Saturday Spotlight

September 28, 1996

Divorced dads find strength in numbers New men's support groups seek to level the playing field.

The way Stacey Robb and Neil Catania see it, they're on the front line of a social revolution. The only problem is, they're fighting a rearguard action. But that doesn't dampen their fervor as they work from a tiny Etobicoke basement apartment crammed with law books, case files and computers.

Meet the DADS Project - Dads And Divorce Strategies - one of the half-dozen or so Metro-area selfhelp and lobby groups for divorcing fathers and other men's issues. Too politically incorrect for government funding, the groups scrape by on membership fees and goodwill. But as with the feminist and pro-environment groups that started up the same way things - and people's ideas - are starting to change. "If you're prepared to negotiate, communicate and co-operate you can get settlement without the cost of going to court," said Catania of DADS, among the more radical and active groups. "We try to explain what's going on and not give any false hope. We're not there to siphon off their life savings. We're a paralegal support group."

Their "clients" are also a mixed bag. "Dave" is an executive with a multinational corporation who turned to DADS after spending $23,000 with a lawyer in less than a year. "I found a sticker with their phone number in the courthouse," he said. "I found my lawyer was too busy to work on the file and that Stacy had some good ideas and took an interest." But is he any further ahead division of property, $6,000-a-month support and the fight with the province's Family Support Plan which grabbed $18,000 from his accounts claiming he was in arrears? "I wouldn't say we've won, but we haven't lost - and we have scored a few victories," he said. "I just feel better about the whole thing. What Stacy tells you is accurate and I feel I understand the process now." Robb and Catania cheerfully admit they aren't lawyers, but in the 150 cases they've handled over the past 14 months, there's not much they haven't learned about how to navigate the complexities of Ontario's family law courts and the myriad of rules and legislation covering divorce, custody, support and access issues.

Theirs is part of a growing network of groups organizing to battle what their supporters believe is a gender bias in the way the courts and the system treats men and women - especially in family law issues. "I don't care what they say, you go to family court and you can't tell me there is a level playing field," says Catania. "If you haven't got money, we'll take a donation of your time or your expertise," said Robb. A self-taught paralegal and computer programmer, he's still battling his own case through the courts, seeking greater access to his children. And with the Ontario government preparing to table hardball legislation this fall that will see the driver's licenses of the so-called "deadbeat dads" suspended for non-payment of support, all the groups are gearing up for a plethora of panicking men for whom reality has suddenly dawned.

"That's when we get a guy looking for what we call the Jesus Christ solution,' said Ross Virgin, who founded In Search of Justice in 1972, making it the veteran of Ontario men's issues groups. "They want someone to fix their problems immediately. It just can't be done. The system is slow and takes time. What they should have done is taken care of the problem six months before."

What Virgin and others are anticipating is a flood of men caught in the almost classic squeeze: while they may have tried to make the court-ordered support payments, many fell behind because they were either too high or, as is most common, they lost their jobs and either haven't worked since or are working for much less money. The law requires in those cases that they go back to court and seek a variation order based on their change in material circumstance. But since lawyers routinely demand $5,000 or more to file such paperwork, most men don't bother because they can't afford it. And when the Family' Support Plan catches' up with them - or the new tougher Ontario system kicks in, they find themselves caught in a vise.

The numbers are what drive the politicians. The FSP says in the 87,000 cases where an automatic deduction order for child support is made the compliance rate is 75%. But altogether there are more than 146,00 cases, including 69,000 cases where court orders were made before the 1992 advent of the mandatory deduction. The result is that overall it appears 46% of payers are laughing at the law, owing collectively $1 billion - money the province must often makeup by way of welfare payments. But of those 69,000 cases the province has no idea where most of the men are, whether they are in the province or even the country. And even among cases it tracks, the system has become so backlogged that men are often branded as being in arrears when they have paid up. It's that kind of bureacratic bungling that has many men living in fear of the new standards, especially if they've had a taste of the FSP's zero-tolerance policy.

And while the province is promising a kinder, gentler way to resolve changes in income-affecting court-ordered support, no plans have yet been tabled.

But it's not always money which drives men to support groups. F.A.C.T. saved my life," said Gene Collosimo, 42, of Scarboro who hasn't seen his 4 year-old daughter in two years. "I've gone from going there for support to being a teacher, helping others." Like many fathers, Collosimo was devastated when his marriage broke up, even more so when he was eventually denied access to his child - a matter he's spent $80,000 trying to resolve in the courts.

It's the combination of heavy financial and emotional costs that has many men spinning off the walls by the time they arrive at groups like FACT. "Tuesday nights are not always happy," says Greg Kershaw, the founder of the group. "Guys tend to drift in and out. It can be an emotional strain - but no matter how bad you think your story is, there's always someone else who is worse off."

This story is posted for educational purposes only and is copyright protected by the Toronto Sun.