Derek Neary
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (Apr 30/99) - There are mothers in the Deh Cho who have children at home and a father who hasn't been seen in a long time. While his presence may or may not be welcomed, his financial support is often imperative.

Julie (not her real name) is a mother from this region with several children. After separating, the father of her eldest child rarely offered any financial help over the following two years.

Needing assistance, she took him to court and he was ordered to pay child support. Although those payments were supposed to arrive on the first of each month, over the next three months, the money came in irregularly.

"He was giving it to me whenever he wanted and that wasn't working," she said. "I was scraping to get by. I hated going to income support, but when I needed it I had to."

Finally she got fed up.

"I wasn't going to put up with his (expletive). He thought he could get away with this and I was going to prove to him no way, he wasn't going to get away with it," she said.

Julie's lawyer informed her about the Maintenance Enforcement

program. She called them, received an information package, filled it out and began receiving more reliable payments soon after.

Cayley Thomas, director of court services for the Department of Justice, said the Maintenance Enforcement program was implemented across the country about 10 years ago. The program monitors the collection of court-ordered or agreed payments every month, she said, all at no direct cost to either party. In the majority of cases, the father is the debtor and the mother is the creditor, she noted.

Maintenance Enforcement is authorized to garnishee payments, seize property or foreclose on it, collect income tax refunds and GST rebates. For those who are unemployed, a portion of their Employment Insurance cheque can be turned over to their wives and children. In extreme cases, default hearings can be held.

"That's sort of the step of last resort... we can summons the person back to court to explain to the judge why they haven't been paying. One of the things the judge can do is imprison the person," Thomas said, adding that it's not the preferred route because nobody really gains anything that way.

Although Maintenance Enforcement employees never use the term "deadbeat dads," only about five per cent of their files would even fall under that category because they refuse to pay up, according to Thomas.

In some provinces, those in arrears will not have their driver's licences or registration renewed in an effort to compel them to make their payments. Thomas said such tactics wouldn't necessarily prove effective in the North because many people don't have a driver's licence or only obtain a temporary one.

At what point a mother chooses to register with Maintenance Enforcement, if ever, is entirely up to her, said Thomas.

"If you have a fairly good relationship with your spouse and have no concerns about getting money, you might never want to register," she said. "Other people register for the simplicity of having all the paperwork done for them... we do direct deposits into their bank accounts."

Julie said she's pleased that she contacted Maintenance Enforcement and would recommend it to other mothers who find themselves in similar situations.

Unfortunately, she's now facing the same prospect with the father of another one of her children.

"I tried to explain to him that I needed help... he tried to make me feel bad about it... If there's any bad blood I don't want to have to deal with him, and that's what they (Maintenance Enforcement) do," she said.

Regrettably, that may get her the much-needed financial support, but the child is still being denied the opportunity to get to know his father.

"He doesn't come to see him. I can't remember the last time he was involved with him," she said. "That's the sad part, it's hard on the kids... in the end, it's the kids that hurt."