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…

Persons from Toronto making an information war about Dr. Dickie: Did their latest move backfire?

I would like to finish up on this theme, however, it seems persons from Toronto are making many efforts to control the flow of information about Dr. Kenneth Dickie. Should this make me stop writing? Well, at least the Freeport News appears to be acting objectively.

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A Canadian Deadbeat in the Bahamas?

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In case some of you are just tuning in, I have written four posts about Dr. Kenneth Dickie since February. The first one on February 10th was kind of "tongue in cheek" because I was relying on what the Canadian media was reporting as my only source of information. My issue with Dr. Dickie at the time was that he had seemed to leave Canada for the Bahamas to escape family support obligations and that the bad publicity would make it more difficult for those of us left behind to fix a very broken family law system in Canada.

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My post of February 24th was more balanced, since it was based on my own interview with Dr. Dickie and the exlcusive radio interview on Chin Radio in Ottawa with Ernie Tannis. I discovered that Dr. Dickie paid $1.25 million to his ex wife over ten years. He had also set up trust funds for all his kids for them to go to university or college after his support obligations expired which is usually when children turn 18. One month before all of Dr. Dickie's obligations were to have been fulfilled, his ex-wife reopened their separation agreement with the help of her lawyer, Mr. Harold Niman, and the rest is history. Dr. Dickie was put in jail for 45 days previously. He is currently in exile in the Bahamas because at the time he couldn't get a bank guarantee to back up 250K in future support payments to his ex wife for his grown children who already had educational trust funds.

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While you are at it Mr., why don't you also chop off Ken Dickie's hand for stealing a loaf of bread? The unknown circumstances of this case are almost as horrifying as the fact the Canadian media has chosen not to report on them.

Since then, I have had to republish that February 24th article twice, once on March 3rd with a foreword and again on March 9th with a public plea and a call for corporate support via the search engines in not suppressing on the internet the information I wrote telling Dr. Ken Dickie's side of the story.

In my blog of March 9th I explained how all evidence of my previous post about Dr. Dickie had disappeared from Google's ordering program. I presume, correctly or not, that this is being accomplished by the threats of litigation used by those who either specialise in civil litigation or those with a vested interest in restricting freedom of speech and controlling information because financially and reputationally it is worth it for them to do so. Would the large amounts of money that will flow to the legal industry as a result of the Dickie vs. Dickie Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence warrant them spending time and making efforts in liaising with the search engines to suppress people's access to Views from the Water's Edge?

After my March 3rd post vanished from the ordering program on Thursday, at least this had not happened at Yahoo. I reported about this. And, this is what showed up until earlier today on Yahoo as the top two results when one looks for information about "Dr. Ken Dickie":

1. Views from the Water's Edge... the exclusive radio interview with Dr. Ken Dickie
on Chin Radio, 97.9 in Ottawa ... Dr. Ken Dickie is the Ontario plastic surgeon
and alleged "deadbeat dad" who ...viewsfromthewatersedge.blogspot.com - 255k - Cached - More pages from this site

2.Views from the Water's Edge: What do Leper's Island, Debtor's Prison and "deadbeat dad" have in common?: online ... ... the exclusive radio interview withDr.
Ken Dickie on Chin Radio, 97.9 in Ottawa ... Dr. Ken Dickie is the Ontario plastic surgeon and alleged "deadbeat dad", who ...viewsfromthewatersedge.blogspot.com/2007/03/... - 83k - Cached- More
pages from this site

If you like, I recommend you go see what shows up when the phase, Dr. Ken Dickie, is searched using Google and what happens when the same words are typed into Yahoo today. Please tell me if you don't think someone is intervening? It would be a relief, so please, though I would first recommend your visiting my other posts on this topic to see for yourself Views from the Water's Edge at the top of Google's search results initially.

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Why not just shame Dr. Dickie in the Bahamas and make him public enemy #1?

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I also found out this week that "someone" in Toronto has approached the publisher of two major Bahamian newspapers, the Freeport News and the Nassau Guardian, and asked them to accept a fax containing copies of numerous newspaper articles from Canada - possibly the same information or worse that led me to understanding a "biased" truth when I wrote my first article about Dr. Dickie on February 10th. Was this, as George Bush once said, to "smoke him out of his hole"? When this type of intervention is combined with what I have discovered about persons motivating the search engines to suppress information (possibly via threats), I start to wonder whether this quest is just a movement or a full blown cover-up/conspiracy?

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Well, at least journalism in the Bahamas seems to be more balanced, as they apparently went to Dr. Dickie to look for his side of the story. As such, Dr. Dickie was given the opportunity to provide them with other information, including my articles at Views from the Waters Edge.

In the name of freedom of speech, gender equality and innocence before guilt, I strongly recommend you check out this article about the Dickie vs. Dickie case by The Freeport News. It puts to shame anything reported by the Canadian media on this topic.

Does anyone else have problem with this? Is anyone else starting to wonder why it is so important to some to control information about Dickie and to suppress his side of the story? Que Bono? What type of society are and journalism are we proponents of here?

Newspeak on Dr. Dickie...great lengths taken to bury the truth: Why?

I wonder if I am the only blogger reading this post who has seriously thought s/he was at risk of having her/his blog "pulled" from Blogger for reasons of censorship and/or self-interest.

This is the scenario:

1. On February 24th I published a post about Dr. Ken Dickie who is the alleged "deadbeat dad" who is in exile in the Bahamas. This is because the Supreme Court's decision to overturn a lower court's ruling will put Dr. Dickie in jail if he returns to Canada. Dr. Dickie told the story in an exclusive interview that suggests he may have been sacrificed in exchange for jurisprudence that should generate $$$ billions $$$ for the legal industry.

That post generated lots of hits and came up near the top of page one on any Google search containing the name: Dr. Ken Dickie.

2. On Wednesday February 28th all evidence of my post (that told the other side of Ken Dickie’s tragic story) mysteriously vanished from Google’s search results. All references to Dr. Ken Dickie in that post were no longer picked up by Google’s ordering program. It was as if I had never written about him - even though the posts were still up.

3. On March 3rd I republished that article on Dr. Dickie in a new post. I added a foreword that raised questions about why it seems my previous post had been censored out of Google’s ordering system. I also started an experiment to see if my re-publish of that post would be “struck” from the search results again. I have been checking each day since more than once in order to report on any subsequent intervention and threat to freedom of speech.

4. Sometime after 3:00 pm (Eastern time) March 8th (approximately 9 hours ago maximum), the post link to my blog http://viewsfromthewatersedge.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-do-lepers-island-debtors-prison.html) stopped showing up in Google searches for the words “dr. ken dickie”. However this time, the information has only been censored partially. Result number 15 is the site viewsfromthewatersedge.blogspot.com. Nevertheless, the specific post has been removed from Google’s ordering sometime in the last eight hours.

15. Views from the Water's Edge- [ Traduire cette page ]
Dr. Ken Dickie is the Ontario plastic surgeon and alleged
“deadbeat dad” who lives in the Bahamas. He was officially placed in exile two
weeks ago by the ...viewsfromthewatersedge.blogspot.com/ - 250k - En cache
- Pages similaires

5. Then I checked Yahoo. The top two search results at the moment are similar to the order I viewed earlier today on Google when I enter "dr. ken dickie". The top two Yahoo results are currently my blog and my blog link below so what's up Google?:

1. Views from the Water's Edge
... the exclusive radio interview with Dr. Ken Dickie on Chin Radio, 97.9 in Ottawa ... Dr. Ken Dickie is the Ontario plastic surgeon and alleged "deadbeat dad" who ...viewsfromthewatersedge.blogspot.com - 255k - Cached - More pages from this site

2.Views from the Water's Edge: What do Leper's Island, Debtor's Prison and "deadbeat dad" have in common?: online ... ... the exclusive radio interview with
Dr. Ken Dickie on Chin Radio, 97.9 in Ottawa ... Dr. Ken Dickie is the Ontario
plastic surgeon and alleged "deadbeat dad", who ...viewsfromthewatersedge.blogspot.com/2007/03/... - 83k - Cached
- More pages from this site

What is the big deal?

Does anyone else find this creepy? Who is this “big brother”? Why should anyone care about Dr. Dickie’s side of the story or suppressing my blog for that matter? Did someone threaten to sue or is this an order from “on high”? Or, is this the preference of someone inside the search engine? Who gave the word to “pull it”?

If self-preservation rather than the universal principles of (freedom of speech, gender equality and innocence before guilt) were my motive I would probably have “gotten the hint” and I would stop posting on this topic. After all, someone(s) unknown keeps going to great lengths to suppress Dr. Ken Dickie’s side of the story.

Unfortunately, so far Dr. Dickie’s side of the story is represented almost exclusively by this post. Could someone else carry the torch in the event that Google who controls Blogger decides to eliminate my blog? Who then will tell Dr. Dickie's story?

Why would anyone care?

The jurisprudence created by Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling about Dickie v. Dickie is bold and powerful.

1. Does this represent the “nuclear bomb for women in matters of the family?

2. How could our highest court bring back “debtor’s prison” for matters of the family, even though such a concept has been banned in modern times?

3. How could an untold story in a civil matter result in jail when that same situation in a criminal matter would never result in jail?

4. Is there any credibility left in the judiciary after this very bold jurisprudence?

5. Who benefits most? The legal industry? Proponents of patriarchy? Those who seek to preserve the flow of monies in divorce from men to women?

6. Is this type of cover-up the work of “old boys” who presume women’s groups will make less of a fuss about gender inequality if they are given the upper hand in matters of the family? If so, the pursuit of corporate and political gender equality is slowed down because women can instead focus on enjoying the edge they have in family matters while divorced fathers like Dr. Dickie are sacrificed.

What about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Shouldn’t gender be taken out so that the objective gender equality is across the board rather than there being some issues that benefit men and others that benefit women?

Will evidence of this post be disappear too?

Perhaps the better question would be this: will someone try to take down my blog altogether? I obviously have not gotten the hint. Stay tuned. If this blog and persona disappears because I went too far, please consider those who seek to conceal information that may exonerate Dr. Dickie have much riding on this. After all, who is charged with concealing the porn and are they as successful?

Once again, in the name of freedom of speech, gender equality and innocence before guilt, I republish the post to balance the information available to the public with an interest in understanding Dr. Dickie and what this Supreme Court decision really means for the rest of us.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

What do Leper's Island, Debtor's Prison and "deadbeat dad" have in common?: online censorship shows that it is mostly about "the spin".

Over the last couple months I have learned a little about search engines and what makes them work. For the most part, information is sorted and is accessible regardless of content (unless objectionable). In the 21st century with so much information being shared by so many persons via much new technology, it is essential that principles such as "freedom of speech" be extended and preserved when these new forms of communication are the media.

Well, last week I told the other side of the story about Dr. Kenneth Dickie, the alleged "deadbeat dad" who is in exile on an island in the Bahamas. This followed the Supreme Court's 9-0 decision to overturn an Ontario Court of Appeal decision about Dr. Dickie, the Court $250,000 bond he was previously ordered to pay to his ex-wife for the education of his grown children. I wrote about the reasons behind his failure to pay following an exclusive interview on Ottawa radio the Thursday before last.

If you type in the words Dr. Kenneth Dickie into Google, you will understand why I needed to write what I did. There are dozen's of articles written explaining why the Supreme Court is right to make "debtor's prison" now appropriate for matters of the family and why Dr. Dickie needs to be locked up. My blog last Saturday reporting on Dr. Dickie's interview is pretty much the only piece of retrievable information by Google that raises questions about the appropriateness of the Supreme Court's decision on Dickie vs. Dickie.

Or, at least it was the only information - now there is nothing. Where last weekend my blog about Dr. Dickie was on page one of any Google search containing his name, by mid-week all links to that post via Google had mysteriously vanished.

Was this caused by someone(s) intervening somehow to ensure that this information was contained? How important is it to some to prevent the popular understanding of Dr. Dickie's side of the story? The vanishing of all links to that post raises further questions about the objectivity of the judiciary. This is especially so in matters where "controversial and highly interventionist" jurisprudence is created by consensus where a primary beneficiary happens to be the legal industry and the well funded special interests who spin until discriminatory words like "deadbeats" becomes a part of our popular terminology where other slurs are frowned upon.

In the name of freedom of speech, gender equality and innocence before guilt, I republish the post to balance the information available to the public with an interest in understanding Dr. Dickie and what this Supreme Court decision really means for the rest of us.

If these universal principles are important to you, please give the post a careful read. If you disagree, please let me know rather than enlisting the search engines in conspiring to commit some type of cover up.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Debtors Prison for Deadbeats: a Nuclear Bomb for women who choose divorce?

Last night I arrived in Toronto from Montreal. I did not plan to write a post, however, on my way to my first appointment this morning, while driving past Queen’s Park, I changed my mind and I took a detour to the Lakeshore and I shot some “views”, including the one attached.

The situation is this: most of us assume that if we play be the rules, we should be able to avoid our being put in jail. After all, if we work hard, act responsibly and honour our commitments, there should be no problems, right?

Sadly, history has shown there are noble causes perhaps where ultimately and in retrospect the State looks foolish or self-interested. When Cassius Clay / Mohamed Ali was put in jail for avoiding military service in the US, this represented a class / race struggle with respect military service that led to change and the objective of racial equality. There are also situations of injustice because of blatant racial biases, such as Nelson Mandela’s life in prison as a result of decisions made by discriminatory governments in South Africa trying to prolong a very unjust status quo. In these cases the State had no regard for equality or human rights and no qualms about locking up certain persons to perpetuate the self-interested agenda of the State or those who represent the State. This is how these decisions are now judged by history.

Well, this week I discovered that Canada’s judiciary may one day be seen in a way similar to how we lament the previous lack of integrity by the US and in South African governments. Because some of the worst family policy in Canada comes out of Ontario (as well as Supreme Court Justices who have the worst “discrimination ratings”) when it comes to the likelihood of women winning and men losing decisions they adjudicate, my hotel in downtown Toronto is the perfect place for me to explain why all men (even those who never foresee them being affected by a divorce) should be on alert.

This week’s Exclusive interview with Dr. Kenneth Dickie from exile in Bahamas

Did anyone else hear the exclusive radio interview with Dr. Ken Dickie on Chin Radio, 97.9 in Ottawa hosted by Ottawa lawyer and mediator Ernie Tannis? For those interested in exploring which situations in life could lead to one being wrongly incarcerated, I recommend your requesting a transcript.

In this interview, Dr. Dickie broke his silence about his family law case, following much media hysteria in recent weeks celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision about “deadbeat dads”. This was followed by Olivia Chow’s ignorant comments in the House of Commons this week blaming “deadbeats” for child poverty in Canada. Dr. Dickie finally told his side of the story. More than ever, there is no doubt in my mind term “deadbeat” is a euphemism placed in our terminology to legitimise gender biased public decision making by certain governments and the judiciary.

What’s this all about?

Dr. Ken Dickie is the Ontario plastic surgeon and alleged “deadbeat dad” who lives in the Bahamas. He was officially placed in exile two weeks ago by the Supreme Court's decision 9-0 to overturn an Ontario Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal would not hold Dr. Dickie in contempt for not putting up $250,000 in financial security for the education of his grown children because his claims that he cannot pay had not been heard by the Court. The Supreme Court says that doesn’t matter, so now there is jurisprudence saying that matters of civil contempt when information is still missing by a respondent are now punishable by jail. This is unbelievably bold jurisprudence because matters of criminal contempt would never result in jail under similar circumstances.

Now, Dr. Dickie will be put in jail if the Canadian authorities actually get their hands on him. He has lost his passport, which prevents him from leaving the Bahamas. And, perhaps most importantly, the State has made an example out of him personally so that all Canadian men who might consider getting married and/or having children one day should be on alert that any failure to “pay up“ if one‘s marriage ends up in divorce could mean jail.

Rightly or wrongly, decisions like this should cause a decline in the number of marriages and the number of children who are born. Furthermore, because individuals do not have exclusive control over whether their marriages work or not, it might also be prudent for all married and divorced men to now practice how to prudently and defensively pick up the soap in the shower. Or at the very least to be completely safe, just make sure you never drop that soap again.

Why doesn’t Dr. Dickie not just put up the ‘freaking’ money?

Even if it is ‘way over the top’ to put people in jail for civil matters, why does Dr. Dickie just pay? Could it be true that he cannot? Also, was he always a deadbeat? Did he ever pay for his kids?

Apparently, Dr. Dickie and his ex-wife signed a separation agreement at the time of the divorce in the early 1990s that made him responsible to pay her $1.25 million dollars over 10 years plus a $120,000 educational account for the kids. Both parties had sought independent legal advice at the time.

He contends that he paid his ex wife the agreed $1.25 million and the $120K for the kids education. He also claims that after making all these payments and after the ups and downs of his plastic surgery business in both Canada (which he shut down) and now in the Bahamas, he does not have the money/ equity to secure with a bank a “guarantee” to pay in security another 250K for the future education of children.

If it has been 15 years, how old are his kids? A deal is a deal, right?Dr. Dickie was one month away from having fulfilled that separation agreement when his wife’s legal counsel sought to re-open a ten year agreement on the eve of its completion. After receiving monies from her ex that amount to what many people don’t earn in a lifetime, Mrs. Dickie retained Toronto family divorce lawyer, Mr. Niman, who went after more money to pay for the education of Dr. Dickie’s children. By this point, his kids were all in their late teenage years and early twenties. Some of them had jobs, even though the mainstream media covering the story continues to publish pictures of Mrs. Dickie with young children leading most readers and viewers to believe Dr. Dickie left his family in the lurch.

Dr. Dickie’s lawyer, Rochelle Cantor, explains that Dr. Dickie’s children are now all in their 20s. They have been in and out of school, they all have “trust funds” set up previously by Dr. Dickie to pay for their education. They have all been close to being adults since before Mrs. Dickie sought to reopen the separation agreement - for example, at least one has taken 6 years to pursue 3 year degrees, etc; and another is travelling the world in lieu of attending school using monies from savings and a “trust fund” to fund the experience.

Mr. Niman by reputation is a lawyer who specialises “lifestyle family law“. Some call this the exclusive practice of helping wealthy, sometimes angry divorcees take their ex-husbands for everything they are worth. Because collecting legal fees on a contingency basis is not accepted practice in Canada, Mr. Niman allegedly took on Mrs. Dickie’s case pro-bono. After all, further jurisprudence in family law that would create even more incentives for women to divorce would logically help Mr. Niman’s practice. Would this be an alternative way for Mr. Niman to recover fees in the future for the time put into Mrs. Dickie’s case?

Well apparently, Mrs. Dickie also declared bankruptcy, which, if he were to choose, would have allowed Mr. Niman to write off “paper receivables” from his income tax . So, it seems Mr. Niman not only may pay less tax to Canada and Ontario by representing Mrs. Dickie, he got very valauable jurisprudence (for someone who practices this kind of law) by the Supreme Court of Canada preserving and extending the profitability of his genre of law in the future.

To top it all off, federal monies allocated to the Status of Women funding paid for Mr. Niman to take this case to the Supreme Court. This dangerous jurisprudence was funded by the Legal Education Action Fund (Leaf) which was set up in 1985 following the Charter to push for equal rights for women.

The irony is, this decision makes Canada less equal for men who are “totally exposed” if they choose to marry or to have children. Therefore, federal monies were used to put the interests of women forward at the expense of men who become divorced, which is arguably when advocacy monies become a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The “Nuclear Bomb” for Women and continued profits for the legal industry

According to Rochelle Cantor, one of Mr. Niman’s arguments to the Supreme Court in pleading for them to allow for this jurisprudence via the Dickie vs Dickie case, was that it “gives women a “nuclear weapon in matters of the family”.

Does anyone else have trouble with how this has developed? What is the real point of all of this? Is this really about poor Mrs. Dickie, who is currently working as a nurse in Alberta? Or, is this about those deprived Dickie children who are grown, who have trust funds barely depleted and who are either working or have been in an out of school this entire millennium?

Or, is this about feeding the pockets of the legal industry who have more tools to terrorise further the lives of those men who end up getting divorced, their second families and the children of second families?

After my previously posting this and this about gender bias by our judiciary, I am starting to wonder whether the politicisation of judicial appointments and the controversy surrounding this issue currently raised by the Liberals about the Conservatives does not need to be looked at more holistically. Previous judicial appointments by Liberal governments are failing it seems and are no better than the anticipated results from the current process proposed by the Conservatives to select judges.

If judges individually or collectively make decisions while on the bench implicitly or explicitly because of their own preferences, way of viewing the world, or a subliminal desire to indirectly facilitate more future business to the legal industry at the expense of gender equality, human rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the whole system (as well as those currently presiding) requires a complete overhaul.

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I repeat again, if you disagree with this post, please let me know. Do not seek to enlist the search engines in conspiring to commit some type of cover up.

Edgewater Views
12:36 am, March 9th, 2007

What do Leper's Island, Debtor's Prison and "deadbeat dad" have in common?: online censorship shows that it is mostly about "the spin".

Over the last couple months I have learned a little about search engines and what makes them work. For the most part, information is sorted and is accessible regardless of content (unless objectionable). In the 21st century with so much information being shared by so many persons via much new technology, it is essential that principles such as "freedom of speech" be extended and preserved when these new forms of communication are the media.

Well, last week I told the other side of the story about Dr. Kenneth Dickie, the alleged "deadbeat dad" who is in exile on an island in the Bahamas. This followed the Supreme Court's 9-0 decision to overturn an Ontario Court of Appeal decision about Dr. Dickie, the Court $250,000 bond he was previously ordered to pay to his ex-wife for the education of his grown children. I wrote about the reasons behind his failure to pay following an exclusive interview on Ottawa radio the Thursday before last.

If you type in the words Dr. Kenneth Dickie into Google, you will understand why I needed to write what I did. There are dozen's of articles written explaining why the Supreme Court is right to make "debtor's prison" now appropriate for matters of the family and why Dr. Dickie needs to be locked up. My blog last Saturday reporting on Dr. Dickie's interview is pretty much the only piece of retrievable information by Google that raises questions about the appropriateness of the Supreme Court's decision on Dickie vs. Dickie.

Or, at least it was the only information - now there is nothing. Where last weekend my blog about Dr. Dickie was on page one of any Google search containing his name, by mid-week all links to that post via Google had mysteriously vanished.

Was this caused by someone(s) intervening somehow to ensure that this information was contained? How important is it to some to prevent the popular understanding of Dr. Dickie's side of the story? The vanishing of all links to that post raises further questions about the objectivity of the judiciary. This is especially so in matters where "controversial and highly interventionist" jurisprudence is created by consensus where a primary beneficiary happens to be the legal industry and the well funded special interests who spin until discriminatory words like "deadbeats" becomes a part of our popular terminology where other slurs are frowned upon.

In the name of freedom of speech, gender equality and innocence before guilt, I republish the post to balance the information available to the public with an interest in understanding Dr. Dickie and what this Supreme Court decision really means for the rest of us.

If these universal principles are important to you, please give the post a careful read. If you disagree, please let me know rather than enlisting the search engines in conspiring to commit some type of cover up.

Debtor's Prison for Deadbeats: a Nuclear Bomb for women who choose divorce?

Last night I arrived in Toronto from Montreal. I did not plan to write a post, however, on my way to my first appointment this morning, while driving past Queen’s Park, I changed my mind and I took a detour to the Lakeshore and I shot some “views”, including the one attached.The situation is this: most of us assume that if we play be the rules, we should be able to avoid our being put in jail. After all, if we work hard, act responsibly and honour our commitments, there should be no problems, right?

Sadly, history has shown there are noble causes perhaps where ultimately and in retrospect the State looks foolish or self-interested. When Cassius Clay / Mohamed Ali was put in jail for avoiding military service in the US, this represented a class / race struggle with respect military service that led to change and the objective of racial equality. There are also situations of injustice because of blatant racial biases, such as Nelson Mandela’s life in prison as a result of decisions made by discriminatory governments in South Africa trying to prolong a very unjust status quo. In these cases the State had no regard for equality or human rights and no qualms about locking up certain persons to perpetuate the self-interested agenda of the State or those who represent the State. This is how these decisions are now judged by history.

Well, this week I discovered that Canada’s judiciary may one day be seen in a way similar to how we lament the previous lack of integrity by the US and in South African governments. Because some of the worst family policy in Canada comes out of Ontario (as well as Supreme Court Justices who have the worst “discrimination ratings”) when it comes to the likelihood of women winning and men losing decisions they adjudicate, my hotel in downtown Toronto is the perfect place for me to explain why all men (even those who never foresee them being affected by a divorce) should be on alert.

This week’s Exclusive interview with Dr. Kenneth Dickie from exile in Bahamas

Did anyone else hear the exclusive radio interview with Dr. Ken Dickie on Chin Radio, 97.9 in Ottawa hosted by Ottawa lawyer and mediator Ernie Tannis? For those interested in exploring which situations in life could lead to one being wrongly incarcerated, I recommend your requesting a transcript.

In this interview, Dr. Dickie broke his silence about his family law case, following much media hysteria in recent weeks celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision about “deadbeat dads”. This was followed by Olivia Chow’s ignorant comments in the House of Commons this week blaming “deadbeats” for child poverty in Canada. Dr. Dickie finally told his side of the story. More than ever, there is no doubt in my mind term “deadbeat” is a euphemism placed in our terminology to legitimise gender biased public decision making by certain governments and the judiciary.

What’s this all about?

Dr. Ken Dickie is the Ontario plastic surgeon and alleged “deadbeat dad” who lives in the Bahamas. He was officially placed in exile two weeks ago by the Supreme Court's decision 9-0 to overturn an Ontario Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal would not hold Dr. Dickie in contempt for not putting up $250,000 in financial security for the education of his grown children because his claims that he cannot pay had not been heard by the Court. The Supreme Court says that doesn’t matter, so now there is jurisprudence saying that matters of civil contempt when information is still missing by a respondent are now punishable by jail. This is unbelievably bold jurisprudence because matters of criminal contempt would never result in jail under similar circumstances.

Now, Dr. Dickie will be put in jail if the Canadian authorities actually get their hands on him. He has lost his passport, which prevents him from leaving the Bahamas. And, perhaps most importantly, the State has made an example out of him personally so that all Canadian men who might consider getting married and/or having children one day should be on alert that any failure to “pay up“ if one‘s marriage ends up in divorce could mean jail.

Rightly or wrongly, decisions like this should cause a decline in the number of marriages and the number of children who are born. Furthermore, because individuals do not have exclusive control over whether their marriages work or not, it might also be prudent for all married and divorced men to now practice how to prudently and defensively pick up the soap in the shower. Or at the very least to be completely safe, just make sure you never drop that soap again.

Why doesn’t Dr. Dickie not just put up the ‘freaking’ money?

Even if it is ‘way over the top’ to put people in jail for civil matters, why does Dr. Dickie just pay? Could it be true that he cannot? Also, was he always a deadbeat? Did he ever pay for his kids?

Apparently, Dr. Dickie and his ex-wife signed a separation agreement at the time of the divorce in the early 1990s that made him responsible to pay her $1.25 million dollars over 10 years plus a $120,000 educational account for the kids. Both parties had sought independent legal advice at the time.

He contends that he paid his ex wife the agreed $1.25 million and the $120K for the kids education. He also claims that after making all these payments and after the ups and downs of his plastic surgery business in both Canada (which he shut down) and now in the Bahamas, he does not have the money/ equity to secure with a bank a “guarantee” to pay in security another 250K for the future education of children.

If it has been 15 years, how old are his kids? A deal is a deal, right?

Dr. Dickie was one month away from having fulfilled that separation agreement when his wife’s legal counsel sought to re-open a ten year agreement on the eve of its completion. After receiving monies from her ex that amount to what many people don’t earn in a lifetime, Mrs. Dickie retained Toronto family divorce lawyer, Mr. Niman, who went after more money to pay for the education of Dr. Dickie’s children. By this point, his kids were all in their late teenage years and early twenties. Some of them had jobs, even though the mainstream media covering the story continues to publish pictures of Mrs. Dickie with young children leading most readers and viewers to believe Dr. Dickie left his family in the lurch.

Dr. Dickie’s lawyer, Rochelle Cantor, explains that Dr. Dickie’s children are now all in their 20s. They have been in and out of school, they all have “trust funds” set up previously by Dr. Dickie to pay for their education. They have all been close to being adults since before Mrs. Dickie sought to reopen the separation agreement - for example, at least one has taken 6 years to pursue 3 year degrees, etc; and another is travelling the world in lieu of attending school using monies from savings and a “trust fund” to fund the experience.

Mr. Niman by reputation is a lawyer who specialises “lifestyle family law“. Some call this the exclusive practice of helping wealthy, sometimes angry divorcees take their ex-husbands for everything they are worth. Because collecting legal fees on a contingency basis is not accepted practice in Canada, Mr. Niman allegedly took on Mrs. Dickie’s case pro-bono. After all, further jurisprudence in family law that would create even more incentives for women to divorce would logically help Mr. Niman’s practice. Would this be an alternative way for Mr. Niman to recover fees in the future for the time put into Mrs. Dickie’s case?

Well apparently, Mrs. Dickie also declared bankruptcy, which, if he were to choose, would have allowed Mr. Niman to write off “paper receivables” from his income tax . So, it seems Mr. Niman not only may pay less tax to Canada and Ontario by representing Mrs. Dickie, he got very valauable jurisprudence (for someone who practices this kind of law) by the Supreme Court of Canada preserving and extending the profitability of his genre of law in the future.

To top it all off, federal monies allocated to the Status of Women funding paid for Mr. Niman to take this case to the Supreme Court. This dangerous jurisprudence was funded by the Legal Education Action Fund (Leaf) which was set up in 1985 following the Charter to push for equal rights for women.

The irony is, this decision makes Canada less equal for men who are “totally exposed” if they choose to marry or to have children. Therefore, federal monies were used to put the interests of women forward at the expense of men who become divorced, which is arguably when advocacy monies become a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The “Nuclear Bomb” for Women and continued profits for the legal industry

According to Rochelle Cantor, one of Mr. Niman’s arguments to the Supreme Court in pleading for them to allow for this jurisprudence via the Dickie vs Dickie case, was that it “gives women a “nuclear weapon in matters of the family”.

Does anyone else have trouble with how this has developed? What is the real point of all of this? Is this really about poor Mrs. Dickie, who is currently working as a nurse in Alberta? Or, is this about those deprived Dickie children who are grown, who have trust funds barely depleted and who are either working or have been in an out of school this entire millennium?

Or, is this about feeding the pockets of the legal industry who have more tools to terrorise further the lives of those men who end up getting divorced, their second families and the children of second families?

After my previously posting this and this about gender bias by our judiciary, I am starting to wonder whether the politicisation of judicial appointments and the controversy surrounding this issue currently raised by the Liberals about the Conservatives does not need to be looked at more holistically. Previous judicial appointments by Liberal governments are failing it seems and are no better than the anticipated results from the current process proposed by the Conservatives to select judges.

If judges individually or collectively make decisions while on the bench implicitly or explicitly because of their own preferences, way of viewing the world, or a subliminal desire to indirectly facilitate more future business to the legal industry at the expense of gender equality, human rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the whole system (as well as those currently presiding) requires a complete overhaul.
----------

If anyone has a problem with this post, please let me know why. When one first opts to censor a very important perspective in all of this, it just makes the family law conspiracy seem that much more plausible.

Debtors Prison for Deadbeats: a Nuclear Bomb for women who choose divorce?

Last night I arrived in Toronto from Montreal. I did not plan to write a post, however, on my way to my first appointment this morning, while driving past Queen’s Park, I changed my mind and I took a detour to the Lakeshore and I shot some “views”, including the one attached.

The situation is this: most of us assume that if we play be the rules, we should be able to avoid our being put in jail. After all, if we work hard, act responsibly and honour our commitments, there should be no problems, right?

Sadly, history has shown there are noble causes perhaps where ultimately and in retrospect the State looks foolish or self-interested. When Cassius Clay / Mohamed Ali was put in jail for avoiding military service in the US, this represented a class / race struggle with respect military service that led to change and the objective of racial equality. There are also situations of injustice because of blatant racial biases, such as Nelson Mandela’s life in prison as a result of decisions made by discriminatory governments in South Africa trying to prolong a very unjust status quo. In these cases the State had no regard for equality or human rights and no qualms about locking up certain persons to perpetuate the self-interested agenda of the State or those who represent the State. This is how these decisions are now judged by history.

Well, this week I discovered that Canada’s judiciary may one day be seen in a way similar to how we lament the previous lack of integrity by the US and in South African governments. Because some of the worst family policy in Canada comes out of Ontario (as well as Supreme Court Justices who have the worst “discrimination ratings”) when it comes to the likelihood of women winning and men losing decisions they adjudicate, my hotel in downtown Toronto is the perfect place for me to explain why all men (even those who never foresee them being affected by a divorce) should be on alert.

This week’s Exclusive interview with Dr. Kenneth Dickie from exile in Bahamas

Did anyone else hear the exclusive radio interview with Dr. Ken Dickie on Chin Radio, 97.9 in Ottawa hosted by Ottawa lawyer and mediator Ernie Tannis? For those interested in exploring which situations in life could lead to one being wrongly incarcerated, I recommend your requesting a transcript.

In this interview, Dr. Dickie broke his silence about his family law case, following much media hysteria in recent weeks celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision about “deadbeat dads”. This was followed by Olivia Chow’s ignorant comments in the House of Commons this week blaming “deadbeats” for child poverty in Canada. Dr. Dickie finally told his side of the story. More than ever, there is no doubt in my mind term “deadbeat” is a euphemism placed in our terminology to legitimise gender biased public decision making by certain governments and the judiciary.

What’s this all about?

Dr. Ken Dickie is the Ontario plastic surgeon and alleged “deadbeat dad” who lives in the Bahamas. He was officially placed in exile two weeks ago by the Supreme Court's decision 9-0 to overturn an Ontario Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal would not hold Dr. Dickie in contempt for not putting up $250,000 in financial security for the education of his grown children because his claims that he cannot pay had not been heard by the Court. The Supreme Court says that doesn’t matter, so now there is jurisprudence saying that matters of civil contempt when information is still missing by a respondent are now punishable by jail. This is unbelievably bold jurisprudence because matters of criminal contempt would never result in jail under similar circumstances.

Now, Dr. Dickie will be put in jail if the Canadian authorities actually get their hands on him. He has lost his passport, which prevents him from leaving the Bahamas. And, perhaps most importantly, the State has made an example out of him personally so that all Canadian men who might consider getting married and/or having children one day should be on alert that any failure to “pay up“ if one‘s marriage ends up in divorce could mean jail.

Rightly or wrongly, decisions like this should cause a decline in the number of marriages and the number of children who are born. Furthermore, because individuals do not have exclusive control over whether their marriages work or not, it might also be prudent for all married and divorced men to now practice how to prudently and defensively pick up the soap in the shower. Or at the very least to be completely safe, just make sure you never drop that soap again.

Why doesn’t Dr. Dickie not just put up the ‘freaking’ money?

Even if it is ‘way over the top’ to put people in jail for civil matters, why does Dr. Dickie just pay? Could it be true that he cannot? Also, was he always a deadbeat? Did he ever pay for his kids?

Apparently, Dr. Dickie and his ex-wife signed a separation agreement at the time of the divorce in the early 1990s that made him responsible to pay her $1.25 million dollars over 10 years plus a $120,000 educational account for the kids. Both parties had sought independent legal advice at the time.

He contends that he paid his ex wife the agreed $1.25 million and the $120K for the kids education. He also claims that after making all these payments and after the ups and downs of his plastic surgery business in both Canada (which he shut down) and now in the Bahamas, he does not have the money/ equity to secure with a bank a “guarantee” to pay in security another 250K for the future education of children.

If it has been 15 years, how old are his kids? A deal is a deal, right?

Dr. Dickie was one month away from having fulfilled that separation agreement when his wife’s legal counsel sought to re-open a ten year agreement on the eve of its completion. After receiving monies from her ex that amount to what many people don’t earn in a lifetime, Mrs. Dickie retained Toronto family divorce lawyer, Mr. Niman, who went after more money to pay for the education of Dr. Dickie’s children. By this point, his kids were all in their late teenage years and early twenties. Some of them had jobs, even though the mainstream media covering the story continues to publish pictures of Mrs. Dickie with young children leading most readers and viewers to believe Dr. Dickie left his family in the lurch.

Dr. Dickie’s lawyer, Rochelle Cantor, explains that Dr. Dickie’s children are now all in their 20s. They have been in and out of school, they all have “trust funds” set up previously by Dr. Dickie to pay for their education. They have all been close to being adults since before Mrs. Dickie sought to reopen the separation agreement - for example, at least one has taken 6 years to pursue 3 year degrees, etc; and another is travelling the world in lieu of attending school using monies from savings and a “trust fund” to fund the experience.

Mr. Niman by reputation is a lawyer who specialises “lifestyle family law“. Some call this the exclusive practice of helping wealthy, sometimes angry divorcees take their ex-husbands for everything they are worth. Because collecting legal fees on a contingency basis is not accepted practice in Canada, Mr. Niman allegedly took on Mrs. Dickie’s case pro-bono. After all, further jurisprudence in family law that would create even more incentives for women to divorce would logically help Mr. Niman’s practice. Would this be an alternative way for Mr. Niman to recover fees in the future for the time put into Mrs. Dickie’s case?

Well apparently, Mrs. Dickie also declared bankruptcy, which, if he were to choose, would have allowed Mr. Niman to write off “paper receivables” from his income tax . So, it seems Mr. Niman not only may pay less tax to Canada and Ontario by representing Mrs. Dickie, he got very valauable jurisprudence (for someone who practices this kind of law) by the Supreme Court of Canada preserving and extending the profitability of his genre of law in the future.

To top it all off, federal monies allocated to the Status of Women funding paid for Mr. Niman to take this case to the Supreme Court. This dangerous jurisprudence was funded by the Legal Education Action Fund (Leaf) which was set up in 1985 following the Charter to push for equal rights for women.

The irony is, this decision makes Canada less equal for men who are “totally exposed” if they choose to marry or to have children. Therefore, federal monies were used to put the interests of women forward at the expense of men who become divorced, which is arguably when advocacy monies become a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The “Nuclear Bomb” for Women and continued profits for the legal industry

According to Rochelle Cantor, one of Mr. Niman’s arguments to the Supreme Court in pleading for them to allow for this jurisprudence via the Dickie vs Dickie case, was that it “gives women a “nuclear weapon in matters of the family”.

Does anyone else have trouble with how this has developed? What is the real point of all of this? Is this really about poor Mrs. Dickie, who is currently working as a nurse in Alberta? Or, is this about those deprived Dickie children who are grown, who have trust funds barely depleted and who are either working or have been in an out of school this entire millennium?

Or, is this about feeding the pockets of the legal industry who have more tools to terrorise further the lives of those men who end up getting divorced, their second families and the children of second families?

After my previously posting this and this about gender bias by our judiciary, I am starting to wonder whether the politicisation of judicial appointments and the controversy surrounding this issue currently raised by the Liberals about the Conservatives does not need to be looked at more holistically. Previous judicial appointments by Liberal governments are failing it seems and are no better than the anticipated results from the current process proposed by the Conservatives to select judges.

If judges individually or collectively make decisions while on the bench implicitly or explicitly because of their own preferences, way of viewing the world, or a subliminal desire to indirectly facilitate more future business to the legal industry at the expense of gender equality, human rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the whole system (as well as those currently presiding) requires a complete overhaul.

Will Tie Domi be frozen out? Guilt before innocence the norm in matters of the family

I keep thinking I will be able to wind down on this theme. Unfortunately, new "garbage" seems to surface almost every day. Again yesterday, my social justice alarm went off and you get to read about it today.

Was anyone else not surprised to hear that Leanne Domi, seems to be doing everything the law will allow to destroy her soon to be ex-husband, former NHL hockey player Tie Domi. I'm not! And, she has many weapons at her disposal because of fundamental and inequitable flaws in family law.

In September I wrote a post when the story broke explaining how gender bias within the judiciary in Ontario's family courts could destroy Tie Domi. Now Leanne Domi is doing what so many persons do within a biased system (with their lawyers encouraging them) while they are still very angry. She is making allegations that are putting in question Tie's relationship with his children. CTV reports:

According to the documents, Leanne's lawyer is seeking an order "suspending (Domi's) access to the children, pending delivery of recommendations by the psychologists."

Leanne Domi seems to be using her dispute with Tie to go after her children's relationship with him. This is common in some cases of divorce. Some people who go though an already emotional divorce with conflict in an adversary system make decisions they might not otherwise make.

These are often also decisions that are not in the best interest of "the children" even if courts typically go first with the preferences of the primary caregiver, who is usually the mother, because custody is still awarded along gender lines. In spite of this, Canadian governments have not taken it upon themselves to create accessible, affordable or timely ways of protecting against access denial and/or divorce poison. Why? The lobbies and the spin. So what is the deterrent apart from this?

The facts are that children will not remain neutral in cases of high conflict divorce. If the residential parent is overly critical of the non-residential parent or not overtly supportive of the children having a relationship with the other parent, children will typically remain loyal only to the parent they perceive to be more powerful. Children will typically be loyal to the parent to whom they have most access.

In Ontario, where courts favour mothers, loyalty choices are made by children in favour of their mothers and at the expense of their fathers - even if they suffer emotionally as adults. For all intents and purposes, the courts will do nothing.

As such, citizens like Tie who were formerly respected and admired while a part of a nuclear family can become second class citizens if their marriages fall apart. With 75% of divorce applications in Canada being filed by women, is anyone really safe from such a tragic downfall? Could anyone lose their kids if the circumstances went sour?

Therefore, for parents like Leanne Domi who are so obviously angry at her ex because of the breakdown of the marriage, some children become loyalty pawns and may turn against the other parent. The clinical term for this condition is "parental alienation syndrome" where children demonstrate uncharacteristic "hatred" and "anger" against the estranged parent. "Malicious mother's syndrome" is another clinical condition which could be so in the case of Leanne Domi. Yet, courts at first will always turn a "blind eye".

From what I have read, Leanne seems so angry with Tie (because relationship breakdowns and alleged infidelity can cause people to make irrational decisions) if she were judging her own case she would take Tie for everything he is worth and she would also deny him access to his children. Do courts have a responsibility to catch such unjust behaviour? Or, is there also an obligation for governments to create, promote and enforce consequences for those who might go too far.

After all, it is without a doubt in the best interests of children to have meaningful relationships with both parents. Is this in the children's best interest? Is it because of her anger?Is it about getting even or more money? What is it?

As a gesture to try to recognise the needs of Tie's children in all of this, I republish again Sinestra's now famous policy resolution unanimously passed by the Quebec Women’s Commission in 2005. It became Liberal policy at the Quebec General Council in November of 2005 but it fell off the radar because LPCQ felt the need to replace it with new resolutions, including the Nation resolution, which were made in an ivory tower with the purpose of crowning one leadership candidate in particular.

Resolution on the Right of the Child to Have Meaningful Access to Both Parents

Whereas the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates that children should have access to family members;

Whereas it is in the best interest of the child to have access to and strong relationships with both parents;

Whereas the federal government has not implemented policy that is in the best interest of the child or the blended family, despite reports in 1998 and 2002;

Whereas non-residential parents can be unilaterally and with no involvement of a higher authority denied access to their children without adequate, timely or accessible remedies.

Whereas the federal government had prioritized child support and remains inactive on child access;

Whereas children and their non-residential families stagnate under lopsided policy priorities;

Whereas the provinces administer and interpret the federal Divorce Act, with long delays and inadequate remedies to child access issues that hurt child-parent relationships;

Therefore be it resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada urge the Government of Canada to implement policy prioritizing access and protecting the rights of children to have access to both parents.

be it further resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada urge the Government of Canada to implement policy giving equal weight to relationship support between parents and children as to financial support.

be it further resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada urge the Government of Canada to create standards and legislation to support provincial and territorial governments in the enforcement of child access similar to those set up previously to support the enforcement of child support.

The bottom line is that in a progressive society with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Tie should not be found guilty before being proven innocent of not being a good parent, like could happen here. Furthermore, his children have a right to have meaningful access to both parents even though it appears that Leanne cannot control her anger still. Where are the real problems?

Some people may stand up and say this is wrong. Some "healthy sceptics" may wait until they experience such injustices themselves before making a stand. Meanwhile fathers, women, children and second families continue to suffer while special interests (including the legal industry) continue to benefit. Go figure!

Do Canadians divorce more because current family policy makes it better for some to do so?

The National Post published a front page story today about senior women who are filing for divorce at an alarming rate. The Edmonton Journal published a story in December suggesting that more couples over 50 are pulling the plug on their marriages while younger persons are divorcing less frequently.

Never before have as many women in Canada and the United States chosen to live on their own. The most obvious analysis of these trends suggests that women live on their own more because they can better afford it now than before. Does this mean that increasing parity between the percentage of women versus men in the workforce (along with much greater pay equity) has given women more options with respect to how they choose to live?

Is this a good thing? It could be. Or, does this represent a further indication that divorce itself benefits women more than men?

There are those who are proponents of government policies that create incentives for families to stay together. Others argue that the State needs to make divorce accessible for “victims of violence” to be able to leave their marriages more easily and comfortably. If family policy were designed around the assumption that "men are the aggressors and the breadwinners" and "women are the victims and the caregivers", the correct policy choice might be to make it more difficult for men to leave a marriage while making it easier for women to leave ) as need be to escape the violence and especially with the children.

This seems to be precisely the ongoing message of the Canada’s influential women's lobby. If that message were true, Canada's current approach to the issue of divorce would be more or less right on the mark. However, if this were proven to be 'spin' and not really true, incorrect assumptions by policy makers could be responsible for alleged policy failures with respect to the family and divorce.

What is alarming and what gives credence to the possibillity that this is simple advocacy spin are the numbers. Statistics Canada shows that between 1991 and 1994, men made applications for divorce 25.77% to 23.87% of the time while women did so between 67.85% to 68.10%. The number of shared applications for divorce in those years grew from 6.38% to 8.03% of the time. Statistics Canada also shows a downward trend for male applications and an upward trend for female applications in recent years.

What if the assumption that men are both the “breadwinners and the aggressors” was incorrect? Would that be proof that the Divorce Act has been shaped by a set of incorrect assumptions?

This entire package of domestic public policy could be “off track” because policy makers have a incorrectly recognised arguments by special interests that are based on patriarchal values used only when it is convenient to do so. This is in spite of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is arguably only valuable as an enforcement mechanism on issues of the family . Practically speaking, the Charter may not be practically applicable in cases of possible “reverse” gender discrimination. Jurisprudence could change that.

There is considerable proof that the generalisation that "men are aggressors and breadwinners" and "women are victims and caregivers" is simply incorrect. For example, Martin S. Fiebert from the Department of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach examined 196 scholarly investigations, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the studies reviewed by Dr. Fiebert in helping him to conclude this exceeds 177,100.

Furthermore, the stereotype that men are not important as to the development of their children has been disproven by other psychologists, including Dr. Richard Warshak. This is in spite of the fact that Canadian family policy and the application of the Divorce Act still seems to be driven by the principles of the "the tender years doctrine", which traditionally protected the “special relationships between mothers and their children. Arguably, the appropriateness of "tender year’s doctrine" wore off with the entry of women at equal levels into the workforce, the frequency with which men care for their children while their wives work, the discovery that special relationships also exist between children and their fathers. Warshak’s research confirms this and suggests instead that children are best served by having meaningful access and relationships with both parents.

Given this research, should we be looking to fix the Divorce Act so that it is not administered in a way that benefits one gender over another? Federal reports commissioned by the Liberal Party in 1998 and 2002 recommended this so perhaps change is long overdue. Could our approach to the issue of divorce be Canada’s biggest social justice problem at the moment? Perhaps. Has advocacy funding administered improperly to put the interests of one gender over another contributed to the acceptance of certain myths that have helped shape our current policy and legislation. It sure looks that way.

Only when incentives and/or disincentives to divorce are shared equally by men and women will Canada’s policy or lack of policy on divorce begin to demonstrate the standards that are demanded by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If individuals divorce their spouse (or become divorced by their spouse) for reasons contained within the relationship and the corresponding alternatives, all’s fair. If public policy creates an incentive for one gender to divorce and another to stay in the relationship, it is logical to conclude divorce policy in Canada is very “broken”.

For the sake of families and especially “mature families”, which seem to be falling apart at an increasingly frequent rate, I hope the involvement of the State will have a less a destructive influence in the future than it has in the past.

Child / Parent Access Interference: New York Court removes custody from mother.

I have written multiple posts about a lack of federal policy in Canada on child-parent access issues. There are still no accessible, affordable and timely remedies to incidents of access interference in cases of divorce with children. In Canada, these situations invariably require the involvement of the court initiated by the 'victim' who is required to do a "private prosecution" to find accountability (with their own after-tax funds). If not, child-parent relationships suffer.

Nevertheless, when one can help to finance judicial accountability mechanisms to the finish line, there can be justice. Late last week in New York State, a mother lost custody of her child for not having allowed that child to have meaningful access with the child's father.

Although this type of accountability should be as common as is "access interference" itself, the Supreme Court of New York reversed custody and awarded it to the father. New York attorney Daniel Clement writes: "While the Court's decision does not detail exactly what the mother did, the decision evidences that there is a growing judicial intolerance of one parent interfering with the other parent's visitation rights." The decision is published here.

There are precedents in Canada. In January 2005 a similarly striking adjudicated response happened in an Ontario Court. Justice Lorna Snowie fined a mother $10,000 and another $15,000 sentenced her to 30 days in jail and reversed custody for not encouraging her 16-year-old daughter to participate in family counselling aimed at helping her reconnect with her father after many years of access denial.

From a policy perspective, what needs to happen is this: institutions need to also be created to enforce meaningful access between children and both of their parents similar to those already set up to enforce the payment of child support.

Part 3: Judicial Review: Is there a relationship between bias and Supreme Court appointments?

In my post on New Year’s Day I chose to share with the Liblogs and Progressive Blogger communities confidential data just released that in essence shows a judicial bias at the Ontario Court of Appeal. The post generated allot of hits, some exceptional enthusiasm, some comments, some skepticism, and some indifference.

I especially appreciated those wanting to know more details, such as Canadian Tar Heel, Anonymous Gayle and Devin. Gayle and Devin concluded with the information I had provided that the study was “flawed”. We had it out a little bit in the comments section of the post. In the end I disagree with what I consider to have been pre-mature conclusions. Nevertheless, we can agree to disagree, which is perfectly fair. Healthy skepticism keeps the world moving. It would be good to know if after this post we still disagree.

As for the very skeptical and borderline belligerent, “decoin”, there is a case at the Court of Appeal today that is using this report as evidence.

I may have been short-sighted in identifying as an example only Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella’s discrimination rating. Another former Ontario Court of Appeal Justice with almost as bad a discrimination rating was appointed by then Justice Minister, Irwin Cottler, to the Supreme Court of Canada on the same day in 2004 as Justice Abella.

If you refer back to the results that I posted on January 1, Justice Charron was not far behind Justice Abella on the gender report's discrimination rating. Justice Charron favoured women over men 62.6% of the time, which is considered “heavy discrimination also. Her results in brief are as follows:

For Charron JA D = 70.0 - 7.4 = 62.6 % (heavy)

Wikipedia has this to say about Justice Charron:

Charron (born March 2, 1951 in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario) is a Canadian jurist. She as appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in October, 2004, and is the first native-born Franco-Ontarian Supreme Court judge. (This distinction has sometimes been ttributed to Louise Arbour, but Arbour was born and raised Québécoise.)

Charron received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Carleton University in 1972, her Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Ottawa in 1975, and was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1977. She practiced civil litigation, and then joined the Crown Attorney's office in 1980, and then became a law professor at the University of Ottawa. She was appointed to the district Court of Ontario in 1988, and to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1995. She is eligible to sit on the bench until 2026 when she reaches age 75.

I am sensitive that interested bloggers may like more information on how to define a win, the difference between pure wins and partial wins, and the number of men versus women who made these appeals. The following is an extraction from another report called “Judicial Bias at the Court of Appeal I”, which used “quick law” to consider the cases that were before Justice Abella and Justice Charron over time.

"For Justice Abella the total cases can be summarized as follows:

Appellant, Number, Win All, Lose All, Win/Lose Some
Male, 28, 2, 23, 3
Female,13, 10, 2, 1

It can be concluded a man had a 82.1 % chance of losing on all issues, but a woman had a 84.6 % chance of winning on at least some issues when appearing before a panel with Justice Abella on it

For Justice Charron the total cases can be summarized as follows:

Appellant, Number, Win All, Lose All, Win/Lose Some
Male, 27, 3, 22, 2
Female, 10, 7, 2, 1

It can be concluded a man had a 81.5 % chance of losing on all issues, but a woman had a 80.0 % chance of winning on at least some issues when appearing before a panel with Justice Charron on it"

Please let me know if more information is required to show the legitimacy of this research at this time. Otherwise, I would like to know whether there is an interest, or just apathy in looking further as to whether our judiciary is upholding its Charter obligations with respect to gender neutrality or not.