After the fall.

A decade ago, women almost always won custody of the children and fathers got visitation rights. While that has changed somewhat, most children still stay with their mothers after a divorce. In 1989, women received sole custody of 75% of the 48,456 children involved in divorce custody cases, and that hasn't changed much. Husbands were awarded sole custody for nearly 13% of the children. Joint custody was awarded in the remaining 13% of cases.

Joint custody -- where both parents are involved in making decisions that involve the children -- can work when parents are calm and reasonable. Often, the children will continue living with their mother but their father still has an active role in their lives. Sometimes parents even arrange to live near each other so the kids can move back and forth between houses without disrupting other areas of their lives. But, it is not uncommon for divorced couples to be bitter toward each other and use every opportunity to battle. In that case, Joint custody can become an ongoing battleground in itself with parents using the children as a way of controlling each other.

Joint custody aside, even access to the children by the non-custodial parent can be a problem. A 1992 Alberta study found that 58% of access parents saw child access as a problem; just 35% of custodial parents agreed. Access problems land some parents in courts repeatedly, they are responsible for more court cases than custody battles. And, every court appearance can cost $3,000 to $4,000.

Another major problem after divorce is financial support.

In the 1980s, provincial governments discovered that many fathers were not making their support payments. They moved to crack down on these so-called deadbeat dads. In Ontario, for example, court-ordered support is automatically deducted from a payer's wages. The province's Family Support Plan (FSP) was created in 1987, largely because of pressure from women's groups.

The FSP is a collection agency. Its main purpose is to chase people who ignore support payments. When divorcing spouses reach a court-ordered settlement, that settlement is registered with the Family Support Plan. Instructions then go out to the payer's employer to deduct the appropriate amount from his wages. All couples who settle their support obligations in court are enrolled in the plan and all support payments must be made through it.

Under tough new measures announced in July 1996, Ontario also will suspend the driver's licences of parents who don't pay child support. Credit bureaus are notified that they are a bad debt risk and private collection agencies are brought in to track down the defaulters and press them to pay up.

Manitoba has had a 93% success rate in getting deadbeats to come forward using a similar strategy.

Immense amounts of money are at stake. For example, Ontario's FSP collected $412 million in 1996.

But, also in 1996, almost 150,000 support orders in the province were in arrears for a total of about $850 million. Only about 25% of the orders were fully paid. An additional 45% were partially paid.

With the FSP's cases growing by 1,400 a month, the amount of arrears has climbed to about $1 billion.

Other provinces have taken a tough stand too. Alberta and Saskatchewan both can deduct from payers, wages when the are in arrears, without court,s permission. In Saskatchewan, the enforcement agency may take a payer's whole paycheque if he falls behind. British Columbia, which contracts out its enforcement of support orders, claims a success rate of 68 cents on every dollar ordered as support.

In 1994, Quebec also called for deductions to be made from the salaries of those who fail to keep up support and alimony payments. These deductions would cover not just the arrears in such payments. They also would establish an automatic system of future deductions to ensure that the single spouses could rely on receiving regular payments.

The Canada-wide move by governments to toughen the enforcement of court-ordered payments on the breakup of a marriage is also covered in proposed amendments to Canada,s Divorce Act. The changes, if accepted, would set uniform guidelines to determine payments across the country. Payments would be based on the salary of the non-custodial parent, not the combined income of both parents as is the case at the time of writing. The bill also includes tougher enforcement measures, such as the loss of passports for parents who refuse to make child-support payments.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITY

At first, Ontario's shift in 1992 to automatic deductions for child-support payments was controversial. People (mostly men) complained that the new system was querly intrusive, inappropriate, and punitive, and an administrative burden on small businesses. But, within three years the proportion of fathers who were up-to-date on their payments had increased from 18% to 23% and the proportion of cases with "money flowing" increased from 40% to 54%. But, plenty of fathers still work around the system. Some are self-employed, and thus unreachable through payroll deductions. Some disappear, leaving no forwarding address. Some hide their assets by putting their property in other peoples names. Discuss ways of improving the system that might make non-custodial parents more responsible.