[Help] I am curious what people think about the child support guidelines in Canada.

Reply from lisa.terpstr

lisa.terpstr — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:34:56 +0100

What about situations of teenage pregnacy. My husband was in a brief relationship at 22 (she was 19) It ended in pregnancy. My husband did not want her to keep the baby but she did. They were never together form the time the baby was born. The never married and never co-habitated. After 3 years of my husband being in the childs life and paying support (agreed b/w them not the courts) she decided to stop allowing my husband to see the child any longer (because of our marriage) We tried to seek legal aid but were told we made too much money (that was a joke, I guess only welfare gets legal aid) My husband contacted her for 1 year to try to get visitation all while still paying support (as we had given her a years postdated cheques) After the cheques ran out we never heard from her again. Until now over 7 years later and she wants full support. That equates to 1083/month! I am a stay at home mom raising our 2 children and my husband travels Monday thru Friday. We only see him on weekends. Now I am faced with going back to work to help recover this ridiculous amount of support! Nobody needs that much money to support one child! The guidelines need to be revisited and net income needs to be taken into consideration. Not to mention the cost of us as a family. A good part of our income will be going to HER!!!

Reply from zoke

zoke — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 22:21:53 +0100

the child support tables are totally unfair, they leave the father totally broke with no hopes or dreams for himself 99 % of fathers want the best for their children and are willing to do the absolute best they can for their kids.The problem is the child support guidelines on not based on net money they are based on gross income and end up devastating the father so he can barely feed himself.This premise is not healthy for anyone including the children.Everything is for the mother the father has no say, gets no write offs or help from the government while the mother gets all the write offs pays no tax and has complete control over the childrens lives.The dead beat dad issue is only in a small percentage of fathers the government needs to stop hurting hard working fathers and deal with dead beats accordingly and stop lumping good fathers in with bad ones.Fathers are willing to support their children but need to be able to live too.Alan Rock shoved these guidlines down our throats for the womens vote not for the right reasons, otherwise they would have been fair not crippling.Typical Liberal government politically correct thing to do ,it should be thrown out and revamped fairly.

Reply from triciasmyt

triciasmyt — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:38:50 +0100

Personally I agree with your ex. Not that he shouldn’t pay at all, but that the formulas they used to come up with the tables, come up with amounts far too high. It is not in the best interest of your children if your husband is so broke that he cannot afford to keep a home where they will feel comfortable and safe. Also, if he sees the child alot the “guidelines” do not account for the money he pays (house, car, food, clothing etc) on TOP of CS, so it really causes him to pay alot of stuff “twice”. I know 3 guys who are divorced and paying the table amounts. They all live in crappy basement suites, or in houses with other people. The reason it is so hard is that the payments are all after tax, so if he gives you say 700/month, he really has to earn 1000/month to give that to you. Then he doesn’t get any tax credits or breaks for supporting his kid, they all go to the custodial parent. All this adds up to payors who are completely broke. The child deserves a nice, safe place at each parents home.

Reply from closed

closed — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 04:13:23 +0100

Well, I pay for my 17 year old son who I have not seen in nearly 2 years. I have to pay until his 19th birthday.
I don’t have a problem paying for the upkeep of my kid, but I feel if I’m not seeing him at all, I should be able to pay less. Apparently he’s never at home anyway. So, I don’t particularly agree with the tables, but there has to be a standard or some people will take advantage.

Your ex is what’s called a deadbeat dad. He has no say in it. The amounts are set by the court, and he could be thrown in jail for not paying the set amount. You can tell him a Dad in a similar position said so. He shared responsibility of bringing children into the world, and he has to share in responsibility of seeing those kids don’t suffer economically because of the divorce.

If he decides to quit work in order to avoid paying, then the courts can deal with that also.

Maybe he should have looked at the charts before getting married in the first place? ;-)

I’m sure there are exceptions for children who live with him 1/2 the time, but you’d need to check into those.

Reply from bbbarbie

bbbarbie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:13:23 +0100

Hi Cailean- yes I am aware of how much the tables say that he has to pay. My point was that he thinks these tables are unfair and that he should only pay what I can prove in expenses for food, clothes etc. He is proposing about 1/2 of what the guidelines say.
I am curious if you think that what you are paying is fair.. My ex makes me feel like I am the nastiest most money grubbing person in the world for asking for full support.
I really appreciate your perspective on this.

Thanks

I also have a daughter that lives 1/2 time with him and therefore he does not pay any support for her.

Reply from closed

closed — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:41:57 +0100

I’m a divorced Dad in Canada and I have to follow the Child Support Tables listed here:
http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/sup-p…

You read down to find his yearly income, and slide across to see how much he must pay BY LAW for the amount of children you have.

Reply from Barbyman

Barbyman — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:19:32 +0100

definitely take him to Court ..

Reply from Sasha101

Sasha101 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:09:44 +0100

When a Father divorces the mother he doesn’t divorce the kids , the children need to be fed and clothed, its very hard today, Im not sure how much you are asking him for, but does the agency state an amount ?