| Myth: Fathers are more likely to not be paying child support. | Fact: 91% of separated and divorced custodial mothers get a court support order from the non-custodial father. Only 30% of separated and divorced custodial fathers get a support order from the mother. |
Source: 91%/30%=3x (From Finnie, Giliberti and Stripinis, Justice Canada, January 1995). The proportion of female lone parent families to male lone parent families (subtracting widows and widowers) is 3.5 to 1. But the proportion of men payors paying to women payors is 42 to 1. (Revenue Canada, Statistics Division). Women thus are about four times more likely to not be paying anything on a court judgment in a given tax year. (42/(3.5*3) = about 4 times).
Enforcement primarily targets those paying the most, those most successful at paying: men. Licenses targeted for suspension in C-41 are those where over 90% of the license holders are men. When enforcement is perceived as discriminatory, the law will become unenforceable and costs of enforcement out of control.
| Myth: Men's income increases after divorce. | Fact: According to Vanier Institute of the Family, divorced men's income is lower than married men by an average of $3,000. |
| Myth: Women's income decreases after divorce. | Fact: According to Vanier Institute of the Family, divorced women's income is higher than married women by an average of $3,000. |
| Myth: men can afford higher and higher support payments. | Fact : men's income has not kept up with inflation and taxes according to Statistics Canada. Since many court judgments are based on a man's income before divorce, and are often indexed to inflation, gradually men are less and less able to pay higher and higher support payments. Thus some fall into unintentional default. |
| Myth: Men are increasingly evading child support. | Fact: Men's child support paid higher, stable, and rising. Figures for support paid by men (child and spousal support recorded as alimony deduction) (Source: Revenue Canada, Statistics Division, gender breakdown for 99%+ of taxpayers from all Canada.) |
| 1989 | $1,414,071,000 | Percent increase |
| 1990 | $1,519,854,000 | 7.0% |
| 1991 | $1,630,699,000 | 6.8% |
| 1992 | $1,758,948,000 | 7.3% |
| Myth: Federal government figures show all shild support paid. | Fact: Actual child support by fathers is higher than above figures show.. If paid to provincial government agencies for women on welfare, men can lose the tax deduction. Actual amount of support paid may be 15% (Source: staff at Alberta Government Maintenance Support) to 30% (Source: Edmonton parents' group claimed to be based on government figures [unverified]) on top of above figures which would mean the actual figure for support paid by men is over $2 billion yearly. |
| Myth: If women are not receiving support payments, it is because men are not paying. | Fact: Ontario's Provincial Support Maintenance Enforcement shows widespread non payment number of cases and dollar figures rising much faster than Revenue Canada deductions and income figures show. E.g. Ontario figures show 1992-93 +33.3%; 1993-4 +34.3%; 1994-5 +23.4% compared to increases of 6% and 7% per year as shown by Revenue Canada deduction figures. Conclusion: child support is increasingly used by provincial governments as a "cash crop" to fund welfare and other government programmes. Higher and higher proportions of child support goes to government rather than to women or children. The rising number of cases shows government may actually cause more problems than it solves. Governments may have a vested interest in default since this default forces fathers to pay in after-tax dollars and it provides a "politically-correct" source of revenue which is not viewed as a tax increase. |
| Myth: Rising provincial "Arrears" amounts are an indication of serious evasion problems by fathers. | Fact: In Ontario, the "arrears" amount claimed has doubled in four years, from $450 million to $900 million. This means yearly increases of 20-25%. However, Ontario figures show yearly increases in collections in 1992-93 of +33.3%; 1993-4 +34.3%; 1994-5 +23.4%. Is it realistic to expect fathers, whose average wage increases are less than 3% (before taxes and inflation) to pay provincial expections rising at 40-50% per year? |
| Myth: "up to 75% of support is not paid" (Justice Minister Allan Rock) | Fact: Average court judgment in 1991: $4411 (Finnie, Gilliberti,Stripinis report to Justice Canada in January 1995). Average support amount paid by men in 1991 according to Revenue Canada: $4883. (The few women who paid in that year only paid an average of $2758.) Mr.Rock has been unable to document his claim against men, which he has used in the House of Commons and at press conferences. News media have repeated this "up to 75%" claim without checking it and with no evidence whatsoever to back this up. |
| Myth: Mothers not paying support is not a problem. | Fact: Number of single fathers receiving child support: 6,760 (1992, Revenue Canada, Statistics Division), about 4%. Thus, support non-payment by mothers may be as high as 96% A study of single fathers and reasons for non-payment of support is urgently needed. |
| Myth: Support collection and court orders don't discriminate against fathers with custody. | Fact: Total support paid by women to single fathers in 1992: $18,314,000 or about 1% of total support. (Revenue Canada, Statistics Division). With 170,000 lone parent families headed by men, the average single father gets only $100 per year or about 6 or 7 dollars per month per child. ($18 million/170,000=$109.) There is no mechanism for ensuring that single custodial fathers get equal proportion of orders, amounts of judgments, collection or payments under federal, provincial guidelines or support administration. |
| Myth: Support always goes to the parent with the children. | Fact: Number of single fathers eligible for equivalent to married tax deduction: 78,000 (1995, HRD Canada). Male custodial parents are ineligible for tax exemptions probably because they are paying support. Thus up to 92,000 separated custodial fathers pay support in addition to being the primary care-giving parent. (I have yet to find a case of a woman having to face this double disadvantage). These families and their children would be further impoverished by higher taxes on support payments. |
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