"I'm Going To Be On The Street"

The Chronicle Herald

Friday, april 6, 2007 Page B2

‘I’m going to be on the street’

Terminal cancer patient forced to make same support payments despite going on pension

By MATT REEDER

Frank Boyd’s life has changed drastically since he was diagnosed with terminal cancer last year.

But he’s learned the hard way that not all things change quite so quickly.
While the 63-year-old Dartmouth man has taken a cut in income since going on disability pension, his child support payments haven’t changed.

In fact, he’s still expected to pay the same amount he was 10 years ago when his son, Keigan, was born and he was making $40,000 a year as an insurance salesman.
While he’s applied to have his payment amounts reduced, Mr. Boyd said he’s too sick and poor to wait until the court date later this year.

"I can’t do it. I’m going to be on the street," he said in a phone interview from his Dartmouth apartment.

The original court order specified that Mr. Boyd would have to pay $333 a month in child support to Keigan’s mother. Although he’s only ever been able to pay $200 a month, he said he can’t even afford that now that his only income is $743.75, after tax, in disability pension each month.

Mr. Boyd, who has a form of bone marrow cancer called multiple myeloma, said the payments are draining away cash that he needs to pay the rent and buy medicine.

Federal child support guidelines show that someone in Nova Scotia with Mr. Boyd’s income of about $10,500 is only required to pay $37 a month.

At the very least, he said, he thinks that the province should reduce his payments to that amount until they work out any other details about arrears and monthly payments in court later this year.

"It’s outrageous," he said. "Why can’t I be cut some slack so that I can properly take care of myself until the court decides what I will pay?"

Judith McPhee, the province’s director of court services and maintenance enforcement, said it’s not that simple.

While individuals paying child support can get a break on paying arrears once they’ve applied to the provincial court to have their payments reduced, Ms. McPhee explained that the province must continue to collect the money until informed otherwise. Circumstances certainly change from the time orders are made," she said.

"People lose their jobs, people change jobs, they have second families and third families and circumstances change. But it’s up to the judge to determine based on the evidence . . . whether or not he or she thinks a reduction is in order."
The person in need of a reduction can try to conciliate an agreement with the other parent through the province to keep it out of court, but she said that requires consent from both parents.

When Mr. Boyd tried conciliation earlier this year, Keigan’s mother didn’t respond.

For him, time is ticking away.

"They have all these ways of sidetracking you from the issue," he said. "If they were honest with me in saying what they were going to do, they would be collecting $37, which I am prepared to give them."
( mreeder@herald.ca)

I wrote this letter to the editor which follows:

Re: “I am going to be on the street” The Chronicle Herald, Friday April 6, 2007, page B2.

Prior to going to the Chronicle Herald with my story I went to the Legislature. Through my MLA, Trevor Zinck, (who is now in France) I tried for a solid month to get a sit-down meeting with the Minister of Justice, Murray Scott, and I found in a brief stand-up meeting with him in the halls of the legislature that lasted less than three minutes that he still did not understand the issues I have been raising with him through letters since December 7, 2006.

Mr. Scott basically dismissed me and said something like I’ll talk to the director again and in front of a witness he turned and walked away. I felt like I did not matter even a little. He humiliated me.

I felt like I was not worth his undivided attention even a nana-second. I knew then that I had to come forward publicly because the government representing me was deliberately non-responsive and it feels that it can be unaccountable for its actions.

I hope that your readers of the Chronicle Herald fully understand the issues I have raised as they go far beyond just my concerns. That a man the federal government has granted CPP disability for a terminal cancer can be abused in this manner by a provincial government in Canada raises concerns.

They are the same concerns and principles over which the Federal Government is sending Canadian troops to fight and dead for in Afghanistan – human rights, human values.

The government’s response is unacceptable. I want now to speak with the Premier, Rodney MacDonald, to see if the treatment I have received through his justice minister is what he endorses and if this is what his government stands for.

Frank Boyd

I encourge you to make your feelings and thoughts known to governments at all levels and especially the Provincial Government of Nova Scotia, premier@gov.ns.ca