Canada: Ontario doubles jail time for deadbeat parents

Jun. 9, 2005. 06:25 PM

Ontario doubles jail time for deadbeat parents


FROM CANADIAN PRESS

Deadbeat parents in Ontario who fail to pay court-ordered support payments
could spend up to six months in jail - and lose their hunting and fishing
licences - under tough legislation passed today.
Changes to the Family Responsibility and Support Arrears Enforcement Act
passed third and final reading by 70 to two today in a deferred vote in the
provincial legislature.

About 1,500 parents in Ontario spend time behind bars each year for failing
to pay support and Social Services Minister Sandra Pupatello said the
previous three-month maximum term wasn't enough of a deterrent.

"The jail terms always related to people who have the means to pay but
don't," she said after the bill passed.

"People were actually choosing to go in (for) 90 days and walk away, and
still haven't paid. So, by doubling that time we think that is a much bigger
chunk out of an individual's year."

But NDP Leader Howard Hampton said what's needed is more staff at the family
responsibility office and a better computer system, not more jail time for
deadbeats.

"The reality is, you do not have enough staff to handle the casework and you
don't have the kind of information system that allows you to keep track of
things," said Hampton.

"You can talk about putting people in jail and taking away their hunting
licence and their fishing license and, frankly, that's all a bunch of
nonsense."

Deadbeat parents in Ontario owe at least $1.2 billion in support payments to
their former spouses and children, although activists estimate the total is
closer to $1.6 billion.

The changes also allow the government to post pictures of those who shirk
their support duties on a website - something Alberta already does.

But Pupatello said that tactic will be held in reserve while the province
figures out the best way to track deadbeats.

"We needed the law to allow us to do that. We hope not to go there," she
said.

The government previously had the power to suspend the driver's licences of
deadbeat parents. The changes allow for the province to also suspend their
hunting and fishing licences.

Authorities also have more power to track deadbeat parents by demanding
personal information from their associates, including those who have a
financial relationship with them and trade unions.

To improve efficiency, the family responsibility office will now require a
delinquent parent's employer to send payments to the office electronically,
and to require direct deposits for recipients.

The law also allows the government to stop enforcing child-support payments
when the recipient doesn't respond to inquiries, and to cut payments off
once a child is no longer eligible.

The legislation will be phased in over the next 24 months as the government
overhauls the problem-plagued computer system that handles delinquent
parents.

The provincial ombudsman reported last year that the failure to properly
enforce court-ordered support payments was pushing some single parents and
their children onto welfare. Most of the problems were blamed on a computer
system the government had been promising to fix since 2001.

The Social Services Ministry said the Liberal government has made
improvements, including the installation of a new customer-service unit that
has handled almost 200,000 additional calls to the family responsibility
office since Feb., 2004 - a 36 per cent increase over previous service
levels.

The government said it managed to collect an additional $112 million by
warning deadbeat parents they would be reported to the credit bureau, which
would hurt their credit rating and make it more expensive, if not
impossible, to borrow money.

It also collected another $107.5 million by warning 7,498 drivers they were
about to have their driver's licenses suspended for failure to pay child
support.


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The only thing necessary for the triumph
of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Edmond Burke