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