Change or Die

For a while now I have been suggesting that those who advocate for equal parenting need to stop asking and start demanding. After all, how long do we have to be right about what benefits kids, mothers, fathers and society generally and yet still fail to pass our bills before we get the message that we need a new approach? The fact is that when we approach legislatures and Parliament, we make our compassionate, fact-based arguments and every year we’re turned away empty handed. If being right were all it took, we’d have succeeded by now, but we haven’t.
Scott Comber, Assistant Professor of the Rowe School of Business at Dalhousie University, works with organizations to help manage change and conflict resolution. His training session is called, “Change or Die”. He says studies show that of patients with bypass surgery and heart disease needing to change lifestyle for their own survival, 90% choose not to change. In business, Comber says a full 75% of corporate change initiatives fail.
So, perhaps we should not be too discouraged with the failure of federal politicians to accept needed change to the Divorce Act with bill C-560.
I’ve argued many times that the movement for equal parenting needs to start doing politics. By that I mean opposing those politicians who oppose equal parenting and supporting those who favour it. That means all the usual ground campaign work of electoral politics – phone-banking, canvassing, leafleting, etc. I think that it wouldn’t take much of that, targeted at vulnerable office-holders to turn the tide in our favour. Most office-holders want to do the right thing, but have to be made to see that doing so is also in their own interest. The message “We’ll attack you if you vote the wrong way, but go to bat for you if you vote with us,” is simple and easy for elected officials to understand. Most of those folks want an easy election, not a fight with an intense opposition, even a minority one. One or two successful campaigns pro and con, and the rest of them will get the message.
A federal election is expected in October 2015. I am going to ask… NO, I am going to DEMAND, that if you care about your children, that you sign up for the advocates list
http://canadianepc.org/membership/advocate-signup/
or that you make a donation to our political action campaign for the next election
http://canadianepc.org/donate
We must face politicians with the simple fact: we can either do something FOR THEM, or we can do something TO THEM.
If you get letters or emails from politicians asking for money (and we should all be on at least one such list), thank them for continuing to send you information about the party and issues, and note that you have donated large amounts of money in the past/been a member/voted for them (even if you have not).
Find out how your Member voted on Bill C560 here. Suggest that your future support, and that of your family, is linked to supporting family law reform.
Repeat back to them their wording: e.g. “real change” or “standing up for the middle class” and ask why they are not doing what they say they are doing.
Be polite and imply that if they changed policy and acted on our issues, then you would support them.
Our message to politicians must be “change or die” We demand change. We demand action now.