Political Commentary and Opinion
This is nothing but government terrorism at it's best, with governments who feel they can steal private property, any time they like, as this has nothing to do with making people pay up fines with their new draconian laws, that only serve to harm fathers in a police state mentaility, that has come forth in Canada.Besides the FRO’s dysfunction, only the courts are capable of issuing an order to the FRO amending the conditions of a father’s support payment obligations.
Fathers Rights have been under attack for so long in Socialist Canada, that those useful idiots wearing their tin foil hats in governments think bringing in an Athenian law scribe under punishment for men for child support, small offences with heavy punishments will make anyone pay up to be a white bread slave in Canada.
It time for men and fathers who had enough of police states being used in Canada, take back what is their lawful right.
Governments don't support familes, they support themselves, and the cash flow they steal daily off familys, as all these political potato heads in office, on all levels either have no common sense, or they are just plain useful idiots in office catering to the New Wrold Order agenda, who think up more ways to harm children, familys and men alike in their socilaist uptopia world they created to make more slaves to cater to them whims.
If the Canadian government wants to start a revolution in this country and a uprising with the likes that they have never seen, then ya, keep on harming familys the way they are with their draconian laws as it is only a matter of time before people say Enough is enough, and take matters into their own hands!
What are draconian laws?
The son of this Alcmaeonides was called Megacles. During the days when Megacles was foremost of the nobility occurred the first effort to turn Athens from an oligarchy to a tyranny. In the year 610 B.C. a young nobleman named Cylon called all the people to aid him in overthrowing the rule of the nobles. The revolt failed; Cylon escaped in secret, and his followers clung to the shrines of the gods for protection. They were deliberately torn thence and murdered by command of Megacles. Because of this insult to the gods, the entire family of Megacles, the Alcmaeonidae, were thereafter regarded as accursed.
Even before this outbreak, the nobles had agreed that somewhat more consideration must be shown to the common folk. The rulers decided that all the cruel laws they had passed whenever the impulse seized them should be arranged in a single plainly stated system; thus, at least, the nobles could no longer twist the laws as they willed; and a poor man might know what the law really was, and so avoid breaking it unconsciously. The man who was summoned thus to "codify" the laws was Draco. So severe were many of the old half-forgotten laws that when they were all thus clearly set forth, men were horrified at their severity. Death was made the penalty for every tiny crime, even the stealing of an apple from an orchard. Draco is said to have declared that the smallest crime deserved death, and that he knew of no severer penalty to attach to greater crimes. Of this grim code of laws men said that they were "written in blood," and the word "draconian" remains in use today as signifying a rule unflinchingly severe.
The laws of Draco did not quiet the tumults in Athens. The friends of Cylon continued to aid the common people, especially in their protests against the "accursed Alcmaeonidae." Supernatural portents were said to betoken the anger of the gods, and threatening ghosts appeared. Disasters overtook the Athenians in a war with the city of Megara. Finally, the Alcmaeonidae were banished in a body. Even the bones of their dead ancestors were exhumed and sent from the country with solemn formalities to avert the wrath of the gods. At the same time another lawmaker, Solon, was authorized to prepare a new set of laws relieving the misery of the poorer classes.
Matt Gurney: Dysfunctional Ontario bureaucracy sets up fathers to fail
Matt Gurney November 9, 2010 – 12:43 pm mgurney@nationalpost.com
National Post
Ontario’s plan to begin impounding the cars of fathers who fall behind in their child support payments next month has a familiar ring to it. I’ve heard of a very similar story before. The man’s name is Jeff Dolan, and his case should ring alarm bells for any Ontario politician considering linking driving privileges to child support.
Dalton McGuinty: Men? Why should I care about men?
(Aaron Lynett / National Post)
Jeff’s story is as depressing as it is worrisome. His wife left him soon after he lost his job when the construction industry in his native Minnesota bottomed out. He moved from job to job, trying to earn enough to meet his child support obligations and pay for needed medical treatment, but with no jobs available, he fell behind in his payments while volunteering at a sexual violence clinic and looking for stable work. He finally landed a good job, one that would allow him to make his payments and also included medical benefits.
But then the courts caught up with him and, since he’d fallen behind in his payments, stripped him of his license. A valid driver’s license was a condition of his new job, which he then lost. He then fell further behind, and was jailed. The courts told him he could get out once he had a job. He couldn’t get a job until he restored his ability to drive … and he couldn’t do that from jail.
Jeff was eventually released after completing a 30-day sentence and is reportedly working, keeping his head above water while still battling the courts. But his story offers a cautionary tale — men doing their best to meet all their obligations can very quickly be rendered destitute, then imprisoned, if their circumstances change in the slightest.
The problem is particularly acute in Ontario, warns Newmarket-Aurora MPP Frank Klees. “The Family Responsibility Office (responsible for administering support payments) is a disaster,” Klees told me. “On a weekly basis my constituency office deals with fathers who have lost a job or have taken ill and can’t keep up on their payments. When they reach out of the Family Responsibility Office, they’re kept on hold for two hours, only to be dealt with by a staffer who has no knowledge or experience of their case and is just seeing the file for the first time.”
Klees points out that even setting aside the FRO’s dysfunction, only the courts are capable of issuing an order to the FRO amending the conditions of a father’s support payment obligations, and that can easily take six months, assuming the father can afford the lawyer. The FRO, meanwhile, is tasked with responding automatically to non-payment with escalating punitive measures.
So if a father loses his job, even if he immediately applies to the court for an amendment, by the time it can be processed, and even should he receive a favourable judgment, the FRO might have already suspended his license, impounded his car or even imprisoned him.There are two entirely different bureaucracies at work, and the one tasked with punitive measures is far more efficient than the only place that fathers can appeal for help.
“We don’t have a justice system in Ontario, we have a legal system,” Klees said. “And the government is more interested in looking like it’s doing something than actually addressing the issue, so it’s going to add some more regulations onto an already complex situation. The Minister of Transportation needed to make an announcement this week, and this is what they chose. Does it have to do with road safety? Of course not.”
Jeff Dolan’s sad story took place in a distant state, thousands of miles away. But we seem to be importing the worst of that system.
For fathers in Ontario today, facing rising costs of living and a weak economy, an inflexible bureaucracy that can destroy their lives faster than they can appeal it is the last thing they need to worry about. Too bad that sticking up for fathers doing their best is the one family issue Premier Dad has decided to wash his hands of.
National Post
mgurney@nationalpost.com
Ontario parents who fail to pay support can lose car
Kewallace National Post
New Ontario legislation that allows police to impound vehicles belonging to parents who fall behind in family support payments is a form of “persecution” that will do nothing to ensure parents continue to pay, fathers' rights groups say.
Starting December 1, people caught driving with a blood alcohol concentration beyond the legal limit, as well as those driving without a mandatory in-car breath monitoring device, will have their vehicles suspended for seven days.
But in a new twist, the same punishment will apply for people caught driving with a suspended licence for failing to pay family support. Such a remedy is a punitive measure that goes beyond the transportation ministry’s jurisdiction and does not take into account legimate reasons for missed support payments, says Lloyd Gorling, founder of Ex-fathers, an advocacy group for divorced dads based in Peterborough, Ont.
“How are you going to make support payments if you can’t get to work? If you can’t make support payments, does the government really think you’re going to be taking a taxi everday to work?” Mr. Gorling said.
“There seems to be an idea that these parents don’t care, or are hiding and they have all this money. It’s the exact opposite. For the most part, people who can pay, whether they agree or not, make the payments.”
Under current rules, the provincial Family Responsibility Office, which keeps track of all court-ordered child and spousal support, has the power to ask the Ministry of Transportation to suspend the licences of parents who continually miss their payments. The province says 3,965 suspensions were handed out by the Family Responsibility Office between April 2009 and March 2010.
Now anyone caught driving with a suspended licence under this circumstance will not be able to use their car for a week.
“It really is a matter of impressing upon the public how critical it is that family support be paid,” Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne said in an interview with the National Post.
She stressed the licence suspensions apply only to parents who have a record of “chronic, agregious non-payment.”
“If you’ve had your driver’s licence suspended, you’re not paying family support, you’re driving with your suspended licence, well, you know what? We’re going to take your car.”
But Progressive Conservative transport critic Frank Klees argues many people may not realize their licences have been suspended until they get pulled over, partly because the Ministry of Transportation informs people of suspensions by mail, and because of what he calls “administration problems” at the Family Responsibility Office.
He says he hears weekly from constituents with complaints about payments being misplaced or processed incorrectly by the Office, opening the possibility of some parents being branded unfairly as non-payers.
“The problem here is that there will be innocent people who will be caught in this regulation who will potentially lose their jobs because they are unable to get to the very job that they need to make the payments,” Mr. Klees said. “If we didn’t already have evidence that this agency really has a system that is unreliable, to overlay it now with this kind of action that can negatively impact someone’s life ... it’s unconscionable.”
Cara Zwibel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association also questioned just how the impounding of a car belonging to someone who hasn’t made family support payment is closely related to road safety.
“There might also be issues with the costs of impounding a vehicle for someone whose licence has been suspended for issues of late payment,” she said.
Compounding the problem is the fact that it can be prohibitively expensive for parents unable to make payments to hire a lawyer to argue for lower payments, says Danny Guspie, executive director of Toronto Fathers Resources.
“If you lose your job, you’ve got a choice: hire a lawyer or pay the support,” he said. “In most cases, you couldn’t even hire the lawyer if you could pay the support. So how are you supposed to exercise your rights in Ontario, let along Canada?”
The coming changes to Ontario’s road rules are the latest in a long string of moves by the Ontario Liberals to crack down on bad driving. In August, the government came under criticism for poorly publicizing a new law that prohibits drivers under 21 years of age from driving with any alcohol in their systems.
National Post
kewallace@nationalpost.com