Report shows that Canada's child support guidelines fueling court conflict, unfairness and throwing child support payers into poverty while support

(April 12, 2009) A new report just released by the Family Justice Review Committee shows the financial figures behind why so many non custodial parents are being forced into poverty and made into deadbeat parents. All readers are urged to spread copies of this report around to members of the public so that the public will begin to understand that in many cases, deadbeat parents are created by Canada's oppressive and unconstitutional child support guidelines. Non custodial parents are in many cases, thrown into poverty and simply are unable to pay because the guidelines are grossly unfair and one sided. The figures show that in Canada, there is no equality, fairness or justice when it comes to the way that child support payers are treated. Australia has adopted a much more fair child support formula while Canada lags behind the rest of the world and allows its children and families to be persecuted and destroyed under the guise of "child support".

Link to report in pdf format only

Source: http://www.canadacourtwatch.com/

NB Report of the Access to Family Justice Task Force

NB Report of the Access to Family Justice Task Force

Presented to the Minister of Justice and Consumer Affairs
The Honourable Thomas

In February of 2008, Justice and Consumer Affairs Minister T.J. Burke announced the appointment of a Task Force to examine the issues and challenges faced by the Family Division of the Court of Queen’s Bench.

Led by Justice Raymond Guerette of Campbellton, the seven-member task force included Michelle Boudreau-Dumas of Campbellton; Sheila Cameron of Moncton; Jennifer Donovan of Fredericton; Mary-Eileen Flanagan of Saint John; David Lutz, Q.C. of Hampton; and Brenda Noble, Q.C. of Saint John.


The Task Force was mandated to make recommendations to government that would lead to:

More timely access to justice in resolving family law disputes;

Expanded use of alternatives to the family court to resolve family law issues; and,

Increased access to legal information and legal assistance in family law matters.

The Report of the Access to Family Justice Task Force was tabled on June 2, 2009.

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Note: Below are the recommendations. The report appears to be an exercise on “dusting off” and rearranging the court furniture and changing the “emperor’s new clothes”. In other words, it lacks true substance and brings in more bureaucracies and government agencies to the nation’s bedrooms. Note that the task force lacked equal gender representation, made no emphasis on equal parenting as a presumption, dodged fairness in child support payments, (especially, when the custodial parent makes more than the non-custodial or non-residential parent), and the mention of parental alienation was like a ”flash in the pan”.

The report may be a start in the right direction but not as impressive as the photo op of the task force members.

I would like to hear your comments on this report.

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APPENDIX A: SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Endorse the Department of Social Development’s new model for resolution of child protection matters.
2. Create a separate court docket for child protection matters.
3. Create a separate Rule of Court for child protection matters.
4. Create benchmarks for process timelines.
5. Reduce the number of non-parent parties represented in child protection matters.
6. Implement legislative changes to:
a. define “all interested persons”
b. add a section on evidentiary requirements to the Family Services Act.
7. Implement settlement conferences as a precursor to trial.
8. In the very rare case where a child requires legal representation, it shall be provided by the Child and Youth Advocate.
9. The Family Services Act requires amendment to clearly define when it is appropriate to appoint legal representation for a child.
10. Provide public information and mandatory education regarding child and spousal
support.
11. Revise Rules 72 and 73 and the Family Court forms.
12. Create standard forms of orders to provide greater consistency.
13. Implement the new paradigm to provide a lean and fair system.
14. Implement a child/spousal support recalculation service.
15. Provide consensual dispute resolution options as alternatives to litigation in support matters.
16. Implement “Status of the Child” reports for child support files.
17. Provide public information and mandatory education regarding custody and access.
18. Implement a triage system of case management.
19. Expand and enhance the role of court social workers.
20. Provide consensual dispute resolution options for custody matters as alternatives to litigation.
21. Empower deputy sheriffs to enforce court orders.
22. Replace affidavits with a claim for relief in custody matters.
23. Revise Rule 72, Rule 73 and the Family Court forms.
24. Adopt higher threshold financial criteria for determining eligibility for Domestic Legal Aid, as recommended by the Review Panel.
25. Intake of clients should be done by Domestic Legal Aid lawyers who assist in the choice of process for dispute resolution.
26. Allow access to Domestic Legal Aid services for all components of a family law file.
27. Transfer support enforcement legal work to the Attorney General’s office.
28. Provide more Domestic Legal Aid staff and/or contractual lawyers.
29. A staff psychologist should be attached to the Court to prepare custody and access assessments.
30. Create a standard request form for psychological assessments.
31. Educate legal professionals at every stage of their careers in interest-based negotiation.
32. Introduce collaborative family law into the new model for child protection matters.
Report of the Access to Family Justice Task Force 61
33. Implement changes to Domestic Legal Aid to permit mediators more time to mediate.
34. Invest in administrative support, professional development and continuing education for mediators.
35. Establish mandatory courses at law schools and bar admission courses in interestbased negotiation.
36. Offer continuing education for judges and lawyers in a full range of dispute resolution processes.
37. Create new forms for Family Court in conjunction with the new paradigm.
38. Affidavits should be shorter and non-inflammatory and filed only after other forms of dispute resolution have been attempted.
39. Develop Rules to govern other dispute-resolution processes.
40. Adopt or create standard forms of court orders.
41. Make and enforce meaningful awards of costs.
42. Create a standing rules committee chaired by the Associate Chief Justice for Family Division.
43. Immediately appoint an Associate Chief Justice for Family Court.
44. Appoint three new Family Court judges.
45. Appoint masters to each judicial district.
46. Create and implement a province-wide computerized case management system.
47. Appoint a chief financial officer to be responsible for the budget and financial
management of the Court system.
48. Ensure a sufficient number of skilled administrative support staff.
49. Implement a workload assessment

Read full report PDF

Marriage Breakdown Costs Taxpayers at Least $112 Billion a Year

First-Time Research Reveals Staggering Annual Taxpayer Costs for Divorce and Unwed Childbearing

WASH. D.C. In first-ever research, a new report quantifies a minimum $112 billion annual taxpayer cost from high rates of divorce and unmarried childbearing. It identifies national, state and local costs which account for more than $1 trillion in the last decade. This landmark scholarly study, entitled “The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and All 50 States,” was released on April 15th at the National Press Club by four renowned policy and research groups—Institute for American Values, Georgia Family Council, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, and Families Northwest.

“This study documents for the first time, that divorce and unwed childbearing—besides being bad for children—are also costing taxpayers a ton of money,” said David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values. “Even a small improvement in the health of marriage in America would result in enormous savings to taxpayers,” he continued. “For example, a 1 percent reduction in rates of family fragmentation would save taxpayers $1.1 billion.”

“These costs are due to increased taxpayer expenditures for anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs, and through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals whose adult productivity has been negatively affected by increased childhood poverty caused by family fragmentation,” said principal investigator Ben Scafidi, Ph.D., economics professor at Georgia College & State University.

“Prior research shows that marriage lifts single mothers out of poverty and therefore reduces the need for costly social benefits,” said Scafidi. “This new report shows that public concern about the decline of marriage need not be based only on ‘moral’ concerns, but that reducing high taxpayer costs of family fragmentation is a legitimate concern of government, policymakers and legislators, as well as community reformers and faith communities.”

“This report now provides the basis for a national consensus that strengthening marriage is a legitimate policy concern,” said Blankenhorn. “The report’s numbers represent an extremely cautious estimate, a lower-bound figure, and have been vetted by a group of distinguished scholars and economists who have attached their names as advisors to this report.”

“These numbers represent real people and real suffering,” said Randy Hicks, president of Georgia Family Council. “Both economic and human costs make family fragmentation a legitimate public concern. Historically, Americans have resisted the impulse to surrender to negative and hurtful trends. We fight problems like racism, poverty and domestic violence because we understand that the stakes are high. And while we’ll never eliminate divorce and unwed childbearing entirely, we can certainly be doing more to help marriages and families succeed.”


Fact Sheet

The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing
First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and All 50 States *

Long-standing Research Shows:

• Over the last forty years, marriage has become less common and more fragile. Between 1970 and 2005, the proportion of children living with two married parents dropped from 85 percent to 68 percent, according to Census data. (page 7*)

• More than a third of all U.S. children are now born outside of wedlock, including 25 percent of non- Hispanic white babies, 46 percent of Hispanic babies, and 69 percent of African American babies. (page 7*)

• Potential risks to children raised in fragmented families have been identified to include poverty, mental illness, physical illness, infant mortality, lower educational attainment, juvenile delinquency, conduct disorders, adult criminality and early unwed parenthood. (page 9*)

• To the extent that family fragmentation causes negative outcomes for children and adults, it also leads to higher costs to taxpayers through higher spending on antipoverty programs and throughout the justice and educational systems, as well as losses to government coffers in foregone tax revenues. (page 9*)

• Marriage can help to reduce poverty because there are two potential wage earners in the home, because of economics of scale in the household, and possibly also because of changes in habits, values, and mores that occur when they get married. (page 10*)

• The idea that family fragmentation contributes to child poverty has been studied extensively and is widely accepted. (page 10*)

• Earlier studies conclude that marriage would reduce poverty among single mothers substantially, between 65 to 80 percent. (page 10-11*)

Calculating the Taxpayer Costs

• This report adopts the simplifying and extremely cautious assumption that all of the taxpayer costs of divorce and unmarried childbearing stem solely from the negative effects family fragmentation has on poverty in female-headed households. (page 12*)

• Several calculations are used to estimate the taxpayer costs—foregone tax revenue in income taxes, FICA (commonly called social security) taxes, and state and local taxes as a result of family fragmentation, as well as direct costs to the taxpayers from increased expenditures on local, state, and federal taxpayer-financed programs, driven by increases in poverty, (page 12*), and costs to the justice system (page 16*).

• Assumption 1: Marriage lifts zero households headed by a single male out of poverty.

Assumption 2: Marriage lifts 60 percent of households headed by a single female out of poverty.

Assumption 3: The share of expenditures on government antipoverty programs that is due to family fragmentation is equal to the percent of poverty that results from family fragmentation. (page 13*)

These assumptions err on the side of caution, derived from earlier studies (among others, the Thomas and Sawhill study “For Richer or For Poorer.”) These assumptions are more likely to lead to an underestimate than an overestimate of actual taxpayer costs of family fragmentation. Details, footnotes, and graphs are located on pages 13-14 of the report.

• Family fragmentation costs U.S. taxpayers at least $112 billion each year, or over $1 trillion
dollars per decade. This estimate includes the costs of federal, state, and local government
programs and foregone tax revenues at all level of government as seen itemized in Table 7.
(pages 17*)

Report Conclusions

• Public concern about the decline of marriage need not be based only on the important
negative consequences for child well-being or on moral concerns, as important as these
concerns may be. High rates of family fragmentation impose extraordinary costs on
taxpayers. Reducing these costs is a legitimate concern of government, policymakers, and
legislators, as well as civic leaders and faith communities. (page 20*)

• Even very small increases in stable marriage rates would result in very large returns to taxpayers. For example, a mere 1 percent reduction in rates of family fragmentation would save taxpayers $1.1 billion annually. (page 20*)

• Texas, for example, recently appropriated $15 million over two years for marriage education and other programs to increase stable marriage rates. If such a program succeeded in increasing stably married families by just three-tenths of 1 percent, it would still save Texas taxpayers almost $9 million per year. (page 20*)

• Because of the very large taxpayer costs associated with high rates of divorce and unwed
childbearing, and the modest price tags associated with most marriage-strengthening initiatives, state and federal marriage-strengthening programs with even very modest success rates will be costeffective for taxpayers. (page 21*)

• For total poverty, child poverty, family structure and cost estimates by State (see Report* pages 39, 40 and 41).


Source: The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and All Fifty States.

An overview of child well-being in rich countries 2007

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre

The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security,their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.

This Report Card provides a comprehensive assessment of the lives and well-being of children and young people in 21 nations of the industrialized world. Its purpose is to encourage monitoring, to permit comparison, and to stimulate the discussion and development of policies to improve children’s lives.

The chart above presents the findings of this Report Card in summary form. Countries are listed in order of their average rank for the six dimensions of child well-being that have been assessed. 1 A light blue background indicates a place in the top third of the table; mid-blue denotes the middle third and dark blue the bottom third.

Canada is in 12th position.


Full text and supporting documentation can be downloaded
from the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre website.