Happy Mother’s Day

A happy Mother’s Day to all mothers and grandmothers in Canada. We know that the vast majority of you support equal parenting and the need of children for both parents. We know that when the family court system “awards” sole custody, or courts do nothing against parental alienation, there is almost always a grandmother or stepmother who suffers as well. We know that there are large numbers of non-custodial mothers who suffer unnecessarily from the legal system.
Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate motherhood and to honour our own mothers. But the court system does not take a break from profiteering from de-parenting.
We note that there is a new site http://lw4sp.org where women can express their support for what in the US they call “shared parenting” and what we in Canada call “equal parenting”. The Canadian Equal Parenting Council had been contacted by the organizers and we have provided them with information, contacts and referrals. We applaud this initiative and support it.
Support from women for equal parenting is a key to implementing it. Our surveys show that over 70% of women support equal parenting reforms, slightly higher than support of men. It is our position that the issue of divorce reform is a political issue as well as a human issue. It is only a legal issue to the extent it is forced to be by the financial self-interest of the legal profession. A key to success will be the ability of men and women to work together in the political arena to advocate for reform of law and practice to achieve the outcomes that are equal parenting.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLaughlin, herself a mother, has called for reform of the family law system, “from the ground up” and says that it is too costly, too adversarial, too inaccessible and says that parents and children are “seriously damaged” by the current system. She has struck a committee, headed by Supreme Court judge Thomas Cromwell which has produced a report in April, 2013 here (http://www.cfcj-fcjc.org/)
This report says a lot of the right things, that is, that parents and their advocates would agree with. However, their solutions seem to be more of the same: more control by the legal profession, more money for lawyers in the form of legal aid, etc. Cromwell and McLaughlin and the CFCJ have, it appears only consulted with the legal profession and a few other “hangers-on”. There has been no consultation with parents’ advocates or organizations promoting non-adversarial, equal parenting alternatives. There are problems in the system which cannot be solved without involving parents as full partners.
The recommendations of Cromwell and associates assume that legal professionals are the only stakeholders, that is, that parents and children are not. The current system is feudal in its thinking and actions and such thinking is clearly displayed here. There is no provision for limiting judicial discretion to remove fit parents, no commitment to equality of parents, no assurance of due process before allowing the legal system to remove a parent, and no consequences for abuse, bulling or exploitation by legal professionals of parents and their children.
Here is a recommendation we would agree with:
Recommendation 29:
That Canadian family law statutes encourage consensual dispute resolution processes and agreements as the norm in family law, and that the language of substantive law be revised to reflect that orientation.
This report suggests more of the same by pushing “unified courts” and other favorites of the legal profession. Unified does not mean uniform, it means a bad judge who always rules against male parents as a free reign feudal lord can discriminate with impunity, and the parent has no options.
The reality is that there have been numerous such legal profession-led reform reports and initiatives going back over 40 years. All have promised change “from the ground up” or similar language. None have delivered any significant change in outcomes from the standpoint of parents and children. All such initiatives have increased the control, incomes and careers of legal professionals.
Perhaps this is too serious for Mother’s Day. But perhaps also it is time to have real change which includes consultation with parents as full partners, both mothers and fathers. Real change would mean a balance of rights and responsibilities for parents, rather than the feudal thinking of the legal profession that parents have responsibilities by no rights. Real change would mean that legal professionals would be responsible for the outcomes of their decisions, to balance the right they assume to make decisions for parents on custody.
We call on Justice Cromwell and the legal profession to consult with parents on an equal basis as they consult with the vested interests of the legal profession. Why don’t they? Here is a comment by a parent advocate in the US” When the meat packers call for consultation they don’t invite the cows.”