Quebec dad, sued by daughter after grounding, loses his appeal
April 9, 2009 - 2:21pm
"Father's lawyer says they may take case to Canada's Supreme Court"
A Quebec father who was taken to court by his 12-year-old daughter after he grounded her in June 2008 has lost his appeal.
Quebec Superior Court rejected the Gatineau father's appeal of a lower court ruling that said his punishment was too severe for the wrongs he said his daughter committed.
The father is "flabbergasted," his lawyer Kim Beaudoin told CBC News ...
I should think a lot of parents reading this story are.
I think it's a shame that the daughter, according to the story, "really wanted to go" on the ski trip - enough to take her own father to court over it - but apparently NOT enough to stay out of the chatrooms that he didn't want her visiting.
This case is absolutely appalling. I wish I could find the old babble thread on this.
Shouldn't this thread be locked before it goes south?
Caissa, you wouldn't be 'acting out' now would you?
No more than the moderators who are indiscriminately locking threads.
That's it C, no ski trip for you.
I'm more concerned that the moderators might ground me.
I'm just planning on shopping for music on my vacation. I need to pickup the new Diana Krall and Neil Young CDs, and see what gems I can find in Backstreet Records in Saint John..
*&$%# kids and their music today!
Anyway, yeah, this is pretty apalling. I keep wondering if there wasn't more to this that's not been reported. Sounds a bit like the relationship beyween the Mom and Dad was pretty toxic, and that at least contributed to this awful outcome before the courts.
Will leave to appeal be given since relief in this case is impossible?
I am not sure if we all agree on what is appalling here. For me it's a parent (lets assume it's a coincidence that it's the father) taking his child to the Supreme Court in order to assert his authority to punish her (disproportionately to the "offence", I think). Obviously a matter of "principle" for this well-moneyed twerp... and yes, the relationship to Mom ought to be looked into. It wouldn't be the first time a man got at a woman through her children.
Well, the good news is that with Permissive Mom, she should be able to find herself a new father figure in those internet chat rooms in no time.
... or that a man got at women in general through children.
It was the child who originally sued the father because the mother undermined his decision about the school trip. It's not ALWAYS the father's fault just because he's the father, you know. That said, I agree with you that it certainly WOULDN'T be the first time a parent tried to get at the other parent through the children. Parental alienation is real, and awful. And from what I've heard anecdotally from a couple of counsellors who deal with it, contrary to popular belief, they see a lot more men engaging in it than women.
I don't think there is anything to indicate such a thing on the part of the father in this case, though, beyond wishful thinking. The father set a clear and reasonable limit, and the mother appears to have taken advantage of a dispute between the father and the child by taking the child's side. And the result is that the child now no longer speaks to her father. If anyone is manipulating the kid, it doesn't sound to me like it's the father. I don't think he is the problem in this case.
I wish I could find that old babble thread - I seem to remember us reading other articles that had more information in them. I seem to remember that this was against the backdrop of a custody case.
It astounds me that a court finds grounding a disproportionate punishment in a country where spanking is still legal. Maybe he just should have given her a backhand.
Snert is referring to the fact that the reason why the father grounded the girl is because she was using internet chatrooms that he had forbidden her to use, and was posting "inappropriate" pictures of herself there. When he grounded her for deliberately disregarding his rule about those chat rooms, her mother undermined his parenting by giving her permission to go on the field trip her father had grounded her from.
So I agree with Snert's comment.
Exactly. I'm being facetious.
martin seems to think that a 12 year old girl visiting internet chat rooms that have been deemed off-limits by a parent is no biggie. I think it's worth being concerned about.
Me too. My son is 10, and he's not allowed to chat on the internet, except with one friend he knows in real life and lives far away from - they chat in an online game. But he's not allowed to chat with other people in that game.
Those rules might loosen a little bit a year and a half from now, but we will still be monitoring carefully where he chats and who he chats with. (Not the chats themselves - those are private, and he knows if he's being bullied he can come to us.) And there will still be out-of-bounds chat areas on the internet at that age.
Okay I get it then, I thought he was talking about permissive mom getting her a new father figure through chat rooms.
Heh. I had to read it twice too. :D
Michelle: "The father set a clear and reasonable limit, and the mother appears to have taken advantage of a dispute between the father and the child by taking the child's side. And the result is that the child now no longer speaks to her father. "
Saying Mom "took advantage of the dispute" is trial of intent - a disputable interpretation, just as is the assumption that a child's anger at her dad is necessarily Mom's fault. Maybe the mother felt that barring all chat activity wasn't such a reasonable limit. Maybe she felt - as I do - that canceling their daughter's crucial spring camp just because Dad couldn't get his way was over the top. And maybe there is a custody dispute that is the significant subtext of this, with the non-caretaking parent throwing his weight around and trying to build his case for disposessing that woman (right up to the Supreme Court "if he must").
Plenty of that going around, alas.
He wasn't the non-caretaking parent. He was the custodial parent. The mother was the non-custodial parent. But surprise, surprise, now she has custody! Isn't that convenient? Dad sets a limit, mom undermines it, and now daughter wants to go live with mom as a result, and daughter isn't speaking to dad.
It's classic. And if the genders were reversed, as they often are, I think you'd see it that way, too. Usually in a case like this, it's Disney Dad undermining Mom The Heavy.
BTW it's interesting to see Conservatives going ballistic over this (No, I don't mean you toddsschneider!).
For instance, this from http://legalpublication.blogspot.com (one of those almost-lawyer pundits always harping about paternal authority):
"(...)In Quebec, a judge ruled that a father had no right to stop his 12-year-old daughter from going on a school trip. The father has filed an appeal of the decision even though the girl has already gone on the trip.
In May, the 12 year old girl who was living with her dad had a disagreement with her stepmother. As a result, the girl's dad forbid the girl to go on a three-day outing with her class. In order to avoid the punishment, the girl moved back into her mother's house and went on the class trip. The parents are divorced and the father had legal custody at the time the daughter moved back in with her mom. Quebec Superior Court Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier ruled the girl could attend the outing despite her father's wishes. Kim Beaudoin, the father's lawyer filed the appeal even though the girl has already gone on the trip because the judge's ruling raises unsettling questions for families. "It's dangerous to let kids play their parents. They have to learn to respect rules," Beaudoin said. Beaudoin seems to correctly argue that the judge had undermined the father's authority. Legal Pub thinks that Judges need to be cautious that their decisions do not take away appropriate punishments and facilitate one parent being allowed to say come live with me and you can avoid that punishment.
The other side of the coin is that in most jurisdictions including Quebec, even if a parent has legal custody, both parents retain parental authority. In other words custodial parents, "even if one parent has custody, the parents still have to make decisions jointly." This is a nearly universal law that too many custodial parents illegally ignore.
The girl's lawyer was Lucie Fortin. Ms. Fortin apparently feels this is an isolated ruling with no ramifications for others. Ms. Fortin, you miss the point. It has great presidential value for this child's future interaction with her father.(...)"
"Presidential value"???
Or this from self-avowed Conservative "North Mommy":
http://politics.upnorthmommy.com/2009/04/quebec-judge-undermines-parents-rights-in-canada/
(...)A Quebec father who was taken to court by his 12-year-old daughter after he grounded her in June 2008 has lost his appeal.
Quebec Superior Court rejected the Gatineau father's appeal of a lower court ruling that said his punishment was too severe for the wrongs he said his daughter committed.
The father is "flabbergasted," his lawyer Kim Beaudoin told CBC News.
In its ruling, issued Monday, the province's court of appeal declared the girl was caught up in a "very rare" set of circumstances, and her father didn't have sufficient grounds to contest the court's earlier decision.
The family's legal wrangling started with a dispute over the girl's internet use.
She had been living with her father after her parents split up when he grounded her in 2008 for defying his order to stay off the internet. The father caught her chatting on websites he had blocked, and alleged his daughter was posting "inappropriate pictures" of herself online.
Her punishment: she was banned from her Grade 6 graduation trip to Quebec City in June 2008, for which her mother had already granted permission.
The father - who had custody - withheld his written permission for the trip, prompting the school to refuse to let the girl go with her classmates.
That's when the girl asked for help from the lawyer who represented her in her parents' separation, and petitioned the court to intervene in her case.
The judge sided with the daughter and said the father - the father - overstepped his boundaries by grounding her, so the judge allowed the girl to go on her trip.
Can you believe that?! A judge told this father he had no right to ground his own daughter. Of course, this father has absolutely no authority in this girl's life anymore because no matter what he may try to do to discipline her, she can just sue him and have his punishment overturned.
"Either way, he doesn't have authority over this child anymore. She sued him because she doesn't respect his rules," Beaudoin said. "It's very hard to raise a child who is the boss."
The girl - who now lives with her mother - doesn't have much of a relationship with her dad now, Beaudoin said.
"We went from a child who wanted to live with her father, and after all this has been done, they're not speaking anymore."
"We have a lot of work to re-establish a link between those two."
Beaudoin believes the ruling reflects a loss of moral authority in Quebec's court system.
In Quebec's court system? No. This reflects a loss of moral authority in Canada's parents, who no longer have any. (...)
Somehow I doubt these moral screeds would be out in full force if it was a mother whose authoritarian decisions were being challenged by a child.
And I have known children who left Dad's place for Mom when they became old enough to be entitled that choice, over Dad's objections, and they were not leaving the straight-and-narrow to rush toward licence, more the contrary. And taking them back was no picnic or "victory" for the mothers involved. (But this is anecdotal. The youth involved should decide when they are old enough, without being seen as pawns for vindictive mothers when their decisions happen to piss off Dad.)
I think I will go with respecting the Justice's decisions.
Actually, Martin, I think people would be just as outraged if it was the mother's decision being challenged. The point is, all the father did was ground her. He wasn't being in any way abusive, and it's not like the punishment was horribly severe.
What this judge did was to reward a child (and her other parent) for playing the "If you don't let me do x, I'm going to go live with (dad/mom)!"
It's natural for a child to play parents off on each other in a divorce situation. Mature parents who want the best for their children don't allow their children to get away with it, and they support each other's parenting decisions. In this case, the mother refused to support the father's reasonable parenting decision. Even if you don't completely agree with a decision that the other parent makes, as a parent who gives a shit about your child's mental health, you should be supporting the other parent unless they're doing something truly abusive or outrageously unreasonable.
I don't get along very well with my son's father - I don't like him and he doesn't like me. But when his father sets boundaries for my son, and my son complains to me about them, I don't tell him, "Oh, you poor thing! Daddy grounded you from the television for a week because you did x? Oh, poopsie, it's okay, you can come and live with me, and I'll let you watch television!" I tell him, "Oh, that's too bad - I guess Daddy really wants you to understand that it's not okay to do x, right?" I acknowledge his feelings, and then I support the parenting decision.
Doesn't sound like that's what happened in this case.
I find it troubling that in this day and age a parent was trying to find a way to stop a child from posting pictures of herself on the web and it was not backed up by another parent. These pictures were discribed as 'innapropriate' above. Having had similar things occuring in a daughters' peer group there are way to many parents that do not understand the dangers they are letting their children swim around it. We would never allow our children to play in the middle of a flooding river, but the one parent (in this case the mother) made a really, really bad decision in condoning the behaviour.
Many kids and their parents naively think it is all just innocent fun, but much of what is occurring is putting more and more pressure on young people, mostly girls, but no exclusively, to be more and more sexualized at a younger and younger age. When my daughter came to us to talk about how uncomfortable she was about what was going on and let us into that world I was shocked at how graphic some of the pictures and postings were by some of her peers. Now I am no prude and we are pretty unrestrictive about what books and so on our children can pick up, our main concern is whether they are emotionally mature enough to handle some of the situations, so our daughter was strong enough to resist the pull. But man some of this stuff was veering very solidly into porn territory. Hell I like European Art films so it takes quite a bit to shock me, but I was really, really shocked.
I can't know that was what was going on in this case, but I think an awful lot of adults are very naive about what is going on in the age group this kid was.
That the courts then backed that up is troubling. Very, very troubling in the kind of message it sends.
What this judge did was to reward a child (and her other parent) for playing the "If you don't let me do x, I'm going to go live with (dad/mom)!"
Why shouldn't the child have the right to decide who they want to live with, though? It is, after all, their life. I mean, I find the judge's decision to be bizarre, and I'm not entirely sure what legal authority the court has to actually decide whether a grounding is excessive, but I don't see why children shouldn't be allowed to make that kind of decision.
Also, don't forget that the picture we are getting of what actually happened is entirely defined by Dad's lawyer, with carefully chosen just-vague-enough assertions. Is that the full truth? Or is it coloured by a selective view, one that isn't subject to evidentiary criteria?
In general, I am wary of trials by media: they often veer close to defamation, as the suggestion that this young woman was posting obscene pictures of herself on a chat website. The judges who had access to both sides of the picture and who were in a position to assess whatever actual evidence was proferred ended up supporting the child's version, not a common occurence in the justice system (who is not known to be soft on child pornography).
(Back-edited for clarity) We should be wary of accepting the unilateral picture painted by the person who instigated this new stage of a natural confrontation by suing his daughter after she won from the trial judge permission to go forward with her field trip. He was rebuffed on appeal and we ought to be careful about denouncing that decision on partial and questionable evidence. We may do so, in part, because we project on the situation our own beefs with "bad" mothers and our own fears about children on line.
True enough Martin. We should always take court reporting in the media with a grain of salt.
One thing that has been pointed out more than once to you, but you seem to have missed. It was the daughter, no doubt with the support of her other parent, that brought suit against her father. Not the other way around as you have suggested.
Originally yes (I amended my post). But he immediately sued her after she was vindicated by the trial judge; he lost, on the face of insufficient evidence of his claims. It is this new decision that has just been vindicated.
It's not just court reporting that is feeding this blitzkrieg; it is press conferences by the father and his lawyer.
He didn't sue her, he appealed the decision on a point of law.
It should be noted that the Court of appeal didn't analyze this on the basis of the approprietness of the punishment, but on the merits of parental authority.
When the parents were fighting over child custody, the child was appointed an attorney. She simply called the attorney when this all happened - she wasn't encouraged by her mother to do so.
The issue was that the father claimed that because he has custody of the child, the parental autority is his, therefore he could make these decsions without consulting the mother. That argument is flawed. In Quebec, parents shared parental autority, regardless of who has physical custody.
From a social perspective, sure this whole issue is ridiculous. Would it help if the mother supported the father's intervention? Of course. But you know, people get separated, they hate each other and they do irrational things. It overburdens the legal system, because people act like irrational beings. Its a real shame, but its the reality of the family courts.
But from a legal perspective, the judgement is sound. What was the court to do? It could have chosen not to intervene. But the issue was presented to it with a solid legal point, i.e. the exercice of parental authority. The court also had to determine if the child could ask the court to intervene, and the answer is yes. In this specific case. The mother did not contest the child's position, and if the court would have refused to hear the child, she would have filed a claim asking the same thing. The court did specify that this must remain an exceptional recourse. The civil code also specifies that a child can petition the court, but can only do so with the permission of a judge. So is this going to be become an overused recourse when a child disagrees with a parent's autority? No, and the court warns against that.
The father might appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, but in my opinion, the Supreme Court has no basis for overturning the decision. (The Supreme Court can hear the case, btw, on a point of a law, even if the object is irrelevant at this point). The Court of Appeal simply applied the law.
In closing, the real issue here is not the intervention of the Courts but the sheer ridiculousness of parents not being able to agree and be civil to one another. We overuse the family courts on a daily basis. When I come out of family court, my eyes always hurt do to the amount of time I spend rolling them ...
The child chose to go live with her mother because she disagreed with her father's parental decision. Why the mother would allow that is the real issue. Michelle gave a perfect example on how to deal with a child who complains about a parent to the other parent. Sadly, not everyone is that rationnal. And this might displease some, but the manipulator in this case is the child. She has effectively learned how to manipulate her parents. Can you blame her? It works, and she gets her way.
If there is a just god, this father is a lawyer.
"BTW it's interesting to see Conservatives going ballistic over this (No, I don't mean you toddsschneider!)."
You couldn't mean me, martin, as I am not now, nor have I ever been, a conservative. It's tedious to be sniped at by weapons of crass deconstruction.
I am also reading this thinking this is learned behaviour. When parents divorce is messy the child is appointed her own lawyer because the judge can't trust each parents lawyer to do what is best for them. They see their parents manipulate and hurt eachother through lawyers and courts and indeed may hurt and manipulate their parents themselves through their own lawyer either intentionally or unintentially. So when a normal dispute comes up and they want to get back at their parent instead of yelling, sneaking out, lying to one parent, stealing a little bit of booze or whatever would be written off as normal rebellious behaviour they go where they know , the courts. It's sad but where did she learn it from?
Exactly. And I'm sorry, but I don't believe that the mother had nothing to do with the daughter's decision to go to the lawyer. The mother clearly did not back up the father's limit-setting because she not only told her daughter she could go on the trip, but she also helped her daughter play the "I'm going to go live with Mom because you grounded me" card. Would it have gotten this far if the mother had said to the daughter, "I might not have done the same thing as Dad did in this case, honey, but you have to follow the rules he sets for the computer, and you will have to face the consequences for not following the rules"? No, I don't think so. It looks like she saw a chance to get custody and grabbed it.
Believe me, I know how the mother feels. When your kid comes to you and complains about the other parent, and you dislike the other parent and would love to be the one the child stays with more, the temptation is there to take advantage of the situation and encourage the child to escalate the conflict with the other parent so they'll want to be with you instead.
But parents who give a shit about their children don't do that. Because the child suffers. In this case, to the point where the child no longer sees the father. Congratulations, mom, you just totally fucked up your child's life and her relationship with her father. Hope it was worth it!
As for whether kids can choose who to live with at that age - yes, their wishes are taken into account, and that's reasonable. But that doesn't mean a child of that age can't be manipulated by their parents, or be encouraged to be manipulative towards one parent by the other parent. It's not the child's fault. It's the fault of the parent(s) when manipulation goes this far. These parents, the mother in particular, seriously need some co-parenting courses, stat.
Manipulative mother... manipulative daughter... Gawd, is it that hard to imagine that the kid really wanted to go on that outing and that she needed not have such a dark soul nor such a pliable disposition to tell her lawyer what was being done to her and to (gasp!) defend her rights if she felt slighted?
Also note the variance between the two versions given of her initial faux pas in the blogs I quoted above: improper use of the Internet, or a conflict with her father's new partner.
Thanks for the clarifications Laura. And toddschneider, I wasn't implying you are conservative, just attempting to sidestep a firestorm if you felt my remark implied you were. (I just saw it as one more of your usual "Mondo Quebeco" type of posts)
In other news, judge tells disgruntled fathers to go jump off a bridge next time:
Bridge protesters found guilty of mischief - Span closed for 21/2 hours; Defendants claim courts are biased against fathers in custody disputes
Just a general question. If we were to set up a family court system that was engineered to make as much money for lawyers as possible, with the social and economic needs of children and parents just an after thought, how much different would it look from the system we currently have?
Ya, I do not much like the way this is being conceptually framed based upon spurious accountings and personal suppositions either.
But it's okay to for Martin to "personally suppose" stuff about the father in this case, though, right?
"In other news, judge tells disgruntled fathers to go jump off a bridge next time:"You know, I work in a plant where the work was hard and dangerous when we were young, and even today it's no picknic. And we worked at times, seven days a week. I remember working from New Years to Easter without a day off, on rotating shifts-- and when it comes to those who got recognized as overtime hogs, I never even got on anyone's radar. Add to that rampant substance abuse, and you could say, our place was and still is, a divorce factory.
So, there's few annectdotes I have not heard. Mostly from the male side. And, I've gone through it myself.
While I obviously think there's something seethingly wrong with the whole scam in the divorce industrial complex, I'd never, ever, try to address those issues from a gender vs. gender perspective. It's a red herring-- it's not where the fight is.
Those two knobs got what was comming to them.
Actually, I am talking about everyone doing so, and my apologies for not being clearer with that, I should have added "well" to my ya and left off "either". It was a poorly constructed sentence, because I was feeling snotty about the whole thing. I would not want others judging, no matter which way it is, or isn't, what was going on in my life based upon spurious public accountings and personal opinion. Hence my comment, above which only stated, I will trust the court's discretion in this case, they at least are fully informed.
Afterall, one can easily race to judgements about other's family dynamics, and be completely wrong and harmful to the situation. In this case, the little girl in question could be, and most likely is, googling to find out about what people are saying about the media's and other's exploitation, of what should have been a private goings on with her. And I most certainly would not want her to see herself as being labelled manipulative, scheming etc, nor see how poorly her mother and father were being portrayed by people across Canada, who literally know nothing about the historical dynamics of what brought this action about. And considering that babble usually pops up first, it is quite likely she would land here first. And frankly this thread would have a huge negative self-esteem, impact upon a 12 year old.
How would any of you parents out there like your child being up for such intense judgemental public scrutiny, when the matter should have been private?
How would any of you parents out there like your child being up for such intense judgemental public scrutiny, when the matter should have been private?
In almost all cases I would agree with this statement. But once you go to court (or your lawyer does - or your mother - who knows what really happened here), all privacy disappears, except for the child's name. Court decisions and proceedings are public in this country (again, except when we're suppressing "terrorists").
Does not matter if the court records are public or not, people need not buy into the exploitation and further the lack of privacy. And then compound it by casting aspersions upon a 12 year old and her family, when really they kow very little.
"Going to court was a last resort," said Lucie Fortin, a legal aid attorney who represented the girl. "The question was that there was a problem between the father and the mother, and the child asked the court to intervene because it was important to her.
"The trip was very important to her."
More important than the long term relationship with her father? I can certainly see how, in the mind of a 12 year old, the immediate concern of a school trip can seem like it. However, it's because of this exact thing kids get appointed lawyers-- an adult-- to represent the kid's best interest.
Can anyone say that Fortin has done this?
I have not seen anyone "casting aspersions" on a 12 year-old here. Playing one parent off the other is normal and natural behaviour for any child of divorced parents. Heck, it's normal behaviour for any child of parents who are together. It is up to the parents to help the child through the emotional difficulty they're having, not to use that normal behaviour to their advantage as a weapon in a custody war. And that's exactly what I think has happened in this case.
I will be interested in reading the actual judgment and look at the relevant evidence provided an weighed. But from experience, I resist the notion that whenever a child decides to go live with the other parent (and is entitled to), it is for the wrong reasons, e.g. manipulativeness.
Re the F4J bit of news, I am glad that Judge Cadieux didn't buy these men's rightists line of argument; but I was shocked that Irwin - the Montreal Gazette journalist - could print a sentence such as "Leroux said outside the court he's been barred from visiting his 8-year-old daughter in the U.S. for the past six years because his estranged wife won a civil protection order after he failed to make child support payments." It seems clear to me tha Irwin was sold a bill of goods and that he is reporting as fact an assertion that seems very partial. Getting slapped with a protection order simply because one isn't making child support payments? I don't think so. I intuit that there must have been threats against the man's partner - if not worse - to justify that order of protection. Leroux doesn't have to volunteer that information, of course, but you'd think The Gazette would not give that much credibility to his biased account of the matter, if the woman in question isn't available or willing to complete the picture. A journalist who isn't being given the record of a decision ought not to let himself used to convey a biased, misleading version simoply because the women who obtained the protection order demurs from antagonizing her abuser further by attempting to counter his self-serving accounting of their conflict.
This is what I meant when I wrote that Dads' press conferences were really how the men's rights lobby were using the court system to advance their mother-bashing and personal interests.
I agree with you about Father's Rights groups. But the case that this thread about isn't a narrative from a father's rights group. It's a news story, and both the father's lawyer AND the child's lawyer were given space for their comments in it.
What I find telling about the comments after the story, and some of the commentary I've read on right-wing sites about this case, just browsing around a bit, is the people who blame the CHILD for this. People calling her a spoiled brat, a spoiled princess, a rotten whatever. That's crap. She's just a kid, acting like any other kid might. It's the adults in this case - the judge, her lawyer, her mother - who are the problem. Not the kid. The kid is just doing what any kid might if they've been given too much power. And the sad thing is, she's going to suffer the emotional consequences when she gets older - the sadness over her estrangement from her father, the guilt (even though it's not her fault), etc.
I'd like to know what the mother is going to have to say to the kid when she's 30 years old, no longer considers a little school field trip to be the end of the world, realizes that her mother encouraged her to dump her father over such a mundane little incident so that she could win custody of her, and feels all this regret over losing one of her parents for a big chunk of her childhood and early adulthood. Because parents can turn kids against the other parent quite successfully, but the fact is, later in life, the adult children often realize what was done to them, and then they have to deal with all the emotional baggage that goes with it.
Just a general question. If we were to set up a family court system that was engineered to make as much money for lawyers as possible, with the social and economic needs of children and parents just an after thought, how much different would it look from the system we currently have?
You know, it's easy to blame the lawyers in these types of cases. I always say that lawyers who practice in family law do not need to multiply proceedures and create all these problems they're accused of creating just to make as much money as possible. Clients are willing to do that all on their own.
Family law is very emotional and people gets blinded by hatred and vengeance. THAT'S why the system is the way it is. As a lawyer who practiced for a number of years in family law, I can assure you that I spent more time telling clients that it was NOT worth filing X or Y procedure than the contrary. I spent more time explaining to clients how much easier their case could get resolved if they started being rational. But the reality is, they don't listen. And you know what, I give them the options. You can fight or you can mediate. Mediation is better for you and your child. You prefer to fight? Fine. And as like to point out as often as I can, if at the end of day you want to pay me money to get half the cleaning supplies, you do that.
And lets clear one thing up. Is the child manipulating the parents? Yes, she is. Is she a bad person because of it? Nope. She's 12. She's just learning how to get her way in the big world. We're worried about her reading the blog and seeing that people might insinuate that she's manipulative? Big deal. Do you think she doesn't know that she completely manipulated her mother to get what she wanted?
Yes, its hard for a mother to be in the situation where a child isn't happy with the other parent's decision. Reasonable people deal with it like Michelle suggested. Others pay lawyers. If the child would have chosen to live with her mother because there was abuse at her father's house, because she didn't eat often enough, because she didn't get along with her step-mom, whatever, then she would have been entitled to change the custody arrangement. But no, she went to live with her mother because her father would not let her go on a two day class trip. Was it important to her? Yes. Was it important to her father that she not post innapropriate pictures of herself of the web? Yes. And which of these issues weighs more in the big picture you think?
My letter to Irwin Block, the Montreal Gazette journalist who penned the article hyperlinked above by Unionist:
Mr. Block,
I am glad that Judge Cadieux didn't buy the bridge blockers' line of argument.
But I was shocked that The Montreal Gazette could print a sentence such as "Leroux said outside the court he's been barred from visiting his 8-year-old daughter in the U.S. for the past six years because his estranged wife won a civil protection order after he failed to make child support payments."
Doesn't the grammar of this sentence, even as an attributed quote, tend to establish as fact a highly debatable assertion?
Getting slapped with a protection order simply because one isn't making child support payments? I don't think so.
I intuit that there must have been threats against the estranged wife - if not worse - that were taken into account by the judge who rendered that order of protection.
Leroux doesn't have to volunteer that information, of course, but The Gazette should not give that much credibility to his biased account of the matter, even if the woman who won that order of protection isn't available or willing to complete the picture.
It seems to me that a journalist who hasn't accessed the record of a judicial decision ought not to let himself be used to convey a partial, misleading version of it simply because - in this case - the woman who obtained a protection order may demur from antagonizing her abuser further by justifying the decision to the meda in an attempt to counter his self-serving accounting of the decision. I think such a criterion ought to be standard practice whenever people try to use the media to establish as fact their version of a contested issue where an evidence-based decision has been rendered.
What do you think? Am I being overly sensitive here?
Thanks for your attention to this matter.
Martin Dufresne
Here's the Appeal's court judgement btw : http://www.jugements.qc.ca/php/decision.php?liste=36557688&doc=0C5A58535...
Link doesn't work, Laura.
And Martin, while you're likely right about the journalist's quoting just one side of the story, I'm impressed (as always) at how you manage to "fill in" the other side of the story...
Michelle wrote: "But the case that this thread about isn't a narrative from a father's rights group. It's a news story
(but are you taking into account how, through what channels a court case makes it to the front page?) , and both the father's lawyer AND the child's lawyer were given space for their comments in it." Now yes, but it started on very unequal terms. I have traced one of the original articles and I find the father's lawyer very clear about her politics: "The man's lawyer, Kim Beaudoin, said the issue is about restoring paternal authority and should have been dismissed by Justice Suzanne Tessier, who told the girl Friday she could make the trip." (The Ottawa Citizen -June 18, 2008) A current development is that the father's lawyer is demanding that the Quebec law on coparental authority be dumped, simply because it required for the father and the mother to come to an agreement on the issue!"L'avocate du père, Me Beaudoin, interprète la décision en affirmant que dorénavant, « c'est l'enfant qui mène dans la maison ». « Je fais appel aux politiciens. Je veux une intervention de la part des législateurs qui devraient modifier la loi 159 sur l'autorité parentale. », a-t-elle lancé au Droit, hier. (Cyberpresse)
The judgment is available here (in French).
I learned a lot reading it and suggest it is read before we go on speculating about who is being excessive here. The facts in the case are significantly different from what we have been hearing from the father's lawyer.
A few points. It was established that the father "showed the child the door" after a spat on May 14, 2008 (five weeks before the field trip). The father has since refused to speak to his daughter until she "acknowledges his authority". She is thus de facto in her mother's custody/guardianship, and not by her own choosing. The fact that the mother is now the custodial parent, has asked that this be acknowledged, and is not meeting with opposition to that claim from the father seems to have decided the issue for the trial court when it ruled that the father should not be entitled to block the mid-June field trip from afar, the child having been sufficiently punished by having been kept from participating in an early June school dance show when Dad refused to give her back her costume!
Thanks martin, sheds a bit more light onto the situation eh, and hasty jumps to conclusion are apparently way off base.
That's interesting. I can't read it myself, unfortunately. But if that's true, and Martin isn't leaving any other details out, then yes, that changes things completely. It also changes things if the parents had joint custody (the article seemed to indicate otherwise) and the father was not consulting the mother on issues he should have been.
It's like it's a completely different story than the one reported in the article in the opening post, and as it turns out, Martin, you are absolutely right.
Don't crow too much, hey? :D
You know, I'm getting really peeved about this. The article says that the child was living with her father (not her mother) when the father imposed the punishment. The article goes on to say that the child "now lives with the mother" - they made it sound like the child was living with the father when all this happened, and then as a result of the court action, the child now lives with the mother.
It's true that I was wrong about this case, but I maintain that the reason I was wrong about it is because the article did not say that the child was living with the mother, or that the father kicked the child out weeks before this incident happened. In fact, it stated the opposite, that the child was living with the father, and implied that the child moved in with the mother "now".
I was totally wrong about this, but it's because the news report fabricated a couple of crucial facts of the case! Well, Martin, you're absolutely right about how the media has manipulated this story to demonize the mother in this case. I'm appalled. I'm also appalled that the child's lawyer didn't make the facts of the case more clear.
I'm thinking of writing to the CBC Ombudsman about this. That is just plain sloppy and false reporting.
Perhaps the girl's lawyer did, but the media chose to ignore that as well? And the parents had joint custody, as that has been stated from the beginning. I refuse to believe anything the media says, pretty much about everything, but especially in respect to women/girls, as it is quite obvious, and I have noted this before elsewhere here, that there is a very real movement afoot, that the media (and not just the news media) is also actioning, against women's rights and women in general. Buying into their version of anything should be cautioned against.
You have a right to be angry michelle.
Well I guess that the life lesson is that you really can't trust the mainstream media. I didn't think I need to be taught that, but JHC I guess I really did.
That's it from now on I am sticking to stories about alien abductions, Area 51 and which soap really does get my clothes the cleanest and how great the stock market will be for my future retirement needs. At least I know most of that stuff is made up.
Hey, of course, I left some other details out - the judgment runs for pages and I only glanced at it for a few minutes! But I didn't try to present a biased view. Try running it through an automated translation website before you write the CBC. You will get pathetic English, but most of the facts and analysis.
To get back to the bridge-blockers Gazette story, another sentence - the very last caught my eye:
"Dumas objected to introducing his previous convictions into the court record. He he is to make legal arguments on that issue and his sentence on May 5."
If we assume that there was good reason for Leroux to get slapped with a protection order and we have the other F4J spokesperson trying to keep his criminal record out of the picture, isn't it awesome that the Quebec fathers' rights movement cannot seem to find men without some kind of a criminal background to act as its spokespersons? Can we not envision that there may be very good reasons for some men to be kept from their children, not by vindictive mothers or traditional legisation as they are always railing, but by the courts?
"UK: Fathers rights campaigner jailed for abusing young child"
Michelle, before you go to the CBC ombudsman, you should know that even after reading the full text of the Court of Appeal and the original Superior Court (June 13, 2008) decisions, the facts are in dispute. What is clear is that she was living with her father until May 14, 2008. At that point, she left and went to live with her mother - according to her, because she was "shown the door" after a sharp exchange with her father's spouse - according to the father, because of penalties imposed on her. What is not clear from either account is exactly on which date the father decreed that the class trip was off, but it was clearly within a few days on either side of May 14.
I'm not sure what difference this unresolved detail makes. The father sounds ignorant to me (just because I personally don't adhere to the "ground 'em and punish 'em and they'll learn!!!" school for kids), and his court appeal seems purely selfish and vindictive when he says he doesn't want his daughter back until she accepts his "authority"! Seems to me a little something called unconditional love is lacking here, but I confess, it's not my family.
I'm trying to find someone not to blame in this situation, and I'm not there yet.
Unionist: "What is not clear from either account is exactly on which date the father decreed that the class trip was off, but it was clearly within a few days on either side of May 14." Still, the question remains as to whether it was excessive for the mother to authorize the trip three weeks later, long after the daughter had moved in with her. The legal contest does rest on whether a non-caretaking parent can block such decisions by the caretaking parent.
Michelle: "I'm also appalled that the child's lawyer didn't make the facts of the case more clear." It seems to me that the party who goes to the media - or answers its questions, moving the litigated issue into that sphere - is usually the one with the weaker case. I also doubt whether the child's lawyer was mandated by her client to get into this arena by answering the father's charges. Women or children facing an angry man generally tend to avoid the limelight, hoping rather to simply get justice in the appropriate sphere, on evidentiary bases, and hope that the situation will wind down. Laura could provide more enlightened input about that. My letter to Irwin Block was to the effect of what protocol journalists should apply to these unequal playing field situations where one party gains by a certain amount of histrionics - if not outright mud-slinging - while the other just wants to stay out of the picture and see the harassment peter out.
Martin, I agree with you about the legal issue, but as you know (scroll up), my comment was only directed to Michelle's outrage about the "false" account of the CBC. I see no clear evidence that anything in that article was false, and since she couldn't read the French decisions, I just thought I'd clarify that point.
On that point, the original Superior Court decision is here.
IMV any parent that has showed a child the door has no say!
IMV any parent that has showed a child the door has no say!
I absolutely agree with you. Just note that this account is disputed, however, as I pointed out by reference to the Court's findings. And when the father's lawyer was interviewed in June 2008, she gave the following account:
The girl's parents are divorced, and after she had an alleged row with her stepmother, her father barred her from going on a school trip to mark the class's graduation from elementary school, the newspaper reported.
"When he said, 'OK, it's final. You're not going,' she smacked the door, left and went to live with her mother," the father's lawyer, Kim Beaudoin, told CBC News.
CBC.ca June 19, 2008
I think it's risky to make conclusions of fact without knowing all the facts. What is clear, however, is that this father has an agenda which goes beyond (and IMO against) love and care for his child. The very fact of the appeal makes that clear.
Ya again that is the father's lawyer making statements, moreover you do not deprive children of a graduation trip when they have already been punished for said transgression, and rather meanly too.
I understand that point and I happen to agree about the punishment, as I've already stated in very clear terms. But it makes no sense to speculate about what happened when you (and I) weren't there. If you can't read the original decisions, then take my word for what they say (from the Court of Appeal decision):
It's not just the lawyer making statements - she was just summarizing the affidavit of the father (who said the child left), while the daughter's account differed (she said she was "shown the door"). How can you possibly determine whom to believe - or whether it really makes any difference?
Again, my point was to Michelle - there are no lies in the CBC article. But that is truly an insignificant side issue in this whole story.
I know this is waaaaayy off topic, but we have never given a punishment without a follow up opportunity to make amends. So in this case a reasonable parent would do something like ban the internet use. If that failed then perhaps take away a special treat. However, we would always give our children the chance to 'earn' that special treat back by doing extra chores, helping out at a charity event, letting their mother know their father is a better parent (kidding)- something that has meaning to them as being 'extra' and doing something postive to overcome a transgression. Sometimes they get to choose the 'extra' and sometimes we have to help them come up with something. The key is to never do this when either side is mad. To date we have never had to actually take something away. And if I do say so myself our kids are pretty responsible and not particularly fearful of talking to us about things that go wrong. Well except for the time they broke our $1000 power washer trying to launch baseballs into the air. In that case they had to pay us each $20 from the money they earn helping out at the market. That money obviously didn't make a big dent in the repair bill, but it was meaningful on their level.
What this father did, even on the face of it, was never giving his daughter a chance to grow and learn
I hear you Unionist. Part of the issue boiled down to conflicting statements about what happened.
After some more research to look into Michelle's feeling that the child's lawyer hadn't made the facts of the case more clear (it's not as if I had a life of my own, folks)... actually the National Post quoted the child's lawyer clearly enough - and with supporting opinion by another Montreal lawyer on June 19 or 20, 2008 (sorry no hyperlink, it's off their site, I had to hunt up quotes on RW blogs):
« ... while the case is raising some eyebrows, a tangled behind-the-scenes custody battle must be taken into account, said Montreal family law lawyer, Miriam Grassby.
"It's a very different situation than a child who might appear to not be be happy with the parent's decision and simply saying 'I'm going to go court and I'm going to get what I want," she said. "And if in fact it's been portrayed that way, it's not putting in its complex context.
While the girl's father has full legal custody, pending a further court decision, the girl has been living with her mother, Ms. Fortin said. But while Ms. Beaudoin says the girl went to live with her mother when her father forbade her from going on the trip, Ms. Fortin contends that she was "kicked out" of her father's house over family tensions. »
However, the Ottawa Citizen took no such precautions. In its alarmist June 19 account - "Court ruling on parental discipline stuns, raises questions of right to raise children - journalist Dan Butler did not speak to the daughter's lawyer or echo her statements or case in court. Instead, he quoted a number of experts, first and foremost one of the most aggressive fathers' rights lawyers in Canada, Parental Alienation Syndrome promoter Gene Colman, but without identifying him as such.
Check out Colman's name in the « Battered Moms Lose Custody » Hall of Shame website, by an article called : « Canadian Symposium on PAS teaching how to do custody change scam»
I think this Ottawa Citizen story - and a similar broadside by Quebec journalist Yves Boisvert - is what really stoked the fire of patriarchalist reaction that gathered strength in FR and RW blogs and came to define mainstream media accounts of this continuing litigation.
The FR lobby is constantly pressing to have legislation changed to provide fathers with more authority and less obligations in post-separation situations. Such articles are, I think, part of that effort.
ETA: In retrospect, it seems to me that what happened is this: the girl asked the Court to take a decision in a coparental authority situation that was blocked because the father had cut off communication - with not only her but his coparent, the mother, and this way before the May 15 spat according to the decision. The Court ruled against the father's will in the field trip issue. Dad is now saying he is ready to go all the way to the Supreme Court. So it's really a contest between parental and judicial power, between private and public matters, with children's rights a criterion, as in the debate over spanking. No wonder the Right is so enthusiastically on his side!
"You know, it's easy to blame the lawyers in these types of cases. I always say that lawyers who practice in family law do not need to multiply proceedures and create all these problems they're accused of creating just to make as much money as possible. Clients are willing to do that all on their own."
I agree. But what's behind all this? Right now, the system is rigged so that people in my economic strata have obligations and entitlements that actually outstrip abilities to fully meet them. The seeds of conflict are not sown in the lawyer's office, but in the legislature. Legislatures dominated by, you guessed it, lawyers.
When I went through my separation and divorce, my lawyer was like you. And, he helped me deal with the anxiety I got every time my ex's lawyer poked and proded me. Or so it seems to a person who isn't used to getting letters from lawyers. And, I really don't know if my ex's lawyer was trying to provoke me into some bad response, or whether I was just paranoid. Either way, that lawyer was just doing her best to represent my ex's interest, according to the laws, which she's supposed to do. I have no animosity with either of them.
But, I sure as hell do with the system.
The system, particularly when there is a large disparity of income between the two spouses, is engineered to settle things by moving as much money around as possible, and to create as much personal anxiety as possible. And that's because every time a largish sum is moved, the banks get a slice (particularly when pension settlements have to be financed) and, of course, actuaries get to horn in on the deal. (my lawyer's line item fee for figuring out my pension -- $25.00. The Actuarial fee-- $525.00--- which has gone up substantially since)
And, compared to others, my ex and I got through it all remarkably well.
Now, people are going back to court in droves because of things like spousal support, because it's determined as a fixed amount and not an easily adjusted percentage of income.
Individual lawyers don't have to goad people into costly disputes. That dirty work is done for them at the legislative level.
I have been researching divorce law reform for a few decades - based on a policy of looking closely at what antifeminists are doing - and I question the notion that legisation is driven by lawyers for personal interest. They are part of the picture, for sure, when it comes to spelling out the mechanics of coparenting, assets division and support obligations - when these are relevant issues. But the real pressure comes from pressure groups attempting to maintain entitlements for non-caretaking parents and from the occasional feminists and researchers who try to provide reality checks about the poverty and violence. They are the ones impacting on politicians all the time, fighting child support collection schemes, for instance, trying to get custody written out of the law (to gut child support). If you look at mandatory mediation, for instance, that has long been a Trojan horse for Father-Right folks in order to keep women away from lawyers and the courts, it was implemented by governments - more or less, between one jurisdiction or another - over and above the resistance of the lawyers' community.
Toddsschneider, it would be nice if you changed that thread title, now that we have established how misleading it is. It could read, for example, "Quebec dad loses appeal to overturn Court decision lifting his daughter's grounding". This girl never sued her father and this is disinformation.
I am more than willing to entertain the notion that my views are the product of bitterness, and they should be read through that screen.
However, we can say that legislators are reacting to this public pull or that, and I'd agree this happens. But, the lobby that gets to tweek the legislation to the most profitable ends for them does that work at lunches, the summer barbeque circuit, and behind closed doors.
Has anyone ever sat down to craft family law legislation from a perspective of maintaining as much economic and emotional security-- not for the man, or the woman, or the children, but for the family in crisis?
Not. On. Your. Nelly.
The banks wouldn't stand for it. Nor the actuaries. Or, I will still maintain, the lawyers.
Our judicial paradigm is mostly that of autonomous individuals and their individual rights. Upon family breakdown, this reference is especially dominant, as there aren't family interests per se anymore - unless of course one validates the primary caretaker and her or his childrem as the surviving family whose interests ought to be protected. But any move in that direction is uniformly denounced as anti-men by the antifeminist lobby which, yes, tireless works the business lunch and behind closed-doors meetings circuit. I don't like lawyers anymore than you do, Tommy, I am just attentive to who pays the piper.
And I remain attentative to qui bono.
Doesn't "cui bono" (who profits?) point mostly to the people litigating against equalization payments between ex-spouses and acknowledgement of who does the primary caretaking and should therefore be entitled to child support and unimpeded authority? The latter seems to have been the crux of the Gatineau court, with the trial judge deciding that - the child having been sufficiently punished by having her school dance sabotaged - the now fully-caretaking parent was entitled to pay for and accompany that field trip, and the father going ballistic.
From the "Canadian Children's Rights Council" website, a 2004 National Post editorial about where Canada still stands on divorce reform and what were self-interested fathers' lobbying position in a nutshell:
Right decision, wrong reasons
National Post Lead Editorial, A17 December 23, 2004
Irwin Cotler, the Justice Minister, announced on Tuesday that the federal government will hold off on reforming child custody laws. We can't say that's too much of a disappointment. If enacted, the expected changes would mostly have served to tilt the anti-father bias of Canada's family courts even further in favour of women.
First proposed by Mr. Colters predecessor, Martin Cauchon, the now-dormant bill would have scrapped existing provisions compelling the courts to grant "maximum contact" to both parents and severed the last remaining connections between payment of child support and access by fathers to their kids. Worse, it would have given judges the power to withhold all access to fathers with past histories of violent behaviour while permitting wives to raise allegations of abuse at divorce proceedings even if they had made no previous complaints of violence -- a recipe for false accusations in bids to win total custody. (...)
Toddsschneider, it would be nice if you changed that thread title, now that we have established how misleading it is. It could read, for example, "Quebec dad loses appeal to overturn Court decision lifting his daughter's grounding". This girl never sued her father and this is disinformation.
It's not my "disinformation" to correct. I borrowed the thread title from the www.cbc.ca news headline, but merely added commas for grammatical clarity. I usually quote headlines verbatim, to show that it's not my own words, nor do I necessarily endorse the point of view given. Take it up with the CBC if you must.
To the CBC
Re: Your story and comments
I am concerned that we are seeing yet another hate-fest on this website - against a young woman, her lawyer and the trial judge - and that this extraordinary outpouring of anger is based on a totally inaccurate title by the CBC.
This young woman did NOT « sue » her father, as you wrote : her lawyer - assigned to her long before this spat because of a pathetic communications breakdown between her parents - asked the Court to arbitrate a sorry situation where the father was refusing to speak with her anymore, had thrown her out more than a month before a crucial field trip, had already sabotaged her school dance show by refusing to turn her over her costume and was about to impede the caretaking parent's authority by forbidding the school to let her authorize the field trip.
Such situations are unfortunately common when a parent is at another's throat, and it was quite appropriate for the trial judge to assess whether the child had been sufficiently punished.
But the key point is that in no way did she sue her father by exercising her right to escape this toxic standoff.
I hope that an editor will consider this mess and change the story title immediately, with appropriate apologies to the people who have been smeared because of your lack of professionalism.
This issue deserves a careful examination of the problems surrounding the exercise - and sometimes abuse - of parental authority by non-custodial parents, and the CBC is definitely not helping by muddying the water with a provocative, erroneous title.
The facts of this matter can be verified in the original Quebec superior Court judgment in this case, here :
http://www.jugements.qc.ca/primeur/documents/droitdelafamille_09746.doc
Martin Dufresne
I'm sorry, Martin, but you are the one spreading disinformation now. Your accusations against the CBC seem a little extreme to me. The lawyer had represented the child in the Court proceeding between her parents. It is not contested that when her father decided she wouldn't be able to go on the school trip, she called her lawyer. Her lawyer tried to settle the matter and when it failed, she filed a motion in court. Thus, the child did sue her father. Also, for some reason, you've decided to believe the child story that her father threw her out of the home. The father says that she left. That point is in dispute. Unless you have evidence that her father threw her out, lets not presume. I am going to say this though: if her father threw her out of the home, why would he go out of his way, until the Court of Appeal, to have his decision, or his parental authority, recognized.
I'm sorry to see how this all developped into a big conspiracy about the big bad lawyers. The lawyers are all in the legislature, and they, for some unidentified reason, decided to make the family law system horribly difficult to deal with. And now that they see in what mess it is, they are all laughing in their big offices. Thats exactly what they wanted. The changes they made to the system in order to accelerate it? To facilitate child custody decisions? Ha! Ha! In fact, its just a front to hide their true intentions which is in fact to sabotage the system so that their pals, the litigation lawyers, could make a lot of money off of people who have none. Ha! Ha! It worked perfectly!!
You may not like lawyers, Martin, but they sure come in handy when you need them don't they? I'll reiterate my point that lawyers, as a group, aren't to be blamed for the system's failure - uncontrolled emotions are, whether it be one of the parties who wants to fight out of principle, or out of ignorance, or out of hatred or revenge. People like the members of F4J are the worst thing to make its way into to courts system. They claim, perched on bridges, that the system is against fathers because they can't see their children, all the while forgetting to mention the little details, like the drugs they like to do while their children are in the other room, or the restraining orders they have because they terrorized their "families" into submission. One of the most valuable lessons I've learned while practicing family law is that people often omit little "details". Dig a little deeper and all of a sudden, all these injustices appear so much clearer.
On another point, no, legislation is not crafted for the family. You know why? Because by the time it makes its way to court, there is no "family". Legislation around custody issues is crafted to benefit the children. Some of the worst cases I've had to deal with are cases where one of the parties was obessed over this idea that a court decision ultimatly had to benefit the "family". And as unpopular as this comment may be, evertime it was a man who could not accept a separation and tried to manipulate his ex-partner into thinking about the "family" first, whereas all she wanted was to deal with the issue, so that the individuals could go on with their lives. Claiming that legislation has to benefit the family is like saying that people can't separate because its not good for the family. I would even say its pretty irresponsible.
Good letter Martin.
Laura wrote: "if her father threw her out of the home, why would he go out of his way, until the Court of Appeal, to have his decision, or his parental authority, recognized?"
Maybe to win the contest and control the situation from afar even if she will not "acknowledge his authority"! Surely you know that a lot of divorced men do that.
"Her lawyer tried to settle the matter and when it failed, she filed a motion in court. Thus, the child did sue her father."
This seems very androcentrist to me. I understand that to sue someone is to attempt to obtain something from that person; not from the Court as in this case. The child and her lawyer merely wanted the school to authorize a school trip vetted by the new custodial parent. It was the father who shoe-horned himself back into the picture by appealing Judge Tessier's decision empowering the school. So I don't think one can say he was sued.
Indeed I think that is the real scandal here for the conservatives railing on the CBC website - 1000 comments so far - that a father's power could be bypassed by a Court when he was trying to "break" his daughter. Not unlike the physical correction ("spanking") issue.
I agree with the rest of your excellent points.
A posting to the CBC news website:
Why does this situation strike such a chord?
Because we see a father risking discredit, even if he - according to the record - discredited himself with unreasonable, uncompromising grandstanding.
Of course, the Father-Rightists are inundating this forum with their hackneyed defense of any male abuser's privilege - we know they would turn back the clock against women's and children's rights in a moment if they could. Just read their calls for a return of physical abuse as an education "tool"...
But others among us are also moved at what seems like a scary, unstable situation: a child being vindicated by the justice system against paternal authority apparently gone haywire.
We imagine how, had she been there, the mother would have traditionally sacrificed herself, taken the brunt of this man's anger and sided with him against her child to spare him this self-humiliation. But he broke off contact with her months before his confrontation with the girl.
So today we understand that this man has painted himself into a corner. He is lost in an ego-driven hissy fit, resorting to publically intimating that his child is a pornographer.
His court-chastised lawyer speaks of challenging Quebec's parental authority legislation that robbed her client of a final victory as he tried to go on sabotaging his child's life until she came back to him, repenting. Two courts have proved him wrong and he wants to take this to the Supreme Court.
We are embarrassed. Like Noah in the Bible, the patriarch is drunk with his own feelings, stripped naked by a very traditional self-aggrandized fury, and we look for a mantle to drape over him.
Will children's rights survive the shame he tries to infect us with?
Cui Bono.
It seems to me, at almost every turn, the system is set up to ensure that there is every opportunity to siphon off as much economic resources as possible from the divorcing/separating couple-- and, ultimately, the children. Pension entitlements can be figured out so entitlements are met without the necessity of financing. Spousal support can be determined once and for all, without the constant need for litigation as incomes vary over time.
Substantial amounts of money could remain with the parties if, for example, lawyers just showed up in court when they said they would, and stop using delays as negotiating, and personal enrichment tactics.
"On another point, no, legislation is not crafted for the family. You know why? Because by the time it makes its way to court, there is no "family". Legislation around custody issues is crafted to benefit the children."
Perhaps it is crafted to benifit the children, if we are talking about the children of the legal representatives of the parties. That is where the money ultimately flows to. And like it or not, the economic security of the children in the break up, no matter who is awarded custody, is seriously compromised through this system, in both the long and short terms.
"I'll reiterate my point that lawyers, as a group, aren't to be blamed for the system's failure - uncontrolled emotions are, whether it be one of the parties who wants to fight out of principle, or out of ignorance, or out of hatred or revenge."
That's easy to say when you've handled scores, perhaps hundreds of cases. But for most people involved, aside from perhaps a visit to a real estate lawyer, this is their one contact point with the law and lawyers, with nasty important looking letters, and demands for this and that from strangers.
I think back to my last meeting with my lawyer, how he congratulated me-- in fact told me how singularly rare I was-- in that I remained rational through the process.
But it was only because I had a firm grip on what the system was trying to do to my kids, my ex, and myself.
Blaming the emotionality of the parties in this system for the expensive outcomes is akin to land mine manufactures blaming amputees for "uncontrolled feet." The hazards are burried. Intentionally.
I cannot believe people so educated could craft something so horrific by mistake, and benifit so much through "happy accident" simultaneously.
As for so called "Men's Rights" groups, it's my experience from the guys who have gone through divorce that once the issue is behind them, they would like to put as much distance from the process as possible. I can believe, however, that there are those motivated primarily by mysogyny. And perhaps I under estimate their number and resources.
But I'm hellishly curious to know, at the same time, who might be financing them.
Look no further than the billions "saved" each year by men who default or otherwise hold back on child support responsibilities, alimony and family assets sharing. Misogyny need not even enter the picture. Robbing your ex and your kids makes business sense. Even to the point of giving some of that money to a lawyer instead. It is a telling contradiction that no one expresses more hatred for the law profession than do Father-Rightists; yet they are the ones litigating again and again whenever they think they have a chance of "sticking it to her!
Discrimination against women in employment (they earn only 70% of men's wages; they are inadequately or not at all accommodated for childbearing and childrearing; they are victims of harassment) and unavailability of accessible and affordable child care, decent jobs, skills training, etc. all compound the societal bias against women and children. Family law pretends to benefit "the child", but courts have no jurisdiction to make society fulfill its obligations.
Yes. And the courts are increasingly ordered by conservative legislatures to reestablish patriarchal privilege through parental authority schemes empowering the non-caretaking parent - if he's male - (I predict there will be many more fracasses such as the present one), "alternatives" to justice and continuing privileges for intrafamily assaulters, rigmarole procedures to obtain abortion services (escalating in US states at the behest of anti-choice activists), "welfare fraud" prosecutions that make sure a women is locked in deep poverty if she tries to raise a family without a male head, etc. etc. The Handmaiden's Tale is already being spun for judicially-challenged women and their children.
"Look no further than the billions "saved" each year by men who default or otherwise hold back on child support responsibilities, alimony and family assets sharing. Misogyny need not even enter the picture."
I'm not so sure. In Ontario, at least, people who earn a paycheque have little wiggle room. Defaulters have their wages gauransheed, and many in fact volutarily do so for the convenience. The annectdotes I hear from people that don't receive spousal support or child support seem to have ex's that are self employed, where it's more difficult to enforce court ordered supports. Another happy accident that most lawyers are self employed, I suppose.
What I'm getting at is that the "men's rights" activists that have happened upon us here, and we see elsewhere seem to strike me as a bunch of cranks and whack jobs that couldn't organize themselves out of a wet paper bag.
Where are they getting the help?
My best guess is religious organizations that want to univesally supress women.
It is obvious that some lawyers are playing to this crowd, along with a whole lot of activists illegally dispensing take-no-prisoners bad legal advice. But I concur with Laura: the lawyers I have known have mostly been trying to steer angry and hurting parents away from costly and generally useless litigation and toward amicable settlements (indeed, these happen in the majority of separations).
The support FR extremists are getting comes from right-wing foundations such as the Children's Rights Council, government budgets such as the U.S. Fatherhood Initiative, antifeminist journalists (there are a lot of bitter divorced men and their partners in those newsrooms), but mostly, their impetus comes from individual divorced men - many of them convicted abusers (believe me, I have been researching them for 25 years, going to their meetings, etc. - Leroux and Dumas are no exceptions) - ready to battle their ex and the women's rights movement to the bitter end, even if it costs them their last penny or jail time. They are the ones paying the lawyers rather than child support and - wherever it still exists - alimony.
I see this as a conflict between the rule of law and men's rule, where women had to submit to whatever. And most pundits and liberal observers would rather side with the patriarchal status quo than with women and children.
Missing Quebec girl found safe in Vancouver
http://tinyurl.com/cvzfbu
... The girl was identified as Ashley Gonis, who disappeared from Montreal in January 2007, according to media reports ...
She was listed as a missing child due to parental abduction on the website of Enfant-Retour Quebec, a non-profit organization whose mission is to assist families searching for their missing children ...Frank Gonis made a public appeal last year for the safe return of his daughter after his divorced wife and Ashley vanished on Jan. 15, 2007, according to media reports. Quebec courts had granted sole custody of the girl to the father before she went missing.
A bit of a non-sequitur. given that the Gatineau girl in the original post had been shown the door by her father after a quarrel, according to her account (that was not infirmed by the Tessier judgment). What is your rationale here, toddsschneider?
Just guessing, but I think it's in the realm of "mothers behave badly too".
Given that martin has outlined many systemic rules and realities about anti-woman policies in these (and other) matters, my sense is that todds doesn't get it.
The MSM loves the kinds of stories that todds posted. If only the MSM would publish the names of all fathers who default on support payments. Or every time fathers steal a child/children who are given into full custody of their mothers.
Meanwhile the harrassing of the Gatineau girl, her lawyer, her mother and the judges involved has reached 1,035 posts on the CBC website, thanks to their misleading titles and reprinting as fact Dad's allegations about the child posting "inapproriate pictures" on a chat site. As one lone sane commenter mentioned, Judge Tessier must have seen these pictures and did not see fit to validate this man's claim in her original judgment.
To obtain action from the CBC, I suggest that hate speech/personal attack posts be reported and commented using their simple "Click here" feature. A sample comment I sent in: "It is sad that the CBC can host such calls for violence against judicial personnel, especially on the basis of its own faulty information." Still no news from the Ombudsman and News team. Do chip in, please.
As for Ashley Gonis, I am glad she is getting help, but it's not obvious that she will be returned in her father's care. A hearing will be held in B.C. to decide that. People who know anything about social work know that it too often happens that an abused child cannot be taken out of harm's way, for lack of sufficient evidence or simply of resources to examine her case. That is usually when a protective parent decides to run with her or him, at immense cost to both, mostly because of society's failure to challenge parentla (i.e. paternal) privilege and make child abuse a real priority.
Never too early to start smearing that dad, eh?
Where did you learn to be so passive-aggressive? And as a full-grown adult, how come you haven't unlearned it yet? You're chronologically older than I am, but dude, grow up.
Don't you want to understand why mothers (or sometimes, fathers) run with a child? I am not saying anything about Mr. Gonis, just trying to establish general context, over and above MSM sensationalism.
(Your personal attack is being reported.)
Perhaps it is not him who needs to grow snert!
One unfortunate side effect of anti-defamation legisation is that when a protective parent decides to run with what she believes to be an abused child (sometimes with plenty of evidence), her reasons cannot be printed. OTOH, the abusive parent who stays home gets all the media attention he wants to smear the "kidnapper".
One element of the Father-Right agenda is having the State charge as kidnappers women who take their child(ren) with them to a DV shelter.
That is usually when a protective parent decides to run with her or him, at immense cost to both, mostly because of society's failure to challenge parentla (i.e. paternal) privilege and make child abuse a real priority.
Martin, this is one instance where a point like this can be made more strongly by given actual examples. When you connect it with the story about Ashley Gonis - about which you (and I) know absolutely nothing - you weaken your thesis, but making it look like a generalization which can be tossed about without regard to facts. Then, of course, snert chirps in, and the debate shifts to who is smearing whom.
Give us an example of a protective parent absconding with her/his child when the courts have actually granted custody to the abuser. That will draw some blood. Insinuating that maybe perhaps possibly this happened in the Gonish case is just feeble.
Snert, you're over the line here. If Martin attacks YOU, then fine, call him out on it. Heck, call him out on his argument if you want. But please don't personally attack him.
remind, a third person jumping into the fight probably wasn't necessary. It would be great if babble culture could embrace a kind of online version of the third-man-in rule. :D
Anyhow, this thread is probably long enough. It's close enough to 100 posts to close it.