A shocking truth: one blogger gets CRIES FOR HELP from people around the world...

Are others being terrorised?

I wrote my last blog about Dr. Kenneth Dickie last weekend. Since writing the Dr. Dickie series, I have been contacted by others living inside and outside of Canada who are also targets of bad family policy in Canada. One man in exile in Europe contacted me ... he no longer has a Canadian passport or a drivers licence. He described himself as being "hunted and cornered" by the FRO (Family Responsibility Office). What's next? Dawg the Bounty Hunter hunts down "deadbeats" for a live TV audience?

Historically, non-payment of financial support for children to ex-spouses is in part because of an inability to pay. Also, there are those who are unwilling to pay to retaliate for illegal denial of child /parent access by custodial parents. Do proponents of excessive support enforcement consider these types of situations too?

Illegal access denial without penalty is possible because of a lack of non-litigious or institutional remedies to matters of child-parent access issues. Rightly or wrongly, custody is still awarded to mothers because of their gender (rather than because of their character). Can anyone who interprets the Charter see this as being anything other than gender discriminatory?... but I digress. Because of a lack of policy on access or deterrents to the denial of access, some custodial parents self-interestedly limit access (to punish the other parent) even if psychological research shows that such behaviour negatively affects children emotionally.

Nevertheless, Canadians who divorce and do not (or cannot) honour their financial responsibilities lose their drivers licences, their passports and their children, because of legislation that wrongly assumes further enforcement will motivate people to "pay up". Only after that, those who don't pay what they are due could spend 120 days in jail. After that, Ontarians and/or Albertans who still don't pay will end up with their picture on the internet and labelled a "deadbeat".

I once read we have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 50 times over... for those who get off on that, wouldn't once enough? How much support enforcement do we really need?...Does Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government truly believe the posting pictures of "deadbeats" on the internet is really good family policy? Or, is this simply "good politics" in an election year? Is this, as George Bush once said, to "smoke them out of their holes"?

Excessive support enforcement helps keep children away from their fathers

As a by-product, even those who always intended to pay their first families (what some say is excessive and miscalculated yet legislated child and spousal support) will invariably lose all contact with their children. Then again, "access" (which serves mostly men because of the gender preference in custody decisions by Canadian judges) does not matter. Many parents also end up in exile and may lose everything, including their homeland. Some, like Dr. Ken Dickie, end up in jail simply, because they cannot pay.

"Debtor's prison" was eliminated a long time ago in all matters other than the family. So, is this OK because only "divorced dads" are at risk of such incarseration? Is this also a form of state-orchestrated child-parent alienation for mothers who may want to have that card to play just in case? One father in exile suggested in an e-mail to me that politicians have created a "monster (in the FRO) and now they don't know what to do with it"? Are Minister Madeleine Meilleur and Premier Dalton McGuinty responsible out of ignorance, opportunism or pandering to special interests? Will they pay politically for making short-sighted and bad policy decisions (for political reasons) in an election year in Ontario?

Is Canada's judiciary more loyal to legal industry or to fairness and equality?

On New Year' Day I wrote about "discrimination ratings" by Ontario Court of Appeal judges. I highlighted Supreme Court Justice, Rosalie Abella, as an example of a (former) Ontario Court of Appeal judge with one of the worst discrimination ratings.

I previously knew of Justice Abella because of the anecdotes made flippantly by lawyers who I know in Ontario. Some consider Justice Abella to be responsible for much "rain-making" for the legal industry in family law - either the "hero" or the "zero" - depending upon one's perspective. Jurisprudence under her watch made it so that separation agreements in divorce could be could be reopened - because of either "missing financial disclosure" or "inadequate independent legal advice".

Cynics might consider that jurisprudence of this type ensures that the legal industry is fully in control in of the break-up of families in Canada whether that is appropriate or not. Consider this: Canadians must consult a lawyers while separating or divorcing in order to avoid being completely financially vulnerable. This jurisprudence is precisely for why Kenneth Dickie and others have been ostracized by Canada and are in exile.

Are these persons victims of a money grab and a takeover by a legal industry (along with their judicial accomplices) which produces more lawyers than there is legal work? What ever happened to transparent money grabs - like "ambulance chasing"? When children are involved, is it really in their interest for matters of the family to be sorted adversarially?

Are major law firms are "flippant" about family law inequities? Que bono?

This article in its entirety provides an overview of “advocacy dominance” and “superior representation” by certain Canadian law firms in matters of the family. The article was posted on the website of one such firm as a testimony to their ability to provide fair representation in family matters. Healthy sceptics might consider this to be more about assurances (from those who profit from bad family policy) that it is possible, post-agreement, to go after one’s ex-spouse for everything they can. This is via litigation on family matters, even if matters were previously resolved via a supposed “binding contract” in the form of a separation agreement. Would business people agree to such terms?

As such, I leave you with an excerpt from that article below, which also shows another case where Mr. Harold Niman represented a female client pro-bono. Why?

"If my client assured me that she was familiar with her husband’s assets, then it’s possible, perhaps, to do a settlement without full disclosure," says Sadvari at McCarthys tentatively. The risk, however, isn’t really the wife’s - if she later feels she got too little, the fact that the settlement was made without full financial disclosure leaves the husband vulnerable. The courts have shown themselves perfectly willing to reconsider agreements more than a decade after settlement - tow it, Bailey v. Plaxton. Married in 1965, divorced in 1985, Beverly Bailey - represented pro bono by Harold Niman of Niman Zemans Gelgoot - and Alan Plaxton - represented by Stephen Grant of McCarthy Tétrault - were back in the courts in March 2000, to revisit spousal support 10 years after payments, in accordance with their divorce agreement, ceased."

This seems too similar to the financial arrangement Harold Niman allegedly had with Mrs. Dickie to be a coincidence. Is Harold Niman also representing these clients for a larger purpose? You tell me…