FMEP; The Ugly Truth!

FMEP; The Ugly Truth!   

British Columbia’s answer to collecting Court Ordered financial support, known as ‘Family Maintenance Enforcement Program’.

This government bureaucracy is within the Attorney General’s Ministry, headed by “The Director” a.k.a. Mr. Chris Beresford, (and we can all feel secure about those officials right?).  

Frankly this is nothing more than a government authorized ‘collection agency’ which, IMHO is contributing to the breakdown of families and hence our society as a whole.

‘Excessive’ authority is exercised by employees of this agency, rightly called Enforcement Officers. These abusive government employees operate in secrecy from an undisclosed location for good reason. Even telephone calls are carefully monitored and restricted, callers being required to use a code before talking to EO’s.

FMEP collection officers are authorized by the government to literally wreak havoc on ‘Payors’, in fact they very substantially influence, and undermine, the lives of many, and bear in mind that Payors are simply non-criminal, B.C. citizens!

FMEP legislated authority comes from the ‘Family Maintenance Enforcement Act’ (FMEA), established for the expressed purpose of enforcing support payments ordered by the Courts.

Court decisions on ‘maintenance’ (financial support), are supposedly made for the benefit of disadvantaged parties to a divorce, usually wives and children. Sounds high-minded doesn’t it?

But the legal process and those court decisions often have a major detrimental impact on the lives of divorced mates and parents, usually Payors are husbands and fathers.

Regardless of that fact, ‘Payors’ are treated as ‘collateral damage’ by Enforcement Officers.

Whenever a government assumes the role of ‘enforcer’ of its citizens, red flags should be flying.  There are inherent and significant dangers for society in this kind of legislation. At the very least, healthy public oversight should prevail from beginning to end.  That is definitely not the case with the FMEP.

FMEP enforcement powers include everything from serious invasions of privacy and cleaning out personal bank accounts at will; to imposition of liens on homes, cars, and any other material assets.  Then there’s the punitive crippling of credit ratings; prevention of drivers license renewals and passports; just to name a few of the destructive ‘tools’ available to them!

Even CPP and Old Age Pensions are not protected from exploitation and garnishee by these FMEP government agents!

What was the motive for creating this arbitrary and abusive monstrosity?  Perhaps we should ask; "Do governments ever prioritize the public interest over ‘their own’ best interests?!"

For example if divorcees weren’t forced to pay support to unemployed former spouses, it would fall to the government to provide some form of relief.  That may well explain the motive for law-makers passing this abusive legislation.  Forcing non-criminal citizens to pay support relieves the government from considerable social safety-net responsibility.

Ironically, in recent years moral judgments have been disregarded in favor of a secular approach under the Canada Divorce Act.  For example unfaithful or disloyal spouses are not judged on the basis of morality.  Divorced parties are simply instructed to realistically ‘become self-supporting as soon as possible following divorce’.

So from the Federal Divorce Act point of view, the marriage is viewed much as any other commercial ‘contract’.

Yet, in spite of the Divorce Act’s secular approach, Provincial court decisions continue to impose financial responsibility on Payors in a way that goes well beyond a merely secular approach.

The effect of those ‘quasi-moral’ decisions go well beyond simple contract obligations. They deeply affect the lives of divorced parties, especially Payors, to their long-term detriment.  I believe this is also detrimental for families and society as a whole.

There is no argument that its necessary to fairly divide material assets ‘at the time of divorce’, taking into account any underage children involved.

However, imposing the burden of long-term financial support for the sole benefit of a former spouse with no handicaps, or children to care for, is clearly wrong!  This is often done.

Support for divorced wives may have been necessary a century ago, but that historic method is out of date.  Women have equal employment opportunities (sometimes more and sometimes less), and as mentioned, the Federally legislated obligation to become self-supporting!

Forcing a former spouse to pay long-term support inevitably fosters animosity,besides providing an actual incentive for self-seeking wives to initiate divorce in the first place!

To restate; Provincial Court support orders fly in the face of the Federal Divorce Act which implies the failed marriage is in the category of a broken contract, which it arguably is.

Imposing an ongoing burden of support on former husbands contributes to divorce actions and has a debilitating effect on society as a whole.  Its divisive, contentious, and in many cases, grossly unfair as countless men will testify.  It is a virtual ‘ball and chain’.

This is the ugly truth, made more so by the excessive collection powers granted to a handful of government bureaucrats.

Adding insult to injury once those support orders are made it becomes a debilitating drain on Payors to mount a court challenge in order to try to change their support order.  Courts are very reluctant to make changes to orders issued by their peers, regardless of difficulties and changes in the lives of the men burdened by them.

Courts regard most life-changes as merely the ‘choice’ of the payor, irrelevant to the ordered support payments!?  Genuine free choice is therefore not possible for payors.  Is that not an abuse of human rights and freedoms?

Is it even remotely possible for imperfect Judges to stipulate a completely fair and balanced support order?  An ongoing debilitating effect on Payors that will have a major impact on them for five, ten, or even twenty years in the future..?  Hardly!

So stressed by court imposed support orders, some distraught Payors have committed suicide.  (And that’s not even mentioning the trauma of child custody issues.)

No, I certainly don’t have all the answers to these difficult divorce issues, but the present method of placing the primary burden of  support on divorced husbands is clearly not the answer and should not be ordered by the courts.

Unfortunately, most people are unaware of these quasi-police powers grated to the FMEP bureaucracy by the government.  Why doesn’t this agency have public oversight and review?

They can, and do, abuse innocent citizens with no regard for the charter of rights and freedoms.

In fact its very questionable if the Family Maintenance Act would be able to withstand a Supreme Court of Canada legal challenge.

The FMEP is not even accountable to a provincial ombudsmen!  They can and do blithely enforce flawed court decisions with impunity.  The have been given powers well beyond those allowed for mere debt-collectors.  This is blind-folded justice and frankly; it stinks!

There are few, if any, benefits to society from granting such authority to mere public employees.

Its not working well, and never will work well.  I rest my case.

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Supplemental added July 26, 2010;

Here’s an example of FMEP policy…

Question: “How would it be known if the recipient is deceased, i.e. someone wrongly receiving their payments, forwarded by the FMEP collection agency?’

FMEP answer:  “It would be up to someone to notify us if the recipient has passed away. We do not check on a regular basis.”

In other words ‘FMEP is unconcerned if the money collected from Payor’s is even getting to their clients.  How hypocritical is that!?