But because the children’s mother lives on social assistance, none of Kakkar’s $645 monthly payments go to the kids.
That is because under provincial legislation, child support payments to single parents on Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) are clawed back by the government to compensate taxpayers.
But as Kakkar notes, social assistance rates in Ontario are so low they condemn families to poverty.
“What kind of society denies a parent the ability to support his children?” says the 42-year-old businessman, whose own financial difficulties forced him into bankruptcy last year. “This law discriminates against my children and every other child living on social welfare.”
It also discriminates against parents who are trying to “do the right thing by paying child support,” he adds.
Ottawa family lawyer Eric Letts says the province’s treatment of parents like Kakkar violates Ontario’s Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
As a result, Letts has launched a class-action lawsuit seeking $1.9 billion on behalf of Kakkar and other parents who have called on the government to end the claw-back, and seeking compensation for the “conflict, stigmatization, anguish and isolation” parents have endured.
“Other jurisdictions, such as British Columbia, have recognized the discriminatory nature of this historic practice and ended it,” Letts argues in his application filed in Ontario Superior Court on Aug. 27.
B. C. became the first Canadian province to make child-support payments exempt from social assistance in its budget last winter. The measure took effect this month.
A spokeswoman for Ontario’s Minister of Community and Social Services, which oversees child support and social assistance legislation, was not able to comment on the specifics of Kakkar’s case, as it is before the courts. But Kristen Tedesco said the province is aware of the changes in B.C.
“We are constantly gathering information from social assistance systems in other jurisdictions, including looking at British Columbia’s experience with respect to child support payments,” she said in an email.
“The ministry has committed to reform social assistance in Ontario, and in that conversation we will look at the way that an individual’s income is calculated, including child support payments,” she added.
Ontario’s social assistance reform commission in 2012 recommended the government treat child support like earned income, which would exempt the first $200 before deducting 50 cents on every remaining dollar of support.
In an open letter to the finance minister in advance of the 2014 provincial budget, anti-poverty activists and community legal clinics also urged Queen’s Park to make the change.
“Clearly we think this is a human rights issue for children and a measure that would help the province fight child poverty,” said Anita Khanna, of Campaign 2000, which has been urging governments for 25 years to end child poverty.
“We now have the example of B.C. doing the right thing, and we think it is time that Ontario followed suit,” she said Wednesday.
A single parent with two children on the Ontario Works program receives a maximum of $1,217 a month, including $223 in Ontario Child Benefit payments, while a similar family on ODSP gets $1,801.
Statistics Canada’s Low Income Measure for a family of three in 2012 was $35,327 after taxes.
About 100,000 single-parent families receive social assistance in Ontario. Anti-poverty activists say child support payments are paid on behalf of more than 19,000 children in those families.
Source: thestar.com/
Author: Laurie Monsebraaten
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