It has been nearly a quarter of a century since federal child support rules were adopted, yet they have not been significantly modified in all that time. Now, a St. Albert man hopes a petition he started will change that.
Rob Armstrong, who has three children from two marriages, says child support is going to be his biggest expense across his lifetime.
“I’m going to spend more on child support than I do on my home: over $500,000 of after-tax money. The inequality or the unfairness of the system is really obvious to me,” he said, offering details from a financial model that he created showing the disparity between the parent with primary custody and the parent without.
One example leaves a non-custodial parent of two children with $2,470/mo, while the parent with custody receives $5,000/mo when everything is factored in, he explained.
The difference is shocking, he wrote to the Gazette, referring to a Fraser Institute report from 2014 that conducted the same assessment. That report noted the formula used to determine child support "is intended to equalize the living standards of the two households following a separation of the two parents as long as the income of the paying, noncustodial parent is equal to the income of the receiving, custodial parent."
The formula gets technical, using an equation to figure out the amount people pay. The equation tacks on an additional cost for each child involved.
“Normally, as your income goes up, you don't have to spend the same percentage of income on your children: you've got them covered. The ratio should actually taper off, but it doesn't with this formula. It’s just linear,” Armstrong explained. He added that the part of the equation that determines how much a child adds to the costs was "arbitrarily chosen."
“They chose those ratios arbitrarily for a low income study. They didn't say what those ratios included, what they didn't include. They just said this is for a low income study. So then the Family Law Committee looks at this and said, ‘We'll go with that.’ The problem is that Stats Canada never intended for this ratio to be the basis or foundation for child support guidelines.”
Apart from this issue, Armstrong adds that the guidelines also do not consider child rearing costs for both parents when one parent has less access; they don’t consider the many government programs and benefits; nor do they take into account parents with children from two or more divorces. The guidelines also include costs such as daycare and extra curricular activities, even though these costs are doubly accounted for as Section 7 expenses in Maintenance Enforcement terminology.
“I've lost a job, gained a job, had a mediocre salary at best, gone through COVID like everybody else, and all over the years, I have not received any government support whatsoever, like the Canada Child benefit,” Armstrong continued.
He offered that his child support expenditures have ranged from 25 percent of his after-tax income to “one particularly bad year” when it reached 69 per cent. The average is 30 to 35 per cent, he said.
“When you look at the big picture, you've got one house – that has me – (with) half of the after-tax dollars as the other home. Other than the fact that you're talking about a couple of nights per two-week period, it could be literally one more night in my home, and it would change the equation completely, which to me just doesn't make any sense. Why one person would have more than $5,000 of after tax income and the other one ends up with $2,500 when the salaries are the same, if the kids decide to spend an extra night per two-week period of my house, then things would actually be pretty similar. It just is nonsensical. And unfair.”
The petition garnered more than 1,000 signatures, including from people representing both custodial and non-custodial sides of their divorces, Armstrong confirmed.
It was presented to the House of Commons by MP Michael Cooper in November. Petitions are an important way for citizens to voice their concerns directly to the federal government, Cooper said, so when constituents approach him and request that he sponsor any petition, he said that must carefully consider such sponsorship – though he errs on the pro side so that his constituents' voices can be heard on important matters.
There was no such erring needed for this matter.
“I do support the objective of the petition. The child support guidelines have not been updated in any significant way since 1997. That's almost 25 years ago,” Cooper stated.
“The world has changed significantly since 1997, including issues around including that of raising children. There are issues with the Federal Child Support guidelines. The guidelines were established to be equitable to both the paying and recipient parent, but in many ways, the guidelines ignore considerations that bear on each parent's means and ability to pay. And so I do think that it is time that the guidelines that were established almost 25 years ago be looked at and updated."
Armstrong is still within the 45-day period to hear the federal government’s response to his petition. He is expecting to hear back from the Ministry of Justice by Jan. 2.
"I don't expect that the government is going to, on the basis of any petition, announce a change in policy or make an announcement that they're going to undertake a review. That's just not going to happen as a result of the petition," Cooper added.
"But this is not a new issue. It's one that has been highlighted for some time. This e-petition is just a further reminder to the government that there are concerns that many Canadians have with how the Child Support guidelines operate. I hope that it will help move the government towards looking at undertaking a review."
Armstrong said he's looking forward to hearing the response, whatever it may be, and reiterated the importance of both parents to a child's development. Divorce is pervasive, he said, offering the statistic that it affects 1.2 million Canadian children. It's imperative that the federal government see to it that both parents are given the regulatory framework to financially provide for their families in the best way possible, he said, noting that he has received overwhelming support for his cause because pretty much everyone is at most one degree of separation away from someone who has been divorced with kids.
"The amount of support for (the petition) is huge, for sure. What's really surprising is I've even had support from ladies that have been receiving a lot of child support. That's the strangest thing. I've even had people who have received a lot of money in child support who have said, 'Yes, it's unfair,'" he said.
