Overdue support to disabled just first step
The Toronto Star, (Canada's largest daily newspaper ), by HELEN HENDERSON, Aug. 29, 2006.
Kudos to Sudbury community legal worker Marie Lalande for setting in motion the action that led to Ontario finally agreeing to pay $25 million in overdue support to some 19,000 people with disabilities.
As reported by the Star's Rob Ferguson, cabinet approved the payout last week in response to a blistering attack by Ontario Ombudsman Andr Marin. Marin called it "morally repugnant" that the province was taking an average of eight months to process disability support applications but would pay only four months of retroactive benefits to those whose applications were accepted.
The four-month cut-off was cancelled May 31, the day Marin released his report, but the system was so backlogged, there was no immediate relief.
The province is to be commended for acknowledging its responsibility and moving quickly to correct an inequity that has created so much unnecessary hardship. But as Lalande and other advocates point out, this is by no means the only flaw in the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).
With a surplus in its coffers, Queen's Park should move to help people with disabilities rise above subsistence levels. It would pay off big time and long term, improving general health and helping them reach their full potential.
That means offering sufficient funds to cover the cost of special diets and raising monthly payments to put some dignity back in lives. The maximum disability shelter and living support payment for an individual is $959 a month. Most of the 215,000 people on the books get little more than half that.
It can take two to three years of fighting bureaucratic red tape for qualified people to be formally accepted into the program in the first place. During that time, they subsist on about $535 a month from the welfare system. Out of that they must pay rent, utilities and food, not to mention disability-related necessities not covered by OHIP.
"You eat or you pay the rent," says Lalande.
Two years ago, a report stemming from province-wide consultations initiated by the community ODSP Action Coalition, exposed the disability support program as seriously flawed.
Called "Denial By Design," the report showed that even some people deemed to be "81 per cent disabled" by the system's confusing set of bureaucratic definitions are turned down for support. In 2001, it noted the province's Social Benefits Tribunal overturned almost half of the decisions it heard on appeal.
As Nancy Vander Plaats, chair of the ODSP Action Coalition, put it then: "Representing people who have been denied ODSP is the single largest area of law for legal clinics, consuming a huge percentage of Legal Aid's financial and human resources."
In many ways, little has changed. Still the province's decision to pay $25 million in overdue support offers hope. The money owed to an estimated 19,000 people isn't expected to start flowing until November, pending development and implementation of a computer program to administer everything. Some 13,000 of those qualified are still on the support program's books but the remaining 6,000 will have to be tracked down.
Community and Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur told the Star's Ferguson that the ministry is hiring more staff and devoting 20 experienced employees to tracking down cases and reviewing claims dating back before 2002 when the system was not computerized. But it could take nine months before everyone is paid, she said.
Meanwhile, the ODSP Action Coalition is hoping for more constructive change.
If you'd like to support their efforts, e-mail vanderpn@lao.on.ca. The group's website at www.odspaction.ca is under renovation but should be up and running again soon.
Ontario's child financial support collection agency has big problems
Ontario's Family Responsibility Office has many problems
Quote from Ontario Government Ombudsman -"an equal opportunity error-prone program,."'
Support recipients not getting their money.
Men who've been meeting their court-ordered obligations have trouble getting the FRO to stop taking payments when it's supposed to. Read More ..
Pilloried, broke, alone
March 25, 2000
Divorced fathers get a bad rap for not supporting their children. The truth is, many can't. And, tragically, some are driven to desperate measures, including suicide.
In his suicide note, Jim, the father of four children, protests that "not all fathers are deadbeats." Jim hanged himself because he couldn't see any alternative. Even now, his children are unaware of the circumstances of their father's death. Meeno Meijer, National Post George Roulier is fighting to regain money wrongfully taken from his wages by the Ontario child-support collection agency. Chris Bolin, National Post Alan Heinz, a Toronto firefighter, has gone bankrupt fighting for the return of his daughter, 3, from Germany. No one will help him, but German authorities are trying to collect child support from him.
Whenever fathers and divorce are discussed, one image dominates: the 'deadbeat dad,' the schmuck who'd rather drive a sports car than support his kids. Because I write about family matters, I'm regularly inundated with phone calls, faxes, letters and e-mail from divorced men. It's not news that divorced individuals have little good to say about their ex-spouses. What I'm interested in is whether the system assists people during this difficult time in their lives, or compounds their misery. From the aircraft engineer in British Columbia, to the postal worker on the prairies, to the fire fighter in Toronto, divorced fathers' stories are of a piece: Though society stereotypes these men relentlessly, most divorced dads pay their child support. Among those who don't, a small percentage wilfully refuse to (the villains you always hear about).
What you haven't been told is that the other men in arrears are too impoverished to pay, have been ordered to pay unreasonable amounts, have been paying for unreasonable lengths of time, or are the victims of bureaucratic foul-ups. Read More ..
Non-dad on hook for support
Edmonton and Calgary Sun
Feb 5, 2005
EDMONTON -- An Edmonton judge has decided a divorced dad has to make child support payments, even though the child isn't his. Justin Sumner had an on-again-off-again relationship with the woman he eventually married, Dawn Sumner.
She already had a child from a previous relationship with a man named Rob Duncan, and as she and Justin broke up and reunited, Dawn was sexually involved with both men.
When she found she was pregnant, she called Justin, who recognized there was a possibility that Duncan was the father, but later concluded he was the dad.
Father Committeed Suicide after calling Family Responsibility Office
Andrew T. Renouf committed suicide on or about October 17, 1995 because he had 100% of his wages taken by the Family Responsibility Office, a child support collection agency of the Government of Ontario, Canada.
He asked for assistance for food and shelter from the welfare office and was refused because he had a job, even though all of his wages were taken by the Family Responsibility Office.
Andy was a loving father that hadn't seen his daughter in 4 years.
A memorial service was held in October, 1998, for Andy in front of the Family Responsibility Office at 1201 Wilson Avenue, West Tower, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This is in the Ministry of Transportation grounds in the Keele St. & Hwy 401 area. All members of the Ontario Legislature were invited by personal letter faxed to their offices. Not one turned up. The Director of the Family Responsibility Office and his entire staff were invited to the brief service. The Director refused and wouldn't let the staff attend the service although it was scheduled for lunch time. There was a peaceful demonstration by followed by a very touching service by The Reverend Alan Stewart. The text of the service will soon be able to be read below.
The service made the TV evening news.
It was Andy's last wish that his story be told to all. YOU CAN READ HIS SUICIDE NOTE
Auditor General of Ontario
Disasterous Report on the Family Reponsibility Office FRO 2010
80% of Telephone calls don't get answered
Payers and recipients do not have direct access to their assigned enforcement services officer
"There is only limited access to enforcement staff because many calls to the Office do not get through or are terminated before they can be answered."
"The Office is reviewing and working on only about 20% to 25% of its total cases in any given year."
"At the end of our audit in April 2010, there were approximately 91,000 bring-forward notes outstanding, each of which is supposed to trigger specific action on a case within one month. The status of almost one-third of the outstanding bring-forward notes was "open," indicating either that the notes had been read but not acted upon, or that they had not been read at all, meaning that the underlying nature and urgency of the issues that led to these notes in the first place was not known. In addition, many of the notes were between one and two years old."
"For ongoing cases, the Office took almost four months from the time the case went into arrears before taking its first enforcement action. For newly registered cases that went straight into arrears, the delay was seven months from the time the court order was issued."
Ontario agency admits to overbilling on child support payments
The Ottawa Citizen
January 14, 2012
TORONTO - Ontario's controversial Family Responsibility Office has been overbilling 1,700 parents, mostly fathers, for as long as 13 years, the province admitted Friday.
The 1,700 parents were overbilled by an average $75 each month, after the agency wrongly applied a cost of living adjustment that was eliminated in 1997.
Those who were overpaid will not be forced to give the money back.
Instead, taxpayers will foot the $5.3 million bill for the agency's mistake.
"This error's been found and it's being corrected," said Liberal cabinet minister John Milloy. "We're going to be reaching out to those individuals (who were overbilled) and talking to them about their situation, formally alerting them."
The Family Responsibility Office, or FRO, is responsible for ensuring court-ordered child support payments are made. Read More .. than 97 per cent of all payers overseen by the office are male.
Milloy said the agency discovered the problem at some point in 2011. No one will be fired for the mistakes, he added.
"I see this as something very serious," he said in an interview. "I'm not trying to minimize it, but … there's been lots of action taken to reform FRO, to update computer systems, to update customer relations and it's on a much firmer footing."
The billing mistake is only the latest controversy to engulf FRO.
"Canada's national newspaper for professional women"
The Family Responsibility Office Under Scrutiny
On June 9, 2005 the McGuinty government announced the passage of Bill 155, legislation that promised to increase enforcement, improve fairness and enhance efficiency at the Family Responsibility Office (FRO).
However, the legislation did not address the problem of accountability and, as things now stand, the FRO is a threat to every Canadian affected by a government regulated support and custody arrangement system. Think of George Orwell's 1984 and you'll have a good picture of how issues are handled at the FRO.
They have legal power to extort money from Canadians, but are not responsible or accountable for their actions.
Last year an FRO staff member decided not to wait for a court date to review the financial status of an out-of-work truck driver and took it upon themselves to suspend his license because he was, understandably, behind on his payments, having lost his job earlier in the year. Although he was looking for work, the FRO cut off the only way he knew of to earn a living. His suicide note explained how he'd lost all hope. Is this what we want FRO to be doing? Read More ..
"Canada's National newspaper for professional women"
Does the FRO have a feminist perspective?
When families fall apart, they can make for the bitterest of enemies. The intensity of their hostility, the personal rhetoric, the posturing and positioning, and the utter faithlessness of remembrance in the relationship's good deeds and consequences is a breathtaking phenomenon. It's as if the positive qualities and countless achievements are struck from history as a revisionist might strike the Holocaust. Into all of this the family court system wades, often inelegantly. Divorce lawyers drive up the emotional and financial toll of separation and transformation. Family and friends frequently collude to make things worse.
And when government decides to rear its head, well, it's a mess for all the world to see. Witness the recent attention on Ontario's euphemistically branded Family Responsibility Office. A job in advertising doubtlessly greeted the person who came up with its title, because it suggests some sort of feel-good missionary work to hold together the sanctity of the institution. Read More ..
Ruling a big red flag for men
Calgary Sun,
February 5, 2005
If men knew more about family law, they'd run screaming from single mothers prowling for relationships and father figures for their children.
Any lawyer will tell you that the nature of your relationship with a child - not biology - determines whether you're on the hook for child support.
Sperm has nothing to do with it, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled a few years ago. Read More ..