Andy McCutcheonDavid vs Goliath - Father Fights Child Support Agency
August 31st 2007 09:26
August 24th 2007 Delivered Via Email
Family Responsibility Office
1201 Wilson Avenue
Bldg. 8, West Tower, 7th Floor,
Downsview, ON
Canada. M3M 1J8
Attention: Ms Sharon Van Son, Director FRO.
Ms Cheri Scola, Executive Assistant.
Andrew McCutcheon
April 14th 1964
Brisbane, Australia.
Case Number – 0626075 [Case Mgr. Daniel Breton, Enforcement Services Officer]
Dear Sharon;
Firstly, I will preface this letter by apologizing for having to inconvenience you with reviewing this case.
I feel however, that I have exhausted all other available options both inter-jurisdictionally and internally at the FRO and I am appealing to your office and indeed your appointment as Director of the FRO to bring about a resolution.
I am a Canadian citizen who resides inter-jurisdictionally in Australia.
My case history with the FRO was initiated in the Province of Ontario where I was both married in [1987] and subsequently divorced in 1999.
I continued to reside in Ontario from the time of my divorce in 1999 until moving to Australia in November 2002.
Once moving to Australia my file with the FRO was then transferred to the ISO unit who deal with inter-jurisdictional cases - who in turn liaise with our local Child Support Agency [CSA] located in Hobart, Tasmania.
The basis of my complaints can be summarized in the following sub-headings.
ü FRO Working on Inaccurate or Erroneous Information
ü Suspension of Federal Licenses
ü Non-acknowledgement of Current Court Orders
ü Illegal Collection of Funds
FRO Working on Inaccurate Information:
On or about February 23rd 2001 a court order was registered with the FRO for the collection of support deductions consisting of CDN$163.00 towards child support and CDN$150.00 towards ancillary expenses totaling CDN$313.00.
There was never any issue in payment of support.
In 2002 I moved to Australia and in accordance with local child support legislation I was registered with the CSA through the Australian Tax Office and arranged for payment of my child support to the FRO.
A situation arose almost immediately as officials at the CSA had no legal authority to collect child support payments from me unless directed to do so by the FRO.
Despite the efforts of both the Australian Child Support Agency and myself, it took the FRO nearly 9 months to get a deduction order sent to the CSA giving them the legal authority to accept and forward my child support payments back to the FRO.
In that interim period the FRO had obviously been accumulating an indebtedness towards me in the form of arrears payments – while having nothing to pass along to Carmen McCutcheon [my ex-wife] the payee in this case.
Upset by not receiving any child support payments, Carmen made an enquiry to the FRO’s ISO enforcement unit citing the now growing arrears and asked the FRO to pursue aggressive enforcement action.
Suspension of Federal Licenses
I was sent a Notice of Intention to Make a Federal License Denial Application.
In an effort to avoid the suspension of my commercial pilot’s license and my passport I diligently worked to ensure that both the FRO and CSA were talking to each other and had the appropriate paperwork in place to accept payment of my child support.
All aggressive enforcement action ceased – and indeed support payments began to flow.
By 2004 the matter was returned to family court in Barrie Ontario and a new order for support was made on April 27th 2004. This new order addressed child support payments specifically and made provision for the outstanding arrears by allocating AUD$273.00 towards child support and an additional AUD$60.00 towards the outstanding arrears for a total of AUD$333.00 per month.
In an effort to ‘do the right thing’ I allocated AUD$350.00 per month towards child support and arrears [which is above and beyond my ordered liability]. Additionally, there have been several lump sum payments towards arrears, generated by the Australian Tax Office for year-end income tax credits or quarterly GST tax offsets.
On August 15th 2005 I received a letter from the FRO’s ISO enforcement office again, [dated August 4th 2005] indicating they were proceeding with another Federal License Denial Application on the basis that FRO records showed I now owed CDN$7281.09 in unpaid arrears.
A confirmation letter from the CSA indicated to the FRO that I was indeed making regular payments in accordance with the court order dated April 27th 2004 and there was no need to pursue aggressive enforcement action.
Despite having made both lump sum and regular contributions towards child support through the CSA, the Federal License Denial Application ironically coincided with the five-year renewal of my passport and my passport was subsequently revoked by the Canadian government’s department of Citizenship and Immigration.
I am employed in the media requiring that I travel internationally in the course of my work. I was therefore precluded from working until such time as the error in restriction of aggressive enforcement was lifted from my passport.
Intervention from the CSA allowed the restriction to be removed and my passport was renewed some two weeks later as an emergency reinstatement due to my impending travel schedule.
Two weeks later on September 20th 2005 I received a copy of a letter from the FRO dated September 12th 2005 addressed to the Australian Child Support Agency and in that letter the FRO states the following.
“At this time the family responsibility office no longer requires you to take support payment deductions from the payor and case number identified above”. “Please stop making support payment deductions right away until further notice.” “This notice replaces all previous notices you may have received concerning support payment deductions in this case.”
As earlier alluded to, CSA officials have no legal authority to collect child support payments unless directed to do so by the FRO. Subsequent to that letter the CSA were powerless to either collect, forward or otherwise be involved in my case until receiving further direction from the FRO.
For the vast majority of 2005 I was legally unable to facilitate child support payments under that direction from the FRO.
Despite the FRO’s direction letter to the CSA however, the FRO continued to accumulate arrears payments, adding penalty payments for overdue arrears [which they themselves created] while not having a facility in place to make payment to?
I made several enquiries to the FRO regarding my case and each time I did, I was met with disdain. Every long distance telephone call was directed to a different person who in the end was neither empathetic nor helpful in resolving the issues.
The situation was once again resolved with the assistance of the CSA.
On August 7th 2007 I received yet another letter from the FRO’s ISO enforcement office dated July 31st 2007 that indicates an outstanding arrears amount of CDN$9,938.86 and once again their intention to make a Federal License Denial Application.
In following up with the author of the letter, a Mr. Daniel Breton, an enforcement officer within the ISO branch, I discovered two very disturbing facts.
Non-acknowledgement of Current Court Orders
[I am intent on traveling with my family to Canada in November 2007].
Firstly, Mr. Breton has informed me in a recent telephone conversation that he received a phone call from Carmen McCutcheon [my ex-wife] citing that “if I had enough money to purchase tickets to fly my family from Australia to Canada – I certainly had enough money to both pay her more support and indeed the outstanding arrears” and she has requested aggressive enforcement to do so.
Secondly, that the FRO is working from the original court order dated February 23rd 2001 and in contradiction to the existing court order dated April 27th 2004.
Upon further investigation it was revealed by Mr. Breton, that the current court order dated April 27th 2004 could not be legally enforced by the FRO because of a provision in the Currency Exchange Act. The amount detailed for support on the order is made in Australian dollars and not in Canadian dollars and therefore non-enforceable by the FRO.
As a result of the FRO’s inability to enforce the current order – it appears as though they have taken the law into their own hands?
Illegal Collection of Funds
In the second paragraph of the FRO’s most recent letter dated July 31st 2007, you cite that, “A court order or domestic contract established the amount and frequency of your support payments. Paying support is a legal obligation.”
As you can well appreciate I am not a family court judge – I don’t make orders.
Conversely, Justice T. Woods order dated April 27th 2004 is a legally binding document to which I have no input - but required to abide by his judgment.
The FRO as an agency of the government, set up to enforce non-compliance with court orders as it relates to support payments – you are also legally obligated to abide by the provisions of the court ordered judgments.
The original language in the order in question was detailed in Canadian dollars, Justice T. Woods had the clerk amend the order to read Australian dollars instead.
Why he elected to make that change? I can only speculate but at the end of the day, that order, [rightly or wrongly for your purposes] is the only court order currently in effect and it supercedes the initial order – which is no longer legally binding.
Because the FRO cannot legally enforce the current order because of the currency exchange laws – they have elected instead to aggressively enforce an outdated order that is no longer legally binding?
Enforcing an order that is not legally binding is in itself illegal and therefore the FRO is guilty of illegally extracting monies from me since April 27th 2004.
Before I go any further I want you to know that I agree with the FRO’s core values however, having said that I am going to share a brief glimpse into my situation.
My ex-wife Carmen works for Peel Regional Police. As such she is able to manipulate the ‘system’ for her own gain. The issues of this case have never [until now] involved child support payments – but rather ‘denied access’ and ‘parental alienation syndrome.’
I recognize that you have no jurisdictional control over this area.
My daughter Mackenzie turned twelve this year, her mother and I separated when she was four years old. Over the past eight years even when I lived in Ontario, I have been prevented from seeing her through manipulation of existing legislation to enhance her efforts at alienation.
At great expense I flew to Canada from Australia three years ago, to exercise a two-week, court ordered access visit with my daughter. By the time I left to fly back to Australia – I had been given a grand total of two, one-hour visits, covertly supervised by undercover police detectives?
Conclusion
After eight years of denied access and manipulated court orders, while at the same time continuing to pay more than I am legally obligated to in terms of child support, all the while facing a constant threat to my livelihood through the aggressive enforcement of an order that isn’t even legally binding – I have had enough.
From this point forward I will make myself inherently clear.
I am affording you the opportunity to rectify this situation. I have given your assistant Cheri every possible means with which to contact me 24/7 and she has been extremely helpful to date.
Cheri has also established that the FRO is legally unable to enforce the current court order because of the currency laws. Conversely I have indicated that since April 27th 2004, you have been illegally extracting a principal sum of money totaling approximately CDN$13,986.00 on the basis of a court order that does not exist.
This situation will not continue.
The only way the existing court order will become enforceable by the FRO is if Justice T. Woods amends the language of his order to state the term ‘Canadian’ dollars instead of Australian dollars.
The only way that Justice T. Woods can change the order is if the case is re-opened.
This case is currently closed and would need to meet certain criteria to re-open. If the criteria were met [which I am assuming it could be] then the process of returning the matter to court would have to be undertaken.
Since I’m not the injured party – it would be the responsibility of Carmen’s solicitor to prepare the case and return the matter before the courts to seek reinstatement of FRO enforcement based on amended language within the order.
Carmen however, is unlikely to return the matter to court to seek retribution for unpaid child support, as it will become a double-edged sword and will also force her to allow my rightful access.
Since Mackenzie is now twelve, she is legally allowed to make her own decisions regarding which parent she wishes to live with. Mackenzie and I have been forcefully kept apart for eight years now and Carmen recognizes the looming potential to reverse roles that would see her paying me child support, while Mackenzie lives with me in Australia.
Unfortunately in this case the FRO is unable to arbitrarily make changes to the order to suit either themselves – or [Carmen] the payee, irrespective of how much you both want that outcome.
The FRO is also no longer legally able to enforce the pre-existing order simply because they want to – or are indeed unable to enforce the existing one.
This situation places the FRO in ‘irons.’
I look forward to your immediate attention to this matter ahead of further legal action with respect to the enforcement of a non-existent order.
I will be in Toronto from October 30th until November 12th and would welcome a face-to-face meeting to resolve these issues and to sort through reimbursement of payments made from April 27th 2004 until present.
I trust we are able to work amicably to resolve this situation.
Respectfully,
Andy McCutcheon
Family Responsibility Office
1201 Wilson Avenue
Bldg. 8, West Tower, 7th Floor,
Downsview, ON
Canada. M3M 1J8
Attention: Ms Sharon Van Son, Director FRO.
Ms Cheri Scola, Executive Assistant.
Andrew McCutcheon
April 14th 1964
Brisbane, Australia.
Case Number – 0626075 [Case Mgr. Daniel Breton, Enforcement Services Officer]
Dear Sharon;
Firstly, I will preface this letter by apologizing for having to inconvenience you with reviewing this case.
I feel however, that I have exhausted all other available options both inter-jurisdictionally and internally at the FRO and I am appealing to your office and indeed your appointment as Director of the FRO to bring about a resolution.
I am a Canadian citizen who resides inter-jurisdictionally in Australia.
My case history with the FRO was initiated in the Province of Ontario where I was both married in [1987] and subsequently divorced in 1999.
I continued to reside in Ontario from the time of my divorce in 1999 until moving to Australia in November 2002.
Once moving to Australia my file with the FRO was then transferred to the ISO unit who deal with inter-jurisdictional cases - who in turn liaise with our local Child Support Agency [CSA] located in Hobart, Tasmania.
The basis of my complaints can be summarized in the following sub-headings.
ü FRO Working on Inaccurate or Erroneous Information
ü Suspension of Federal Licenses
ü Non-acknowledgement of Current Court Orders
ü Illegal Collection of Funds
FRO Working on Inaccurate Information:
On or about February 23rd 2001 a court order was registered with the FRO for the collection of support deductions consisting of CDN$163.00 towards child support and CDN$150.00 towards ancillary expenses totaling CDN$313.00.
There was never any issue in payment of support.
In 2002 I moved to Australia and in accordance with local child support legislation I was registered with the CSA through the Australian Tax Office and arranged for payment of my child support to the FRO.
A situation arose almost immediately as officials at the CSA had no legal authority to collect child support payments from me unless directed to do so by the FRO.
Despite the efforts of both the Australian Child Support Agency and myself, it took the FRO nearly 9 months to get a deduction order sent to the CSA giving them the legal authority to accept and forward my child support payments back to the FRO.
In that interim period the FRO had obviously been accumulating an indebtedness towards me in the form of arrears payments – while having nothing to pass along to Carmen McCutcheon [my ex-wife] the payee in this case.
Upset by not receiving any child support payments, Carmen made an enquiry to the FRO’s ISO enforcement unit citing the now growing arrears and asked the FRO to pursue aggressive enforcement action.
Suspension of Federal Licenses
I was sent a Notice of Intention to Make a Federal License Denial Application.
In an effort to avoid the suspension of my commercial pilot’s license and my passport I diligently worked to ensure that both the FRO and CSA were talking to each other and had the appropriate paperwork in place to accept payment of my child support.
All aggressive enforcement action ceased – and indeed support payments began to flow.
By 2004 the matter was returned to family court in Barrie Ontario and a new order for support was made on April 27th 2004. This new order addressed child support payments specifically and made provision for the outstanding arrears by allocating AUD$273.00 towards child support and an additional AUD$60.00 towards the outstanding arrears for a total of AUD$333.00 per month.
In an effort to ‘do the right thing’ I allocated AUD$350.00 per month towards child support and arrears [which is above and beyond my ordered liability]. Additionally, there have been several lump sum payments towards arrears, generated by the Australian Tax Office for year-end income tax credits or quarterly GST tax offsets.
On August 15th 2005 I received a letter from the FRO’s ISO enforcement office again, [dated August 4th 2005] indicating they were proceeding with another Federal License Denial Application on the basis that FRO records showed I now owed CDN$7281.09 in unpaid arrears.
A confirmation letter from the CSA indicated to the FRO that I was indeed making regular payments in accordance with the court order dated April 27th 2004 and there was no need to pursue aggressive enforcement action.
Despite having made both lump sum and regular contributions towards child support through the CSA, the Federal License Denial Application ironically coincided with the five-year renewal of my passport and my passport was subsequently revoked by the Canadian government’s department of Citizenship and Immigration.
I am employed in the media requiring that I travel internationally in the course of my work. I was therefore precluded from working until such time as the error in restriction of aggressive enforcement was lifted from my passport.
Intervention from the CSA allowed the restriction to be removed and my passport was renewed some two weeks later as an emergency reinstatement due to my impending travel schedule.
Two weeks later on September 20th 2005 I received a copy of a letter from the FRO dated September 12th 2005 addressed to the Australian Child Support Agency and in that letter the FRO states the following.
“At this time the family responsibility office no longer requires you to take support payment deductions from the payor and case number identified above”. “Please stop making support payment deductions right away until further notice.” “This notice replaces all previous notices you may have received concerning support payment deductions in this case.”
As earlier alluded to, CSA officials have no legal authority to collect child support payments unless directed to do so by the FRO. Subsequent to that letter the CSA were powerless to either collect, forward or otherwise be involved in my case until receiving further direction from the FRO.
For the vast majority of 2005 I was legally unable to facilitate child support payments under that direction from the FRO.
Despite the FRO’s direction letter to the CSA however, the FRO continued to accumulate arrears payments, adding penalty payments for overdue arrears [which they themselves created] while not having a facility in place to make payment to?
I made several enquiries to the FRO regarding my case and each time I did, I was met with disdain. Every long distance telephone call was directed to a different person who in the end was neither empathetic nor helpful in resolving the issues.
The situation was once again resolved with the assistance of the CSA.
On August 7th 2007 I received yet another letter from the FRO’s ISO enforcement office dated July 31st 2007 that indicates an outstanding arrears amount of CDN$9,938.86 and once again their intention to make a Federal License Denial Application.
In following up with the author of the letter, a Mr. Daniel Breton, an enforcement officer within the ISO branch, I discovered two very disturbing facts.
Non-acknowledgement of Current Court Orders
[I am intent on traveling with my family to Canada in November 2007].
Firstly, Mr. Breton has informed me in a recent telephone conversation that he received a phone call from Carmen McCutcheon [my ex-wife] citing that “if I had enough money to purchase tickets to fly my family from Australia to Canada – I certainly had enough money to both pay her more support and indeed the outstanding arrears” and she has requested aggressive enforcement to do so.
Secondly, that the FRO is working from the original court order dated February 23rd 2001 and in contradiction to the existing court order dated April 27th 2004.
Upon further investigation it was revealed by Mr. Breton, that the current court order dated April 27th 2004 could not be legally enforced by the FRO because of a provision in the Currency Exchange Act. The amount detailed for support on the order is made in Australian dollars and not in Canadian dollars and therefore non-enforceable by the FRO.
As a result of the FRO’s inability to enforce the current order – it appears as though they have taken the law into their own hands?
Illegal Collection of Funds
In the second paragraph of the FRO’s most recent letter dated July 31st 2007, you cite that, “A court order or domestic contract established the amount and frequency of your support payments. Paying support is a legal obligation.”
As you can well appreciate I am not a family court judge – I don’t make orders.
Conversely, Justice T. Woods order dated April 27th 2004 is a legally binding document to which I have no input - but required to abide by his judgment.
The FRO as an agency of the government, set up to enforce non-compliance with court orders as it relates to support payments – you are also legally obligated to abide by the provisions of the court ordered judgments.
The original language in the order in question was detailed in Canadian dollars, Justice T. Woods had the clerk amend the order to read Australian dollars instead.
Why he elected to make that change? I can only speculate but at the end of the day, that order, [rightly or wrongly for your purposes] is the only court order currently in effect and it supercedes the initial order – which is no longer legally binding.
Because the FRO cannot legally enforce the current order because of the currency exchange laws – they have elected instead to aggressively enforce an outdated order that is no longer legally binding?
Enforcing an order that is not legally binding is in itself illegal and therefore the FRO is guilty of illegally extracting monies from me since April 27th 2004.
Before I go any further I want you to know that I agree with the FRO’s core values however, having said that I am going to share a brief glimpse into my situation.
My ex-wife Carmen works for Peel Regional Police. As such she is able to manipulate the ‘system’ for her own gain. The issues of this case have never [until now] involved child support payments – but rather ‘denied access’ and ‘parental alienation syndrome.’
I recognize that you have no jurisdictional control over this area.
My daughter Mackenzie turned twelve this year, her mother and I separated when she was four years old. Over the past eight years even when I lived in Ontario, I have been prevented from seeing her through manipulation of existing legislation to enhance her efforts at alienation.
At great expense I flew to Canada from Australia three years ago, to exercise a two-week, court ordered access visit with my daughter. By the time I left to fly back to Australia – I had been given a grand total of two, one-hour visits, covertly supervised by undercover police detectives?
Conclusion
After eight years of denied access and manipulated court orders, while at the same time continuing to pay more than I am legally obligated to in terms of child support, all the while facing a constant threat to my livelihood through the aggressive enforcement of an order that isn’t even legally binding – I have had enough.
From this point forward I will make myself inherently clear.
I am affording you the opportunity to rectify this situation. I have given your assistant Cheri every possible means with which to contact me 24/7 and she has been extremely helpful to date.
Cheri has also established that the FRO is legally unable to enforce the current court order because of the currency laws. Conversely I have indicated that since April 27th 2004, you have been illegally extracting a principal sum of money totaling approximately CDN$13,986.00 on the basis of a court order that does not exist.
This situation will not continue.
The only way the existing court order will become enforceable by the FRO is if Justice T. Woods amends the language of his order to state the term ‘Canadian’ dollars instead of Australian dollars.
The only way that Justice T. Woods can change the order is if the case is re-opened.
This case is currently closed and would need to meet certain criteria to re-open. If the criteria were met [which I am assuming it could be] then the process of returning the matter to court would have to be undertaken.
Since I’m not the injured party – it would be the responsibility of Carmen’s solicitor to prepare the case and return the matter before the courts to seek reinstatement of FRO enforcement based on amended language within the order.
Carmen however, is unlikely to return the matter to court to seek retribution for unpaid child support, as it will become a double-edged sword and will also force her to allow my rightful access.
Since Mackenzie is now twelve, she is legally allowed to make her own decisions regarding which parent she wishes to live with. Mackenzie and I have been forcefully kept apart for eight years now and Carmen recognizes the looming potential to reverse roles that would see her paying me child support, while Mackenzie lives with me in Australia.
Unfortunately in this case the FRO is unable to arbitrarily make changes to the order to suit either themselves – or [Carmen] the payee, irrespective of how much you both want that outcome.
The FRO is also no longer legally able to enforce the pre-existing order simply because they want to – or are indeed unable to enforce the existing one.
This situation places the FRO in ‘irons.’
I look forward to your immediate attention to this matter ahead of further legal action with respect to the enforcement of a non-existent order.
I will be in Toronto from October 30th until November 12th and would welcome a face-to-face meeting to resolve these issues and to sort through reimbursement of payments made from April 27th 2004 until present.
I trust we are able to work amicably to resolve this situation.
Respectfully,
Andy McCutcheon
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