Canadian Equal Parenting Council

By Glenn Cheriton

In support of parental alienation awareness day, please join me in writing to your local Ontario MPP. If you do not know who your local MPP is, you can view the Ontario list here.

Dear [MPP]:

April 25th is Parental Alienation Awareness Day.  As a parent and an Ontario voter, I ask call you to raise this issue in the Ontario legislature and recognize Parental Alienation as a form of child abuse.

Parental Alienation (PA) happens when one parent coerces or controls a child to reject the other parent without justification. It is distinguished in practice from estrangement, by evidence and professional investigation. Peer-reviewed and published academic research concludes that alienation of children from a parent is emotional abuse.  The long-term effects on children are well documented as they lose the capacity to give and accept love from a parent. Many child victims of PA suffer from low self esteem, lack of trust, depression and forms of addiction. (Edward Kruk Ph.D., 2013)

PA is not new.  One of the largest studies (Clawar and Rivlin, 1991) over a 12-year period, found some element of parental alienation tactics used in 86% of the 1000 conflicted cases they studied. Recent studies draw similar conclusions. Such conflicts inflict enormous costs on Ontario Courts, taxpayers, parents and children.

It is of undeniable importance for a child to have positive relationships with both parents.  It is each child’s right, written into the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by Ontario and Canada in December 1991.

Lawyers for Shared Parenting reports that Ontario Courts are increasingly taking serious measures to limit the effects of parental alienation. We applaud Judges who recognize and block parental alienation so children can have a relationship with both fit, loving parents.

But the best action is prevention. Research shows equal shared parenting (ESP) prevents and limits parental alienation in other jurisdictions however, ESP is not the starting point (or rebuttable presumption) in Ontario family courts. Recently implemented changes to the Divorce Act recognize coercive controlling as domestic abuse and Ontario is expected to put this into Ontario law. Parents believe Parental Alienation rises to the standard of coercive controlling child abuse.

As Judge Gomery said, ruling in a parental alienation case, “For a child to hate a parent is not natural; it must be taught.”

Here are three steps we want the Ontario legislature to do:

• Make equal shared parenting a rebuttable presumption in family law to maintain meaningful parenting time for both parents with the child
• Encourage courts (and police) to enforce orders immediately upon learning of a violation
• Institute procedural reforms so that high conflict cases are managed by one judge, held responsible for ensuring the child’s right to both parents is respected.

I ask you to work with parents to recognize this problem, reform the legislation and fix these issues for children and families.

Sincerely,


[Your name]

By Rob Armstrong

An Alberta man, Roland Auer, is challenging the legitimacy of the Federal Child Support guidelines in Edmonton Court on December 2, 2020. If Mr. Auer is successful; the implications for more than one million divorced parents would be significant. It is hard to underscore just how significant this case is and what a new precedent might mean for these families.

This legal action has been years in the making. It started in 2013 and was eventually brought before the Supreme Court of Canada in 2015. At that time, it was decided that the matter should be heard in the province of Alberta. In 2018 there was a final determination of the role of the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) who is now an intervenor in the case. The procedural problems have delayed the matter seven years.

The application is supported by economist Chris Sarlo and economist Douglas Allen. Chris Sarlo wrote an extensive report on the Canadian Child Support Guidelines which is available here. Professor Allen has filed a supporting affidavit.

The application states that the child support guidelines are inconsistent with the divorce act in that they fail to consider the relative abilities of both spouses to contribute, and that the amounts determined are not reasonably calculated.
A key claim being made is that the guidelines do not consider the costs of both parents. We can see from the formula that it does assign all costs of the children to the custodial parent, which will be hard for the defense to argue otherwise. In an example presented, using a typical Canadian family, the custodial parent is left with more than $5,000 per month of after tax income whereas the non-custodial parent has approximately $2,500 remaining (when you consider all government benefits).

One interesting claim is that the guidelines were fictitiously created rather than based on real data from Canadian families as the DOJ once claimed. Although we have been unable to determine if any actual data was used by the DOJ, we have been able to determine that the guidelines are based on a Statistics Canada formula, which they themselves have indicated was created for the purpose of a low income study.

If you are not familiar with the term “non-custodial parent” it is important to to understand that approximately 80-90 percent of the more than one million divorced families are ordered into a custodial / non-custodial situation. Both parents are generally engaged in the upbringing of their children however one parent is granted more than 60 percent of the parenting time and the other parent is granted less than 40 percent.

The application focuses on non-custodial parents however it is stated that the guidelines are also incorrect in equal parenting situations. In situations where there is equal custody, the payable amount is calculated by using both parent’s incomes and subtracting the smaller guideline amount from the larger guideline amount, and the resulting net amount is paid.

The guidelines are based on a 40/30 equivalency model which is a controversial formula that makes the assumption that the first child of a marriage costs 40 percent of an adult and all subsequent children cost 30 percent of an adult. In effect, it assumes that as a couple has each
child they are purchasing another 30 or 40 percent of a car, a house, or a fridge. Theoretically, a couple with two children that previously had two cars, would have 3.4 cars, 1.7 fridges, and 1.7 homes. As most Canadian families know, often all that is required is a child seat and they can make do with their existing fridge and house.
Other stated problematic assumptions with the guidelines include that spending after the divorce will continue to match pre-divorce levels, spending on children rises linearly as income rises, that parents who have zero custody and 39 percent custody are the same, and that the non-custodial parent has none of the costs associated with raising the children. The guidelines themselves do not consider multiple marriages which statistically happen to more than 10 percent of Canadian households.
One obvious problem is that the guidelines do not consider government benefits such as the recently increased Canada Child benefit that are only given to the custodial parent.

The defense team is supported by law professor D. A. Rollie Thompson. In his filed affidavit there are a number of rebuttals including that all potential models have flaws, that the undue hardship process can be used in situations where there is more than one marriage, and that the intent of the benefits is to provide them to the custodial parent therefore they should not be taken into account. Other than pointing out a number of weaknesses in each area of the plaintiff’s case, there is no holistic case being made that explains why one parent should have twice the disposable income of the second parent.

It will be fascinating to see if the court will accept the evidence provided and what role the federal department of justice will play. Should the court find that the guidelines are indeed unfair there could be a future class action lawsuit and it may force the federal government to update the guidelines for the first time since 1997.

We encourage anyone who wishes to support this initiative to visit supportthechallenge.ca.  There is also a federal petition urging an update to the child support guidelines currently before parliament which can be found here. The petition was presented to parliament last week. One of the best ways to take action is to contact your local MP or local MLA directly and share your thoughts by email, letter or phone call!

Covid-19 demands parent and child centred reforms based on equal shared parenting.

Separating and divorcing parents in Ontario are facing more delays to a family court system already backlogged, Suspension of most court sittings means further delays Some parents reported waiting years for custody trial dates. Now COVID-19 pandemic delays threaten to practically end some parents’ hopes to parent their children.

An article in the Canadian Bar Association magazine “National” here admits that the Covid virus situation is being misused by some parents to sabotage court orders, frustrate agreements and deny children’s rights to parenting by the other parents.

Parents have complained to the Canadian Equal Parenting Council that the shutdown of courts and social distancing measures are being misused by the other parent to sabotage equal shared parenting orders, to frustrate court ordered child exchanges, to gain procedural advantages, and to coerce and control another parent.

Systems of family law which advantage the uncooperative, litigious or sabotaging parent or encourage adversarial procedural trickery do harm to children and abuse the other parent. Most often the uncooperative, manipulative parent seeks sole custody. A caring and cooperative parent will want an equal shared parenting solution.

Governments need to change the adversarial family law system to a conflict resolution system, and remove the adversarial incentives, the “sharp practice” incentives and procedural trickery. The focus on procedures rather than on the social science which shows that kids need, and benefit from, both parents is why government governance is failing at this important task.

Former Ontario AG Chris Bentley says, the… “Problem is too much process- forms and steps- making it slow and unaffordable. {Unified Family Court is] buried in it. Streamline [the] process.”

Parents would add to make process clearer, simpler, less costly, more accessible to parents, less lawyer involvement with starting points and incentives for consensual, parent-made agreements.

In 1906, Roscoe Pound criticized the civil justice system for being overly fixated on procedure, overly adversarial, too expensive, too long and too out of date. The same complaints were in the 2014 Cromwell Supreme Court study of accessibility failings of family law. If the Covid-19 crisis and society shutdown is not sufficient to pressure governments and courts to do the right thing promptly then our children are condemned by a harmful system to suffering and disadvantage.

The family law system is a bigger threat to children than Covid-19. Any politician, civil servant, judge, lawyer or court employee who is not part of the solution is part of the problem. The alternative to the existing system is equal shared parenting, working in other jurisdictions. Parents need to demand this change now to law and practice to ensure a future for Ontario’s children. 

The South Dakota state legislature has passed a shared parenting rebuttable presumption bill by a vote of 42 to 25. You can find a news story on the bill here.

A rebuttable presumption means that in separation and divorce, both parents equally keep their parenting time, status and responsibilities unless otherwise (i.e. sole custody) is proven to be in the child’s best interest.

Social science overwhelmingly shows that equal shared parenting (ESP) is in children’s interests, in the vast majority of cases. An ESP presumption was the core of the 2014 Canadian Bill C-560 which failed to pass because then Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordered the Conservative cabinet to vote against it, and opposition from vested interests in the legal industry. Harper now has a multimillion dollar job at a law firm.

There have been provincial reviews of family law problems in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

Canadian parents are now following the successful reform model of parents in the United States, where state affiliates work with National Parents Organization on jurisdictional change. So far, Arizona and Kentucky have effective ESP regimes, strongly approved by voters and gaining support from judges and other related professionals. If the South Dakota legislation is signed into law, another ESP success will further contradict the unfounded claims of the legal industry lobbyists that ESP is not working anywhere, that where it was working it was rolled back and that where it is working, it caused problems.

In the US, family law is almost exclusively a State jurisdiction, while in Canada it is shared, with the federal level legislating on divorce (married parents) while provinces legislate on common law separations. Complicating matters, judges are appointed federally, while provinces administer the courts. Canadian parents need reforms at both federal and provincial levels. This is difficult as lawyers infest the levers of power, control bureaucracies and political bodies disproportionately, and get much government funding.

Canadian parents demand recognition as stakeholders and advocates for their children on the issue of family court and law reform. They are demanding laws and practice based on the science and jurisdictional success of equal shared parenting. They are demanding changes to the current adversarial, unaffordable, unfair and failing family law system. They want consensual agreements, shared parenting, equal status as parents, and a presumption of ESP unless  parent unfitness or safety reaches an evidence-based standard. They want an end to arbitrary orders, too often based on prejudice, sexist or racist bias or unsubstantiated claims.

In short, parents want justice for children. Parents agree with Manitoba Attorney General Heather Stephensson who stated that family courts “harm” children. The fix is equal shared parenting.

Here is the proposed flag…
click on link

Let us know what you think.