BREAKING NEWS: Dads On the Run

Passengers on a Modern Day Underground Railroad: Are They Deadbeats, or Freed Slaves?

The latest issue of The Western Standard, a small circulation Canadian conservative news magazine, includes a cover story by Candis McLean, entitled "Dads on the Run".

Though the Western Standard chose, on its cover, to focus on Canadian Dads, the detail in Ms. McLean's article shows that fathers in both the US and Canada, bankrupted by the effort to obtain Equal Protection in Family Courts on both sides of the border, are accepting offers from a heretofore secretive organization helping these victims flee the two countries.

For many of these fathers, the choice comes down to that described by "David," interviewed by Ms. McLean for the article:

"I figured that, despite the heartache of leaving the kids, either I don't see them from jail, or I don't see them from the U.K."

Ms. McLean goes on to describe the arrangement "David" has come to from his new home in the U.K.:

"David, who works in the computer industry, says that his child support had been calculated by the Justice Department (of Canada) based on a salary he was earning during the nineties' dot-com boom. When his salary fell, along with the fortunes of the computer sector, he was no longer able to keep up with payments. David insists that he continues to pay support according to Canadian government guidelines, but he now uses his actual salary in the formula. 'However, that's not good enough for the government,' he writes. 'I still probably won't be able to return to Canada due to the arrest warrant which has been issued, although I can't be extradited for a non-criminal offence. I try to speak with my children on the phone each week, but it's not the same.'

Not exactly the story one expects from a deadbeat who abandoned his children, eh? But the child support enforcement system's inflexibility is creating criminals out of men whose only sin was to suffer a decrease in income. "David" has continued to fulfill what he believes is his moral responsibility to his children (if one accepts that the government support guidelines reflect a certain morality). Interestingly, if "David's" speculation that he would have been jailed in Canada is correct, the children would currently be receiving no support at all.

The current system is criminalizing behaviour that is not criminal, forces the unconstitutional separation of children and parents (usually fathers), and now, has resulted in the establishment of a new "Underground Railroad." The operator of this new underground railroad is the Planetary Alliance for Fathers in Exile (PAFE), headed by Jean Kelly, from Nice, France. Kelly claims that nearly 5,000 fathers from countries including the U.S. and Canada have found safety and freedom from oppression through exile to Europe through PAFE's support.

The key questions one must ask after reviewing this article are:

Are fathers like "Dave" "deadbeats", or "escaped slaves"?

Is the Western Standard's willingness to print this article, and particularly Mr. Kelly's characterization of child support payments as a "tax" paid to the ex-wife, a turning point in the struggle for equality in Family Courts?