Deadbeat Web site planned
Toronto Star, by RICHARD BRENNAN, QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU, December 5, 2003
Mug shots of deadbeat parents will be posted on a government Web site to locate those who have ignored court-ordered child support, Premier Dalton McGuinty said yesterday.
The provincial auditor's report yesterday criticized the government's handling of the Family Responsibility Office (FRO), which is charged with seeing that former spouses and their children get the money they are owed.
"(The government) is going to post the name and pictures of those we can't locate ... as they have done in Alberta, so we can help track them down, and we've also made a commitment to suspend (driver's) licences for those we have contacted ... (who) still refuse to make their payments," McGuinty said.
The Liberals say the office, which is $1.3 billion in arrears, was virtually ignored by the former Conservative government for more than eight years and will now require special attention.
About 23,000 women and children are on welfare because they either can't get their former spouses to pay up or they haven't been able to get the FRO to act on their cases.
Acting provincial auditor Jim McCarter said the computer system is badly outdated and 90 per cent of calls from outside the Greater Toronto Area are not answered. Social Services Minister Sandra Pupatello said she was appalled to hear that so many telephone calls from women desperate to get their money are not even being answered.
"We have created a SWAT team (to help with the calls) ... and we have improved the Web site so people can access more information. We are improving the voice interactive line so that people can get more information on their own and not get caught up in all that bureaucracy," she said.
