment to the UN under the International Year of the Child.
While income taxes are generally higher than the U.S., Canada has a progressive tax system where fathers paying child support can deduct support payments from their income. Of course, mothers must declare this income, just like all other income, but the net result is usually tax savings for the separated family. You would think the feminist child support industry would be happy with this lower tax. No... Canada's four feminist lobby groups plus lawyers for a woman (Suzanne Thibaudeau) with $44,000 in annual income are being funded by the government to seek, at the Supreme Court level, tax exemption for women on child support. Fathers and non-custodial parents , who would have to pick up the tax slack, have not been allowed representation in the Court action. Fairness demands that Justice Minister Allan Rock wait for the Supreme Court decision on taxability of child support income before increasing child support, if for no other reason than if a non-custodial parent had to pay the proposed increase out of after tax income, the total could be greater than his net income. Yet Allan Rock and Finance Minister Martin have promised feminist special interest lobby groups that, no matter what the Supreme Court decision, they will improve the tax situation for women.
If fathers must pay 30 percent more, they will have to work at least 30 percent more, leaving them much less time to parent their children. Thus women will have to do more parenting, leaving less time to seek full-time jobs, so the Rock proposal will backfire by making mothers more dependent and fathers more absent. The less a non-custodial parent is involved in the life of the child, the higher the support default rate.
We have a model of the family which works: both mother and father share parenting, support, rights and responsibilities. The further we get from this model, the more dysfunctional are the children.
Next issue, A workable model
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