| HARMONY/DISCORD |
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| SPOUSE WANTED (ER, NOT REALLY...) |
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| My tale of woe revolves around the �relocation of spouse� clause (and the accompanying immediate priority for transfer entitlement) contained in both Canadian and U.S. federal government collective agreements, but for which clause there is no equivalent provision for �relocation of children�. This clause affects both estranged mothers and estranged fathers, perhaps even more so in the latter�s case.
Back in the late �80s, I gave birth to my first son and then, in the early �90s, my second son came along. A year later, I left my husband and moved to Ottawa, where I hoped to gain some emotional support from my family. My sons� father was not happy about this but was unwilling to move there himself. It wasn�t exactly a huge financial commitment for him to come and visit them. After a couple of years, I returned with the children to Toronto, where my ex-husband and I resumed our informal joint custody arrangements. My sons resumed staying with him every second weekend. Five or six years later, he moved back to his hometown on the east coast, where he eventually remarried. Shortly after my children and I moved to Hamilton, in 2001, my ex-husband requested that our sons come and live with him for one year. I�d been going through a period of harassment at my government job, so, with my sons' agreement, I sent them off to the Maritimes. Well, I hadn�t taken into consideration that, in the course of a year, they would make friends down there and become accustomed to the much slower pace in their new rural environment. The year came and went and my sons decided they were happier living the country life. They now had a stepmother, and a stepsister who was within their age group, but, of course, they missed seeing me on a regular basis, and my feelings were mutual. I could not, in all good conscience, tear them away from this happiness, despite my own feelings of regret and depression at sending them away. Ever since I realized they weren�t coming back to Ontario, I had submitted various requests for a transfer to my federal government employer, even at the most senior level of management, but to no avail. Despite my plea for compassionate assistance in this matter, I was told only to �look on the website and apply to the competitions there�. This was a totally useless proposal, as any opportunities for support staff are heavily restricted, particularly where the geographical area is concerned. I tried directly contacting the government's staffing authority and other employers on the east coast, but they told me I would have to be living there before they would consider me for a transfer. I tried contacting federal and provincial departments directly and still had no success. After three years of separation from my sons, I decided I could no longer bear the pain of being so far away from them, so I decided to go ahead and move there, despite the loss of my salary and no definite job prospects. I first applied for Leave Without Pay - Relocation of Spouse, hoping they would consider my older son an �equivalent to spouse�, as per the Income Tax Act. The application was initially approved by my employing department but then rescinded by the staffing authority, after obtaining clarification of my personal situation. Simply put, I was no longer �married� and was not entitled to this kind of leave and the priority for transfer that went along with it. My manager had believed that my common-law partner was accompanying me, but I had separated from him few months earlier, as he had conflicting familial responsibilities. I was obliged to take a different kind of unpaid leave, which did not entitle me to an immediate priority. After eight months of trying to get a transfer without success, I had to either return to my job in Hamilton (as my EI was running out) or risk losing my job altogether. Once my job was given to someone else, I would have qualified for a higher transfer priority, but without any guarantee of subsequent employment, I would have had no income at all. As an older woman, debt-ridden from years as a sole support parent, I couldn�t take that risk. I moved back to Ontario and returned to the job that had caused me so much unhappiness. In my opinion, their refusal to accommodate me with an immediate priority for transfer was blatantly discriminatory on marital and family grounds. It has now been almost three years since I filed the complaint and still nothing has been resolved. My sons are now 16 and 19, and still I suffer despair and depression at losing the close bond I once had with them. I think it is wrong (and illegal) that I should have to be living in a relationship with a man (or woman) in order to get the priority entitlement granted to married employees to regain regular access to my children and for my sons to regain regular access to their mother. In frustration and anger, I resigned from this permanent position in July 2007 and immediately filed a subsequent complaint. I have been unsuccessful in gaining further employment. January 2008 |