Domestic Violence
Protection Act, 2000, Bill 117, Mr Flaherty /
Loi de 2000 sur la protection contre la violence
familiale, projet de loi 117, M. Flaherty
Equal Parents of
Canada
Mr Butch Windsor
Alliance of Canadian
Second Stage Housing Programs (Ontario Caucus)
Ms Donna Hansen
Ms Joanne Krauser
Human Equality Action
and Resource Team
Mr Eric Tarkington
Mr Brian
Jenkins
Fathers Are Capable
Too-Parenting Association
Mr Peter Cornakovic
Children's
Voice
Mr Bill Flores
Mr Walter
Fox
Mr Gene
Colosimo
STANDING COMMITTEE ON
JUSTICE AND SOCIAL POLICY
Chair /
Présidente
Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough Centre / -Centre
PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)
Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex PC)
Mr Michael Bryant (St Paul's L)
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)
Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph-Wellington PC)
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa West-Nepean / Ottawa-Ouest-Nepean
PC)
Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre / -Centre ND)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan L)
Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough Centre / -Centre
PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mrs Marie Bountrogianni (Hamilton Mountain L)
Mr Jim Flaherty (Whitby-Ajax PC)
Mrs Tina R. Molinari (Thornhill PC)
Clerk / Greffier
Mr Tom Prins
Staff / Personnel
Ms Elaine Campbell and Mr Avrum Fenson, research officers,
Research and Information Services
The committee met at 1533 in room 151.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PROTECTION ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000
SUR LA PROTECTION CONTRE LA VIOLENCE FAMILIALE
Consideration of Bill 117, An
Act to better protect victims of domestic violence / Projet
de loi 117, Loi visant à mieux protéger les victimes de
violence familiale.
The Chair (Ms Marilyn
Mushinski): We'll call the meeting to order. Good
afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is the standing committee
on justice and social policy to consider Bill 117, An Act to
better protect victims of domestic violence.
Ladies and gentlemen, while
members enjoy parliamentary privileges and certain protections
pursuant to the Legislative Assembly Act, it is unclear whether
or not these privileges and protections extend to witnesses who
appear before committees. For example, it may very well be that
the testimony that you have given or are about to give could be
used against you in a legal proceeding. I would caution you to
take this into consideration when making your comments to this
committee.
Each delegation has 20
minutes in which they may take the full 20 minutes to make their
submission or in which members of committee may want to ask you
some questions if there is time left over.
EQUAL PARENTS OF CANADA
The Chair:
The first delegation that we have this afternoon is Equal Parents
of Canada, Butch Windsor. Good afternoon, Mr Windsor.
Mr Butch
Windsor: I'm going to try to stick as close as I can to
my notes so that we can keep to the time frame.
Madam Chair, ladies and
gentlemen of the committee, I would like to thank you for the
opportunity to present today regarding Bill 117. This legislation
has helped organizations such as Equal Parents of Canada to
understand the need to constantly be prepared. Bad legislation
can arise at any time.
For your information, Equal
Parents of Canada is a collection of e-mail lists, but mainly
EPOC News, in which we have been working the past five years to
coordinate parental equality advocacy. EPOC News is truly
national in scope, with about 100 Ontarians participating, and
we're growing.
I am a parent who, because of
the ugliness of the current divorce laws, has made an investment
of my time and skills to help others. My goal is to prevent false
allegations, such as those I faced, from materializing in the
lives of others. Unfortunately, without government funding, it is
difficult to intervene prior to the allegations.
If you, as a committee
member, are troubled accepting that false allegations are a big
part of the divorce industry, let me use figures that the
Ottawa-Carleton Children's Aid Society presented to the
House-Senate joint committee when examining the Divorce Act. In
1998, there were 1,600 cases involving allegations of child
abuse, 900 of which arose from divorce proceedings. Of these, 600
were false. The use of false allegations of child abuse and
spousal abuse is referred to as the ultimate weapon in the
divorce industry.
Why do we have such a high
rate of false allegations? Power, greed and no consequences are
the reasons. As legislators, you should be concerned about how
many of these 600 false allegations investigated by the
Ottawa-Carleton CAS resulted in charges to the accuser. How many
times were children removed from a loving parent as a consequence
of the investigation of a false allegation? How many times were
the false allegations used in civil proceedings to prevent and
oftentimes eliminate a father from the child's life? Who is being
responsible for the children's interests to have a loving
relationship with both parents? Do you believe this legislation
will not create more of the same results?
A lack of respect for people
has created general disorder for society. We have become a
politically motivated society set on allowing only one view: the
politically correct. Legislation such as that proposed here must
have an objective and goal. However, we must look to the bigger
picture of how society interacts and how we have reached the
point of requiring this legislation.
Try to convince me that we
are doing our children any favour by forcing them to believe that
all men are violent while all women are victims. We are, in the
long run, setting the wrong example, one which will lead to a
further lack of respect toward others. If our male children grow
up with the idea that they cannot better themselves, they quit
and become the image that you, as legislators, are presenting
with this legislation. Using gender-neutral language does not remove the motivation behind
such legislation.
The question I ask is, what
is it that the present legislation does not do which this
legislation is supposed to do? Using the knowledge and training I
have received by chairing my local 54 division police liaison
committee here in Toronto, serving on the board of directors for
one of Legal Aid Ontario's community legal clinics and
participating in conferences and reading literature about the
issue of spousal abuse in general, I do not believe the
legislation respects people. Bad individuals will break the law
no matter what the law prohibits. I want to paint a picture of a
society gone wrong. This legislation is aimed at protecting
people's feelings. It is not legislation about right or wrong. I
would like to take a few minutes to give examples that support my
position before returning to this issue of protecting people's
feelings.
Ten years ago, when
counselling fathers, we had a standard caution. We told them how
on a Friday evening when they arrive home from work, the wife
will pick an argument with them and call the police so they can
be taken away on the claim of abuse. On Monday morning, while
they are arranging bail, their partner is in family court taking
the house, the children and the bank account. I'm tired of seeing
this happen.
1540
Here's why the issue is still
front and centre today. A police officer will make an arrest
because he's under a directive from the Solicitor General to
arrest or face mounds of paperwork to explain why no arrest. When
the individual reaches bail hearing, the challenge from the crown
attorney will be so great that the person in the next case,
charged with shooting up the local convenience store, is more
likely to get bail. Crown attorneys do not like queries from the
Attorney General's office asking why a particular individual is
out on the street. Then the fight actually begins. In the
domestic abuse court you are faced with a crowd, including the
judge, who believe the police laid the charges because you were
abusive, but not necessarily so, and then they use their power to
convict you on those grounds. But what were the grounds? "He
said; she said." But the conviction is based upon police evidence
which, as stated above, is often distorted by directives.
As a side issue and as a way
of explaining the above, in March of this year I contacted
Toronto Police Services Chief Fantino and asked for a meeting to
discuss the new spousal abuse policy which was presented to my
community liaison committee. To this date, Mr Fantino has not
responded to my request and has not returned my follow-up calls.
The policy was developed through public consultations with
shelter organizations, transition houses, hospitals representing
the female side of the issue, and, as you detected, no male
organizations. Being allowed to the table is part of the
solution.
This legislation begins with
an explanatory note stating that intervention in cases of
domestic violence will occur where there is fear for safety. Is
this not a "He said; she said" situation? Where is the call for
evidence, other than this person's evidence, the one who stands
to gain control of the family and the family assets? Should we be
relying on the police when they are the targets of directives and
political manoeuvring? I believe a recent National Post article
about the high rate of violence by police officers toward their
spouses or ex-spouses was meant to impact on their ability to
work effectively. Would you take the chance that an officer will
not make you an example of official police policy toward spousal
abuse so that no one suspects him of spousal abuse?
This is a similar situation
to that faced by the Senate-House joint committee when they were
about to release their report For the Sake of the Children. A
newspaper report came out days before the release of the report
stating how the rate of domestic violence meant that fathers
should not be trusted with their children. Is this truth or
fear-mongering?
The final point I wish to
make before summarizing my presentation is that it appears in
this legislation that there is a continuation of altering the
definition of abuse to meet a set goal. I will remind you of a
study from Carleton University where females were questioned
about past abuse situations and the conclusion was that over 90%
of those surveyed had experienced abuse. Abuse included being
sworn at, being yelled at. I can't understand why they didn't
account for 100% of those interviewed.
The legislation proposed here
is similar to that introduced in other jurisdictions. In
Massachusetts, civil liberties organizations have challenged the
law in court on the grounds of individual civil rights. Has the
government examined the case from that perspective, or is it the
intention of the government to simply use schoolyard tactics in
forcing the little guy to take the matter to court as a charter
issue?
I understand that other
provinces have similar legislation. What can we learn from them?
It has been my experience in dealing with bureaucracy that the
only opinion they are interested in in this case is the one that
supports their position.
I would recommend the
government consider withdrawing this legislation. Further
examination of the issue from both sides is required. Overall, I
believe passing legislation which relies on a person's belief as
a ground for taking away one's rights is social engineering at
its worst. To those who hope to be remembered because of the
position taken in regard to this legislation, you surely will be
remembered, but it will be our children who will ask, "What did
you do to our fathers?"
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Windsor. We have about eight minutes for
questions.
Mrs Marie
Bountrogianni (Hamilton Mountain): Good afternoon. My
name is Marie Bountrogianni. I'm the women's issues critic, which
is why I'm subbing in today. My colleague is the Attorney General
critic. It is our job to criticize what the government is doing,
just as it was their job when a long, long time ago we were in
government. Sometimes we take these opportunities to criticize
not necessarily the bill directly but perhaps other ministries that we feel aren't
fulfilling their mandate, which is partly why I'm here. I did
that yesterday. The parliamentary assistant rebutted with the
money they had spent, and so forth.
Rarely do we get presenters
who unite us, but I have to say, sir, that you have made me-and I
have said before that I support the intent of this bill. I
understand and appreciate the research that you have cited, but
the reality is that 44 women were killed in Ontario last year,
and this bill is attempting-attempting-to begin to look at that
problem. I also have a daughter and a son, and although I don't
ever want my son, my husband, my father to be discriminated
against, I think it's up to me as a mother/wife/daughter to
educate along these issues.
I'm also a psychologist by
training, and I have actually counselled girls who have been
raped and don't even know they have been raped, to counter your
argument about being yelled at as considered abuse. It's a
democracy. Your views are taken under advisement, but I'm being
very honest with you: I disagree with your premises.
Thank you. No questions.
The Chair:
About one minute, Mr Bryant.
Mr Michael Bryant (St
Paul's): Your research is wrong; your facts are wrong.
You are spreading untruths. It's bad enough that the vast
majority of Ontarians don't understand that the vast majority of
victims of domestic violence do not encounter the criminal
justice system. It just makes it worse when these kinds of
untruths are being spread around.
This is a democracy. Your
arguments have created a dialogue, and I'd just echo my
colleague's comments. I would hope that we are united in
opposition against your particular viewpoint, sir.
The Chair:
Mr Kormos?
Mr Peter Kormos
(Niagara Centre): No, thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr
Windsor.
The Chair:
Anyone from the government side?
Thank you for coming this
afternoon, Mr Windsor.
ALLIANCE OF CANADIAN SECOND STAGE HOUSING PROGRAMS
(ONTARIO CAUCUS)
The Chair:
The next speaker is the alliance of second-stage housing, Donna
Hansen.
Ms Donna
Hansen: Good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to be
here. My name is Donna Hansen. I'm the coordinator of the
Alliance of Canadian Second Stage Housing Programs, Ontario
caucus. I am pleased to introduce to you my colleague Joanne
Krauser, who is the program manager of Armagh second-stage
housing in Mississauga, and Ms Krauser will begin our
presentation.
Ms Joanne
Krauser: I'd like to start with a brief history of
second-stage housing. Second-stage housing was developed in
response to an identified need for long-term safety and support
for women and children leaving abusive relationships. Emergency
shelter workers witnessed women having to return to abusive
partners when leaving shelters because of a serious lack of safe,
affordable and supportive housing alternatives in their
communities. The lack of affordable housing in the community is
more acute today, making the need for second-stage housing for
assaulted women more necessary now than at any other time in
history.
Approximately 40 women are
murdered by their estranged partners each year in Ontario,
according to a 1994 study of intimate femicide. The study also
shows that women are most often killed after leaving the
relationship. The slayings of three of the six women in Ontario
this summer prove that point. Gillian Hadley, Pickering, and
Bohumila Luft and her four children in Kitchener were living
apart from their partners at the time of their murders. Laurie
Lynn Vollmershausen, Stratford, had just informed her partner of
her intent to leave him when he stabbed her to death while their
children ran, screaming in terror, to a neighbour's house,
pleading for help for their mother.
1550
The first second-stage
housing program in Canada was built in 1979. A 1996 survey by the
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp shows that safety is the number
one reason that women, with or without children, seek housing at
second-stage facilities.
Today there are 26
second-stage housing programs operating in Ontario. The
facilities range from three units to 40 units, with an
approximate total of 370 units. They are typically self-contained
apartment, townhouse or single-family units where women can live
independently with their children for approximately one year. The
length of stay depends on the needs of the woman and the program
guidelines. Though second-stage housing programs may vary in
size, configuration and management style, the mandate of all
programs is to deliver services which contribute to keeping women
and their children safe. We need funding from the Ontario
government in order to continue to provide efficient and
cost-effective programs.
Women often access
second-stage housing after leaving women's crisis shelters.
Living in second-stage housing provides women the opportunity to
rebuild their lives and the lives of their children in a safe,
affordable and supportive environment.
Second-stage housing provides
a unique service to women and their children. Women living at
second-stage housing are usually on a low, fixed income. During
their tenancy, women are able to set goals and objectives,
connect with appropriate community resources, and are provided
the opportunity to build on new skills as they move on to
economic independence. Support in most programs is offered
through individual and group counselling in order to assist women
and children to develop coping strategies, build social networks,
to enhance self-esteem, to understand the impact of violence in
their lives, and to develop realistic plans for their
futures.
Many of the children and
youth at second-stage housing have been the targets of physical
and sexual violence, and
most have been witnesses to the physical, verbal, psychological
and sexual abuse of their mothers.
Ms Hansen:
We have watched question period and we have heard the opposition
members say that they support Bill 117 as far as it goes. We
would agree with that statement. More police officers and courts
may be necessary and may provide justice and retribution to
assaulted women. However, we feel it is necessary to quote Eileen
Morrow, who is the coordinator of the Ontario Association of
Interval and Transition Houses, when she says that we would
rather protect women than mourn them. Of course, after the fact,
police and courts and specially trained crowns are necessary. But
to make their workload much lighter, community-based services to
the 75% of assaulted women who do not access police or the
justice system-shelters, rape crisis centres and second-stage
housing-need a sizable, immediate injection of stable, adequate,
dependable, annualized funding, funding that will allow these
community-based women-centred agencies to be adequately staffed
and to be able to provide protection, counselling and other
much-needed programming.
Lawmakers and enforcers in
Canada are fortunate to have women in every community who are
willing to do the hard and often dangerous work of providing safe
havens for women and their children who wish to escape from an
abusive situation. Workers in second-stage housing programs want
to co-operate with the police and the justice system and demand
to be seen as equal partners in the struggle to save women's
lives. Second-stage housing provides safety for assaulted women
at a time in their lives when they are most at risk-when they are
making a determined effort to escape their abuser and are
determined to end the violence and make every effort to begin a
new life free of violence, pain and humiliation.
The demands of the 128 member
agencies of the Cross-Sectoral Violence Against Women Strategy
Group include a demand for immediate, annualized $3.6 million of
government funding for second-stage housing. As well, the
critical work of saving women's lives done by all of these 128
women-centred groups demands funding.
The insidious cycle of
learned intergenerational violence must be broken. But to break
that cycle, all members of society must work together, equally.
Partnerships between violence-against-women agencies, community
groups, police, and the justice system must be used to develop
prevention initiatives and coordinate the services provided to
victims of violence. Sadly, the Ministry of Community and Social
Services decided, in 1996, to withdraw completely all funding to
second-stage housing in Ontario. That funding had supported
in-house counselling services. Withdrawal of this funding has
disconnected the government body that gives direction to all
other violence-against-women service providers from second-stage
housing. Therefore, second-stage housing is no longer directly
involved in policy development and program planning. We believe
that this is unacceptable.
In the four years since
Ministry of Community and Social Services funding was withdrawn,
all second-stage housing programs have changed. Counselling
programs have been carved to the bone. Many second stages are in
crisis survival mode. Remaining staff and their boards of
directors must concentrate as much on fundraising as on services
to women. This, too, is unacceptable.
Today, on behalf of the 26
second-stage housing programs in Ontario-and we have provided you
with our most up-to-date mailing list with this package-we are
saying: pass Bill 117 if you must, but now, please, finally,
listen with open ears and hearts to the 128 women-centred groups
in Ontario that are demanding an equal place at the table where
decisions are made that affect the most vulnerable women and
children in Ontario. Show your respect for these groups by
supporting and funding their work. Show your concern for the
future of second-stage housing in Ontario by supporting and
funding the 26 programs that are dedicated to and are so
effective in saving women's lives.
The Chair:
Thank you, Ms Hansen and Ms Krauser. Mr Kormos, questions? You
have about three minutes for each party.
Mr Kormos:
Thank you kindly, folks. It's interesting. Yesterday when we
began this, I had to refer the committee to one of my
constituents who was in my constituency office Friday morning, a
woman I've been working with for a couple of years. She's got a
Family Court file this thick. We first made contact when she had
problems getting the police to enforce the restraining order she
had received from the Unified Family Court. Documented: violent
husband, bad alcohol and drug problems.
The supervised access centre,
Niagara Child Development Centre, won't even supervise the access
any more, that's how bad they're saying it is. In any event, he
has served papers now upon his ex-wife, trying to relitigate the
access, custody, blah, blah. Here we are just before
Christmastime. The trial date is set for end of November. This
woman had an alarm provided for her from the local
committee-Women's Place is part of the committee, but they don't
monitor-but they're in limited supply. She had to give it up
several months ago because there hadn't been any incidents for a
number of months, because we had written to the police chief and
the police had started to co-operate with monitoring and being
there when she needed them.
She's entering this critical
stage. Think about it: before Christmas, all the melancholy and
emotions, the prospect of more drinking. The litigation is going
to be taking place-I don't want to be overly dramatic, but the
woman's a target once again, right? Yet she doesn't have this
crummy little emergency alarm because of the scarcity and the
limitations that the committee-I'm sure with great difficulty-has
to prioritize. If the constituency office has to pay for it out
of our budget, we'll pay for one for her.
The government members spoke
yesterday about all the enhanced funding that we've witnessed
since 1995. Is that true?
Ms Krauser:
We haven't been eligible for any of it. Second-stage housing is
not eligible because we're not an MCSS transfer agency.
Mr Kormos: Have you suffered
cuts?
Ms Hansen:
We suffered $2.56 million on the first day of January 1996. That
was 100% of the MCSS funding. Because we've lost that funding we
are no longer, as Joanne said, a current transfer agency of MCSS,
meaning that not one penny of the $10 million comes to
second-stage housing.
Mr Kormos:
Thank you very much. I appreciate your coming.
1600
The Chair:
Government side, Mrs Elliott.
Mrs Brenda Elliott
(Guelph-Wellington): Thank you for coming before us
today to present your point of view. From our perspective there
are three kinds of housing that are offered to women, indeed to
anyone who is experiencing difficulty. There are emergency
hostels, there are emergency shelters for abused women and then
there is second-stage housing. As you will know, housing has been
evolving over the past few years from the federal government to
the provincial government. Then under our government, continuing
under the NDP initiative of-what did you call it? Not
restructuring. You had a name where you were trying to
reconfigure some of the programs and share between municipalities
and the province.
We continued that work,
primarily focusing on restructuring the education taxes so it
didn't land on the shoulders of the property owners. In that
process of restructuring, the emergency shelters in fact ended up
at the municipal level as opposed to the provincial level. So
when you say the word "cut" we have a difference of opinion. In
fact, what has happened is the responsibility for that particular
series of programs is now moving to the municipalities which are
going to be-and there is a piece of legislation in the House
now-responsible for housing at the local level; for many reasons,
primarily because it's more responsive and more
cost-effective.
From the shelters' point of
view, there continue to be 98 shelters across the province that
provide 24-hour, seven-days-a-week emergency residential care.
That has not changed. In addition to that, there are 100
counselling agencies which are funded through Comsoc and the
total bill for that is $82 million a year. Over and above that,
the total we're spending on violence-against-women prevention
services, which includes counselling for careers, for emotional
abuse, advice on housing and all sorts of things, totals $135
million.
It's a complicated file; no
one denies that. But there is a transference of responsibility
occurring here and no diminishment of the need or the recognition
that this kind of service needs to be offered. Has your
organization been working with municipalities in any way to
continue in this work and allow the municipalities to understand
the importance of second-stage housing and the counselling
programs that go along with that?
Ms Hansen:
Individual directors of second-stage housing are working with
their particular municipalities. As the alliance, I have not been
involved in that in any way at all.
I'm sure everything you have
said is completely and totally true. I wouldn't argue with a
word. The problem is that women can go to women's emergency
shelters and they can stay there for a maximum of six weeks.
Using Mr Kormos's example of this woman who has problems with an
abusive, stalking spouse that have gone on and on, this woman is
a perfect candidate to come and stay at a second-stage housing
program where she could stay for periods of up to a year, where
she could be protected, where she could have what few staff who
are left in the second-stage housing programs surviving in the
province. She can have the services of staff who have special
knowledge in the whole issue of assaults against women and have
special knowledge in dealing with the court system to help her to
get through that.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mrs Elliott.
Mrs
Bountrogianni: I too don't deny the government's number
and figures, although I do want to point out that when
counselling services for children are either where they are
schooled or where they live, such as second-stage housing,
there's a greater probability of their accessing those programs.
Again, because of my background I know how difficult it is. I
used to be the culprit. I would say, "Your child requires
counselling." That's easy of me to say. I've got a car, I've got
money, and I could take my kid to counselling. A lot of these
people had to go on three buses to go to Chedoke-McMaster in
Hamilton for counselling. They had to take time off from their
minimum-wage jobs to do that. That's not the kind of job I had. I
didn't get a cut in pay when I had to take my kids to a doctor,
for example.
Maybe it's a detail and it's
lost to those who make these decisions at whatever level, but
having counselling where the kids live or where they go to school
is really much more efficient and gives access to much-needed
counselling which, in the long run, will begin to end this cycle.
It's much more difficult at a later stage in life to end violence
in anyone, man or woman.
Maybe you can tell us
exactly, besides the one-year stay, what are the other
differences between second-stage housing and emergency shelters,
to give us all a better understanding?
Ms Krauser:
Most second-stage housing is more independent living. They have
their own apartments; they usually pay a rent geared to income, a
subsidized rent. There's more normalcy to their lives. It's more
a reconstruction of the lives instead of this crisis-in our area
it's only four weeks at the crisis shelter. The four weeks is
just total crisis.
Then when they come to
second-stage housing, they have more time to plan. They're given
an opportunity, with support, to plan for their future. If they
need retraining or they need some personal counselling or their
children need some assistance, if they need legal support to go
to court, to know what's going to happen at court, a little bit
of support; information, education. It just gives a longer period
of time to plan for the future, and also to acquire permanent
affordable housing. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say
it's a disaster. There is no housing. After four weeks, where do the women go?
Often back to their abusive partners.
Mrs
Bountrogianni: Do I have any more time?
The Chair:
About 30 seconds.
Mrs
Bountrogianni: I was at the women's centre in London on
Saturday, which has also taken over the second-stage housing
since their funding was cut. I had the statistics yesterday; I
don't have them today. But roughly for every one woman who was
able to access the emergency shelter, two were turned away. That
is how big the need is. Without putting you in a difficult
position with statistics, what would you say the equivalent
statistics or needs are in the second-stage housing?
Ms Hansen:
I'm currently doing a quick survey on that of all of the members
for another project that I have underway. What I'm finding is
that many of them have waiting lists for the very first time in
their history.
The one that I am most
familiar with is the one in Stratford where I used to work. We
have never had a waiting list until this summer. That's the first
time there has ever been a waiting list. I'm finding that in more
and more of them around.
The other thing is that there
are only 26 of us for the entire province. There are only three
in the far north, which means to get to second-stage housing
sometimes you're going to have to travel a great distance. I
completely agree with what Joanne said. Women who are able and
have support systems in their community and who are physically
and emotionally able to go and live in the community can go and
live in the community. Women who come to second-stage housing
often are not able to, because of emotional or physical
disabilities, or their children have some kind of disabilities
that they need to have the time to look at, so second-stage
housing literally saves women's lives.
The abusive males can sit
around outside the shelter for four weeks or six weeks, and know
that at that time she must come out. But if she can go from there
to second-stage housing for a period of up to a year, that gives
some breathing space to the couple. It helps to defuse the
situation and it makes it safer for her when her time is up, to
go and live in the community.
The Chair:
Thank you, Ms Hansen and Ms Krauser.
HUMAN EQUALITY ACTION AND RESOURCE TEAM
The Chair:
The next presentation is from the Human Equality Action and
Resource Team, Eric Tarkington. Good afternoon, Mr
Tarkington.
Mr Eric
Tarkington: Good afternoon and thank you. I'm going to
try to rush through this so as to give you an opportunity to talk
to me, but I do have a long presentation so please forgive me if
I am rushing.
This presentation has five
main points.
(1) Bill 117 was prepared
without the help of father-friendly groups.
(2) There is no
justification for killing due process.
(3) We believe that Bill
117 will contribute to further harm to children and families.
(4) We ask very seriously,
what will history think of us if we continue in this reckless
course?
(5) We ask, what can we do
to the bill?
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First of all, I will answer
a question that must be in your minds: "Who is this?" You
probably think I'm the devil incarnate. My name is Eric
Tarkington. I'm a single parent of a 19-year-old son. On Sunday I
was crying in a supermarket because I was buying the last packet
of iced tea for him because he's flying to San Francisco to work
and study. That's the last packet I'm going to buy for him for
quite a long time. I don't know how long. So I was crying in the
supermarket. Men do not have such emotions, I know. It's contrary
to all your statistics. Nonetheless, it happened.
I'm a teacher at a
community college, and I'm a software consultant. I'm also
secretary of Human Equality Action and Resource Team, sometimes
known as HEART. HEART is a non-profit corporation registered in
1988. It is devoted to helping rejected parents recover from the
horrifying process they are subjected to in the courts. HEART is
an advocate for keeping both parents fully engaged in the child's
life, even after divorce.
Let's go to my points.
There was no father-friendly representation in the preparation of
this bill. Currently, all levels of government are gender-biased
against men. I am offering here a few examples. I can give you a
much longer list, and I intend to in writing. I would like to
mention today, though, the high rate of single-mother families
when it is perfectly obvious to everyone in modern society that
men are equally good parents as compared to women. The radical
imbalance of custody and access awards against the father is
plain evidence of the way society is treating its men
unfairly.
Status of Women Canada
exists and costs millions of dollars every year. The Ontario
Women's Directorate exists and costs millions of dollars every
year. The domestic violence courts exist because the rates of
conviction in ordinary court were not high enough and the
conclusion, instead of ceasing to do this silly business, was to
tilt the table further and make it more unfair so that you could
get more convictions.
I will provide examples of
inflamed language from debate of Bill 117 on October 3, 4 and 5
in my written submissions. I would also like to point out that
there is a total absence of funding for men's issues currently in
this province or in any other province of this nation. There are
men's issues.
To continue on the point
that there was no father-friendly representation in the creation
of this bill, men are slandered as violent oppressors, but they
gave women the vote soon after they got it themselves. Men got
the vote commonly at the end of the last century and by the
beginning of this century, out of love and respect, they had
given it to women.
There is no outreach from
government to ex-husbands, fathers and non-custodial parents. I
can say that from bitter
experience. Father-friendly groups come unprepared to hearings
and only after laws and regulations are already drafted.
Second point: there is no
justification for killing due process. Here are some truths about
violence that I can demonstrate to you with good statistics, and
I mean to in writing quite soon:
(1) The rate of real
domestic violence is very low. This is the most important fact
because it cannot justify turning loose a destructive bureaucracy
on the province.
(2) Women do more than men
of the domestic violence against children and older persons. I
can demonstrate that to you with very good statistics from
government sources. Women do a significant amount of violence
against men. Men are the main victims of violence in society by a
large factor, outside of the area of domestic violence, and
government shows no interest in this imbalance of harms against
men. Women are the safest members of society across the
board.
False allegations will be
propelled by this bill, and false allegations have devastating
effects on their victims. False allegations can be made
opportunistically because there are no specified penalties for
them and no penalties are typically imposed by the courts, even
though the law allows for them.
The provisions of Bill 117
are draconian and should not be used without strong evidence of
real harm. The lag time for a hearing with notice is far too
long, up to 15 days, depending on the pleasure of the court.
Meanwhile, the devastating effects go on.
Innocent spouses can be put
out of the home and out of areas that are necessary for normal
business and parenting activities. Innocent spouses will suffer
financial and emotional harm that is never compensated, and may
even become unable to afford or conduct a legal defence, so that
the situation remains in place virtually for life. Many of the
prohibitions and orders that wouldn't be applied to an innocent
respondent are abusive. The abuser is enlisting the court in the
abuse.
Harm to children and
families: restraining orders are nuclear weapons in Family Court.
There are no deterrent consequences to false allegations in
Family Court. Access orders can be made moot already. Under Bill
117 they are trumped, with no Family Court process specified to
help the Family Court deal with the situation after Bill 117 has
destroyed everything that the court crafted.
A restraining order is the
start of a cascade of processes in Family Court, and these
processes are so drawn out that the court changes custody or
access in the end due to the simple passage of time, with the
father excluded from the children's lives. Interim custody orders
usually become permanent. These provide strong motivations to
make false allegations in the first place.
Harm to children and
families, continued: possession of the matrimonial home comes
with custody, again another motivation to lie. In recent surveys,
90% of the public believe that the Family Court should be
eliminated in favour of parental equality and the right of the
child to both parents. The overwhelming weight of research shows
that children urgently need both parents but increasingly lose
their fathers. Lack of a father is the strongest predictor of a
person being jailed in his lifetime. Emotional and behavioural
problems are seriously increased in father-absent homes for
children of both sexes. Most governments have responded to this
perversely by punishing good fathers harder, and Bill 117 is a
continuation of this perverse tendency.
What will history think of
us? I beg you to remember that governments instituted residential
schools. Governments caused the Duplessis orphans situation to
arise, the internment of Japanese-Canadians in the Second World
War, the satanic cult scare which we have so recently gotten over
and the false memory syndrome which we have even more recently
gotten over. The people who committed these hate crimes felt
uplifted and righteous while they were in the process.
What can we do to the bill?
First of all, you can narrow the definition of "domestic
violence" used in the bill. I'm operating on the assumption that
you won't withdraw it, that you politically can't. So please
narrow the definition so that this doesn't get turned loose,
damaging innocent people on the landscape at random. You can
narrow the definition by excluding the "reckless act or omission"
language. Very serious sanctions are going to apply, so I must
urge you not to apply them frivolously. Please require a
reasonable anticipation of grievous bodily harm or significant
damage to property. Don't double up the requirement only for
probability, and low probability at that, for taking such
draconian measures. Please exclude "recording" from the
definition. Recording is often the only way that the innocently
accused can protect themselves from false allegations.
Emergency intervention
orders are very draconian and should not be granted on an
unfounded fear of property damage alone. Please require a first
hearing, with notice, within 24 hours of the allegation, in which
the accused has right of counsel; the accuser must hold herself
available for the hearing within that 24 hours and not delay the
proceedings; and you must automatically vacate any temporary
order that was not brought back by the parties.
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Please create civil
penalties on the balance of probabilities for false accusations
and make them compulsory on judges. Courts "may" put a false
accuser out of the residence on first offence; "shall" on second.
Please impose fines, costs. Be specific. The court may refuse to
hear a further accusation from a false accuser.
Not directly within the
bill, but I am asking the government to please enact gathering of
statistics. Current statistics are issue-oriented toward one
point of view. All the statistics that you get through your
departments are statistics in which people were paid to
demonstrate that men are evil.
Finally, please create
outreach to father-friendly groups. We have something to say, and
it's safe to be with us in more intimate surroundings than this
hearing.
In closing, I would like to
say that hatred against men is nearing the end of its course, in
my view. I feel very optimistic now. Fathers victimized by the
divorce system are reaching political age, kind of like me, and
you will see more of us attempting to influence your thinking.
Children from divorced families clearly see how the system
deprived them of a parent and other cruelties in the system.
Feminists are watching their sons' and brothers' lives unravel,
and the public is becoming aware of its own strong consensus in
favour of equal parenting and the regard of all people in society
as equally good.
Forgive me, please, for
speaking so stridently. I was in a terrible hurry.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Tarkington. We have about six minutes for
questions, starting with the government side.
Mrs Tina R.
Molinari (Thornhill): Thank you very much for your
presentation and for taking the time to come here today.
Obviously, in your voice, you're very emotional about the whole
issue, and I appreciate that. As a mother of two boys, I sense
where you're coming from.
The intent of this bill is
not in any way to punish or to be unfair to men; it's more to be
fair and to realize the effects of domestic violence in society
and to try to do whatever it is we can do as a provincial
government to enforce some of the protection for those who are
experiencing that type of violence.
In your presentation you
said the rate of real domestic violence is very low. You went on
to explain some of the amendments and changes you would like to
see put in the bill. I'd like to ask you if you could just
elaborate a little more on what your definition of real domestic
violence is, because it appears to be that it's not incongruent
with what is in this bill. You did mention that some of your
changes would be to eliminate acts or omissions that cause bodily
harm, so if you could elaborate on what your definition of real
domestic violence is, as opposed to what we have in this bill, it
would help me understand.
Mr
Tarkington: The first thing I would like to say is that
worthy goals frequently lead to bad law. Focusing on one
particular problem, you can do harm in other areas. That is what
we believe you are doing.
As to the question of what
domestic violence is, it's a difficult question for anyone to
face. I think I have to tell you that domestic violence is
roughly divided between men and women, except in its most extreme
form when people are desperately fighting for their lives, and in
those cases men have an advantage. I would agree with many of the
liberalized definitions of domestic violence, but I would not
agree that all of them, because they can be called domestic
violence, would deserve the same remedy. I think we have to
approach the matter with great caution.
I did not in my
presentation, unless I made a horrible mistake, say that we
should not consider a reasonable apprehension of the danger of
bodily harm as not domestic violence. But the apprehension has to
be reasonable, and it can't be simply an apprehension of danger
to property; it cannot be a matter of someone coming and
testifying, "Because he made a certain-handed gesture, I fear for
my life." The current law permits that, and the current societal
environment encourages it in the justices who will be called upon
to enforce the law.
Mrs
Bountrogianni: If Mrs Molinari wants to ask another
question, I have no questions for this presenter.
The Chair:
Mr Kormos?
Mr Kormos:
No, thank you, but I'm not ceding my time to anybody.
Mrs
Bountrogianni: You can have my time.
The Chair:
Mrs Molinari, you have about two more minutes.
Mrs
Molinari: I would just like to read into the record that
the bill defines domestic violence to include an "act or omission
that causes bodily harm or damage to property"; physical assault
and threats that cause a person "to fear for his or her safety";
"forced physical confinement"; "sexual assault, sexual
exploitation or sexual molestation"; and any "series of acts
which collectively causes the applicant to fear for his or her
safety."
Where in there do you
believe that it is not real domestic violence, to use the same
term?
Mr
Tarkington: I don't have a copy of the bill in front of
me but I recall part of the description regarding the
intervention order, which may not be in the definition section,
and it includes "reckless act or omission."
Am I allowed to respond to
this?
The Chair:
You've got about 30 seconds, Mr Tarkington.
Mr
Tarkington: I would like to point out that when you're
talking about a reckless act or omission, we may have a situation
in which the person who is accusing is equally responsible for
the omission. This language expects guilt in a person coming
before the bench on a very serious matter. If you are attempting
to define this out of civil law and then apply criminal
punishment, what you are doing is definitely contrary to human
rights and tradition in this country.
Mrs
Bountrogianni: The Legislative Assembly library research
did a great job, and it can't be unconstitutional or against the
laws of this country if Alberta, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island
and a number of other provinces also include "act or omission" in
their definitions.
Mr
Tarkington: Governments, in these cases, are forcing
men, on their own private resources, to show the government that
they are in fact violating their rights. This will cost hundreds
of thousands of dollars to individuals and make-wrong is still
wrong, even if you have the power to impose it.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Tarkington.
BRIAN JENKINS
The Chair:
The next presenter is Brian Jenkins.
Mrs
Molinari: Madam Chair, I would just like to submit from
the ministry a chart that was requested yesterday in hearings
outlining the major differences between current and proposed
legislative provisions, to be shared among the committee.
The Chair:
That would be very helpful. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr
Jenkins.
Mr Brian Jenkins: Good afternoon.
My name is Brian Jenkins. I am here representing myself. Just as
background, I have a master's in mathematics from the University
of Waterloo. I'm a fellow of the Society of Actuaries and I'm a
fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. The job of
actuaries is dealing with the projection of risk, demographics
and statistics, and projections into the future. As a result, I
would say that I have some background in both demographics and
statistics.
I attended this committee
meeting yesterday. I had already mapped out what I was going to
say and I threw that out. I'm coming back because I think this
committee's underlying principles in this bill are wrong. Mr
Bryant is 100% wrong about what the statistics are and I'm very
disappointed the Attorney General's office is ignoring them as
well.
We are dealing in a society
right now that has certain characteristics. These characteristics
have been brought about by government and social policy over the
last 30 years.
On September 21, 1999,
Durex released a study that shows that Canadian children are
reaching sexual promiscuity at the earliest age in the 14
countries surveyed, tying the United States. The abortion
rate-and I'm not talking about birth control, I'm talking about
the abortion rate-in Canada now is that one quarter of all
pregnancies are terminated by abortion. There were 115,000
fetuses destroyed last year. Again, this isn't birth control;
these are active lapses.
Children in this country
are a woman's choice and a man's responsibility.
The fertility rate in this
country has dropped, so each woman bears, on average, 1.59
children. The replacement ratio in order to keep our population
stable is about 2.1. In four generations, the number of Canadians
of child-bearing years will be about 20% of what the population
currently is.
Canada's population is
maintained in this country-under the provisions and family
structures in this country-by immigration, those that aren't
touched by this country.
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Marriage is a feared
institution by the young. Even the Toronto Star documented that
one. Fewer than half of initial cohabitations are marriage. Fewer
than half of parents bearing children are married in this
country. Lone-parent, woman-headed families increased by 60% from
1981 to 1996. Ontario has increased the number of single-mother
families in the period from 1991 to 1996 by 25%. By the way,
single-father families in the same period grew by 15%.
Planned Parenthood
throughout this country has been on a campaign, because the way
welfare is now structured, it incites people to have kids for
money. Arlene MacDonald of Planned Parenthood in Pictou, which
admittedly is in Nova Scotia, notes that 50% of the teenagers
applying for pregnancy tests there want to be pregnant so they
can get welfare. Children are no longer something that is
necessarily loved.
The Toronto Star, on
December 6, 1998, interviewed 11- and 12-year-olds about their
focus on life and what they thought. This is the generation of
people that is coming on line now. Twelve-year-old Kristy
Horsnell told them, "I'm going to marry a really rich guy, then
divorce him and marry for love. But first I'm going to have his
kids so I get child support."
In Canada, 50% of children
are not living with one of their biological parents. Currently
about 25% of the new generation of child-bearing adults don't
have a biological father involved in their lives and don't have
any concept of fathering. The current trends will push this to
about 50% in the next 15 years. Certainly legislation such as
Bill 117 will get it there quicker.
Men's suicide rate is
currently about four times that of women's, on average. StatsCan
analysis says that divorced men have about 16 times the suicide
rate of women. Certainly divorce occurs well after separation and
they do not check what the suicide rate of men is at separation,
but you would expect it to be higher.
Now I'm going to talk about
some of the statistics that are available and that are real
statistics that address directly the issue of domestic
violence.
First of all, there are two
types of statistics-and we'll go through Statistics Canada as
well-and they are called charges and victimization. Charges are
what police actually lay charges on or how charges are cleared,
perhaps where reports are drawn. As we know from the rape
debates, charges and victimization can be very different things.
They measure different things. One is the willingness of clients
to deal with the society. One is the management of the police
practices related to it when you take a look at charges.
Victimization is something
different. You go and talk to the people and you find out what
the victimization is.
Statistics Canada has
released two. One is a study called Women in Canada, third
edition, dated August 1995. Their number is 89-503E. They've
studied women as victims of domestic violence in solved homicide
cases. In 1993, which is where their statistics are from-and I
would like to point out that's the same year as the violence
against women study-there were 97 female homicides that were in a
domestic relationship, and they totalled 59.1% of the victims.
This is a study of women. If you worked it backwards, if there
were 59.1% of 97, that means there were 67 male victims. There
are men who are killed here too and there's not an insignificant
number of men.
Who kills? Of the 208 women
murdered in Canada, 97 were in a domestic relationship. So about
46.6% of assault homicides were domestic violence when it came to
the death of women. In Ontario, in 1997, 35 women died from
homicide. That's total homicide victims. So you would expect
slightly less than half, or maybe about 18, to have died from
domestic violence. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy and
every single one was a preventable tragedy.
Where do these stack up?
Women in the same period of time had 215 suicides, so about 12
times that rate. They
were all preventable tragedies. There were 261 motor vehicle
deaths, 13.7 times as many women; 638 died from accidental falls;
1,165 died from accidents in total or 65 times the total number
of women that died from domestic violence. So when people tell
you what the primary cause of death is, it's accidents. I would
like to point out as well, something that I'm very concerned
about: 1,316 deaths were related to mental disorders, so about
73.1 times the number of deaths from domestic violence.
All of these tragedies were
preventable. They generally impact on women of the same ages, in
the same way. There's not an epidemic of any one type of
preventable tragedy here.
I would note that if there
were 18 women who died, there were about 12 or 13 men who died,
based on the statistics of the same period of time.
Solved spousal homicides in
1999, stated in 1999 Juristat, says that in married, common-law,
separated and divorced situations: 58 spouses were killed by men,
13 were killed by women, so there the accusation is that 80% of
the deaths were caused by men and 20% were by females. I won't
ask what the percentage of everybody's plurality was, but 80% and
20% are not necessarily the same thing.
In 1999-2000, a study was
done that updated the 1993 violence against women study in
Canada. I know everybody is aware of this because this was front
page news on July 26, in all the major newspapers. Everybody
knows that it came out and everybody knows basically what it
said. Let me tell you a little about the study. The study was
basically a victimization study. It was based on applying the
1993 violence against women criteria to the entire Canadian
population, including men, using the 1999 general social
survey.
The 1993 violence against
women study that was done in Canada by Statistics Canada has
internationally been held up as a joke, as a method of producing
results that you want as opposed to balanced statistics and as
way to design slanted surveys. This apparently was Statistics
Canada's attempt to put it back and put a balanced population in
there to show the validity of what happened.
The 1993 survey itself was
a slanted study. It only targeted women, and they found that 2%
of married women indicated that they had had some level of abuse,
and that is Criminal Code definition of abuse, from a current
partner in the last 12 months-2%. Now, that was not a statistic
that they released anywhere except in the footnotes. They made up
other things about lifetime balance and things like that. But
let's be realistic: 2% of married women, which we're talking
about having to protect, may have had some domestic violence in
the last 12 months, from the violence against women study in
1993.
So what does this study
show? This study shows that 1% of both men and women in married
relationships had some level of spousal violence in the last 12
months. There were actually 85 women and 88 men, but there is 1%.
Four per cent of men and women in common-law relationships
indicated some level of spousal violence in the last 12
months-4%. When you balance the married versus the common-law,
overall violence is said to be 2% for men and 2% for women, just
about equal. There actually werea little more men but it's the
joy of rounding; you can make everything look the same and the
same is likely fine. There actually was about 20% more, if it
makes any difference.
Women report violence,
however, from previous relationships more strongly than men. In
the last five years, based on any intimate partner, 8% of women
reported some level of violence, 7% of men. In the last 12
months, 6% of women from any partner, 4% of men from any partner.
Roughly speaking, 220,000 women in Canada have had some level of
domestic violence in the last 12 months, and 177,000 men.
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Use of support services: By
the way, this is a publicly available study; I'm sure you can all
get it. You can even download it off the Internet, but if you
need it I'll supply you with a copy.
Some 48% of women had
access to support services, 17% of men. If you go to the Attorney
General's Web site, if you go to the Solicitor General's Web
site, if you go to the Ontario Women's Directorate's Web site
you'll find there is no support in Ontario for men. I'm not going
to go into it, but just from my own personal experience, having
been a victim of domestic violence, charges having been laid by
the police against my ex-wife, I can assure you there is no
support for men in this province.
Police are notified in
about 37% of all female abuse cases. Where a woman's been abused,
they're notified about 37% of the time. If you want a statistic,
there it is. Fifteen per cent of men's abuse is reported. Women
call 78% of the time themselves. Men know it's pretty futile;
they phone about half the time themselves. The other half are
usually reported by professionals who've treated the injuries.
Forty-eight per cent of the women who do report want their
partner arrested and punished; less than 34% of the men do.
Statistics Canada compared
the level of domestic violence in this country to the 1993 study
for women. Their conclusion: "There is evidence of a decline in
wife assault in recent years. Although both surveys estimate
one-year rates of 3%, five-year rates declined from 12% in 1993
to 8% in 1999, a drop which is statistically significant. Most
indicators point to a decline in the severity of violence
committed against women over this time period.... Assaults also
tended to occur less frequently," result in fewer injuries and
require less medical attention.
Police statistics say that
87% of reported cases are violence against women. Remember, you
had about equal violence; 37% of women were reporting and 15% of
men, and if you do the ratio, somewhere the men got dropped off
there.
Injuries, minor or major,
were about 47%, were in roughly equal proportion. Eighty-one per
cent of women's charges
were cleared by charge, which I'm sure Mr Kormos will tell you
means that they laid a charge, which means that in 19% of the
cases there weren't charges laid. On the other hand, charges were
laid only in 62% of the cases involving men. Why weren't charges
laid? Twenty-six per cent of the men requested that no charge be
laid, about 14% of the women. Departmental discretion, which
means that the option of the police and the crown, which of
course reports to the Attorney General's office, wouldn't proceed
in 7% of the cases, and then in 2% of the cases of women. Other
reasons, which include suicides and too-long waits, dropped the
charges against 5% of the men and 3% of the women.
These studies in Canada are
nothing unique to this country. This is not an isolated study.
This is nothing unique. A study done in New Zealand called the
Research in Brief: Findings About Partner Violence from the
Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study by Terrie
Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi was published by the National
Institute of Justice of the US Department of Justice.
This was a study that
followed a number of men and women throughout their lives to find
out and trace not only the incidence of domestic violence in
their lives, among other things, but also the recurrence rate
from those who had witnessed domestic violence.
Just to quote from an
article that appeared in Mother Jones called "Hitting the Wall,"
"A surprising fact has turned up in the grimly familiar world of
domestic violence: women report using violence in their
relationships more often than men. This is not a crack by some
antifeminist cad; the information will soon be"-and actually is
now-"published by the Department of Justice in a report
summarizing the results of in-depth, face-to-face interviews with
a representative sample of 860 men and women whom researchers
have been following since birth ... a University of Wisconsin
psychology professor" says that "the study supports data
published in 1980 indicating that wives hit their husbands at
least as often as husbands hit their wives." That 1980 study was
a Straus study that was done in the United States and is
supported by the US census data.
In 1999, the Home Office of
the government of Britain released the components of their 1996
British Crime Victimisation Study related to domestic violence.
Two documents are available, one called-you've got to admit the
British love nice titles, right? Listen to this one: Research
Findings No. 86 and Domestic Violence: Findings from a new
British Crime Survey self-completion questionnaire.
"Men are more subject to
physical violence in a married or common-law relationship, while
women report more incidents of violence after separation. Women
report injury in about 47% of cases while men report injury in
about 31% of the cases. Approximately equal numbers of men and
women report that they were attacked, but women have indicated
that they were either more inclined to attack in intermittent
violence cases, or to not remember who attacked first. Men were
more inclined not to have been violent throughout the
incident-but overall, it indicates that in almost half of all
cases both parties participated in the violence."
Similar results came out of
a study from the international social science survey in
Australia, one called Domestic Violence in Australia: Are Women
and Men Equally Violent? There again they confirmed that
typically in domestic violence in 50% of the cases the violence
is mutual.
Reanalysis of the original
Dutton and Kennedy study that triggered the 1993 Violence against
Women was performed in 1999 by Kwong, Bartholomew and Dutton and
published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science. Once
again it confirms that in 50% of the cases violence is mutual,
and in the other half it's one or the other in about equal
amounts.
Studies from 1997 by
Grandin and Lupri out of Alberta, Intimate Violence in Canada and
the United States: A Cross-National Comparison, which compared
the results in Canada and the US, came to exactly the same
conclusion: in Canada, domestic violence is a 50-50
proposition.
The Chair:
Mr Jenkins, could you wrap up, please. You've got about 30
seconds.
Mr
Jenkins: OK. You can see I'm not going to get to the
bill.
What this bill says-and the
attitude of this committee from yesterday, where Mr Tilson was
the only person who used the word "alleged," and I think he
managed it three times-is that you have decided to ignore 75% of
the domestic violence in this country. This is not a bill to
reduce domestic violence; this is a bill to reduce part of it,
not all of it. I think this government should very seriously take
a look at reducing domestic violence and reducing all of it.
I certainly understand the
problems the women's shelters are having in combating domestic
violence, but you have to remember that this is a two-way street
and you need resources for the other people as well.
Things like false
allegations, as Mr Kormos said, you could handle through perjury
charges, but I'm sure Mr Kormos will tell you about how many
perjury charges can be levelled in Ontario in a year. I would be
surprised if it's more than a dozen.
This bill has lost its
focus on what it was trying to do, and I honestly think you
should go back and take a look at the statistics that are there,
because they are right.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Jenkins.
FATHERS ARE CAPABLE TOO
The Chair:
The next speaker is Peter Cornakovic, Fathers Are Capable Too
parenting association.
Mr Kormos:
On a point of order, Chair: We've just received a package of
three photocopied items. Two of them appear to identify the
source, Riding the Donkey Backwards and Gender Differences. I
believe they identify the source. The third one has no source
identified.
The Chair: My understanding, Mr
Kormos-are they from you, Mr Cornakovic?
Mr Peter
Cornakovic: Yes, they are. I apologize for that
oversight. That is part of a book written by Professor Alan
Dershowitz called The Abuse Excuse. I'll be talking to that one.
Please excuse my oversight there.
First let me introduce
myself. My name is Peter Cornakovic. I am a professional
accountant. I am an executive member of FACT, Fathers Are Capable
Too, which is a non-profit organization. It's a parental
association. Let me read what our mission is so you have a better
idea of who I am and what I'm representing here.
Our vision is that we will
change the legal and social attitude to promote shared parenting
and formal equality. Our mission is to promote public awareness,
provide education and support programs in parenting for children,
their families and the total community. We want to establish and
provide support programs for parents and children, and we want to
support the educational, social and recreational activities of
the community.
1650
Our values, philosophies
and principles are that we will, number one, maintain our focus
on our vision and our mission. We are respectful of the social
norms and laws. We are a moderate, non-violent vehicle for
change. We will conduct our behaviour with integrity and
credibility. We value the talent of individual members and
recognize that success will depend on us as a group, to make
things happen.
Bill 117, in my
perspective, will just codify the current situation of domestic
violence and, in my opinion, it will just perpetuate female
victimization. According to the studies that were presented, two
of which I presented to you, and I believe touched on by the
previous speaker-there's a lot of stats. I was going to go into
the stats, but I think the stats were pretty thorough, so I will
bypass that process and make this talk a bit shorter.
I think he did a fairly
good job of presenting the myths and stereotypes. As per the two
reports I presented and the StatsCan report the previous speaker
presented, violence is mutual, according to studies and contrary
to myopic myths and stereotypes.
Riding the Donkey
Backwards: Men as the Unacceptable Victims of Marital Violence is
a good example of a study that was done by a qualified
psychologist. Gender Differences in Patterns of Relationship
Violence in Alberta was done by qualified psychologists. The
study by StatsCan, Family violence in Canada, 2000-A statistical
profile, was an update which shows that domestic violence is
largely mutual between men and women, contrary to myopic myths
and stereotypes.
Although the legislation is
not gender biased in its presentation, from my perspective the
intention is to make it gender biased. If this happens, this will
be in contravention of section 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms. It will increase opportunities for false allegations by
providing positive reinforcement to dysfunctional behaviour.
The act should guarantee
neutral enforcement compared to the current bias that we have in
our system. The standards of evidence should be consistent with
the standard in criminal law, and therefore ensure due process in
law, unlike the current situation. I recommend that statistical
record keeping on allegations and convictions based on gender
should be kept for the police, the crown and courts, so we can
compare that to the actual statistics on domestic violence and
see what's happening there, and make sure the law is interpreted
in a non-gender way.
My suggested change to the
current bill is that the legislation should be rejected if
implemented in a biased manner; the Solicitor General's and
Attorney General's office could be held vicariously liable if it
is not. This could be worth billions of dollars to the taxpayers
of this province, if they are found to be implemented in a
gender-biased way.
Children and property
should be excluded. Emotional abuse is not a crime for grown-ups.
The article I gave you, by Professor Alan Dershowitz, goes into
great detail. He goes into such great detail that he even had
time to single out Canada, this great country of ours, as being a
culture where feminist censorship prevails. I think it's pretty
obvious from the legislation and the intention of the legislation
that's being presented.
I'm recommending that false
allegations should be charged as domestic violence and that
access denial should be treated as child abuse. Most qualified
psychologists would recommend the same. Standards of evidence
should be consistent with criminal law in recognition of the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Like I said before, the
legislation is not explicit to gender bias, but I can read
between the lines, like a lot of other people can and a lot of
speakers before me already have. If it is interpreted as such, it
is in contravention, once again, of the equality provisions of
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It will create a huge
potential liability, costing the province and the taxpayers of
this province potentially billions of dollars for every man
falsely accused and without due process in law.
I have some predictions
about what's going to happen if this is followed through in its
interpretation and is continued in its biased implementation.
There will be an increase in false allegations because they are
now being positively reinforced with full custody of property and
children, which seems to be one and the same, unfortunately. It's
contrary to advanced cognitive and human behavioural science, for
the psychologists, and in contravention of the Charter of
Rights.
It will increase rage and
violence in men who are falsely accused, suffering from greater
depression, anxiety and insomnia. My organization deals with many
of these men. We deal with at least one or two men every week who
tell us, "You won't believe the story that I've just had," and
it's the same old story: "I've been falsely accused. I've been
kicked out of the house. I do not have access to my kids. I'm
suffering from depression." The first thing we tell them is, "Go
see your doctor."
Current direction on
domestic assault, in my opinion, is in violation of section 15(1)
of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Like I said, we deal with many victims of domestic
violence. We have the situation of one of our colleagues who was
hit with a baseball bat in front of a witness and the police
would not lay charges. One of my colleagues was accused of
bruising his spouse's hand because it hit his eye, by a
non-qualified professional. It's almost humourous. Then there's
the famous Kickin' Vixen as an example. She's a multiple
assaulter. She was not charged. If that's not biased, I don't
know what is.
I'd like to finish off by
quoting Mr David Blankenhorn on fatherless America.
"Fatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend of this
generation. It is the leading cause of declining child well-being
in our society. It is also the engine driving our most urgent
social problems, from crime to adolescent pregnancy to child
sexual abuse to domestic violence."
Certainly, despite the
difficulty of proving causation in the social sciences, the
weight of evidence increasingly supports the conclusion that
fatherlessness is a primary generator of violence among young
men. This bill, if implemented in a gender-biased way, will
encourage fatherlessness and encourage violence, unfortunately. I
hope, if it's implemented, it will be implemented with respect to
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and implemented fairly.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Carnakovic. Ms Bountrogianni, do you have a
question? Mr Kormos? Government members? No questions. OK. Thank
you very much for coming this afternoon.
1700
CHILDREN'S VOICE
The Chair:
The next speaker is Mr Bill Flores, Children's Voice. Good
afternoon, Mr Flores.
Mr Bill
Flores: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of this
committee. Children's Voice is an organization advocating for
children's rights, especially the right to have equal, meaningful
and permanent relationships with both of their parents after
separation or divorce. As such, we would like to voice strong
objections to the passing of this bill in its present form since
we deem it to be highly detrimental to both children and
families.
During our several years
experience in dealing with marital conflict, we have come to
conclude that gender prejudice of any form ends up reflecting
negatively on children. It is for this reason that we endeavour
to challenge it anywhere we find it.
In our opinion, this bill
would not deter domestic violence, but rather incite it. We see
it as a pro-lawyer, pro-violence bill. It appears also to have
the purpose of increasing the number of domestic violence
applicants which will be later used as proof that domestic
violence is increasing, contrary to present statistical evidence
widely reported in the press. Its mere introduction is an affront
to better, non-adversarial conflict resolution mechanisms.
This bill is far worse than
the platform, "Shout at your spouse, you lose your house," which
defeated a then leading Liberal candidate in an Ontario
provincial election.
In addition to the moral
ground of fairness, we would also like to raise objections to the
passing of this bill on legal grounds since this legislation is
being introduced under preferred-gender policies, where only
women's groups are provided financial funding, and is contrary to
section 28 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This prejudice
provides women's advocacy groups with an advantage over the
unrepresented other half of the population by enabling them to
lobby and conduct research and ways to manipulate it to their
advantage, frequently in very deceitful ways.
It may be worth noting that
yesterday, October 23, the government issued a press release by
the Honourable Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation,
Helen Johns, indicating that they will be doubling funding for
women's groups.
During the years of
preferred-gender policies, many laws have been passed that need
to be reviewed for gender prejudice. Many of these laws have
already lead to abuse similar to the famous Salem witch trials of
the 1600s, and Bill 117 would only be furthering the grounds for
the mob hatred that is being directed towards men, their children
and families by radical feminist ideology.
Sections and subsections of
this proposed act, mainly under section 5, step on the free will
of people by patronizing them and deciding for them by way of
unilaterally confirming presumed actions with one-sided,
uncorroborated evidence. This effectively takes the
responsibility from adults to take basic care of themselves,
treating them as children.
As an example of the
effects this bill could have if passed, the 63% of false
allegations of child abuse during marital disputes admitted to by
CAS agencies could be used as a reference. Involving children as
pawns in marital wars is a reality, but it is a reality with
boundaries only the most vindictive and irresponsible parents
dare to trespass on to, sometimes pushed by their lawyers. If we
extrapolate this experience to disputes solely among adults, a
higher number of abuse-of-process cases should be reasonably
expected.
Even though not all of the
proposed sections in this bill are bad, many are already covered
in present harsh laws. However, not well defined, catch-all
wording of some sections are particularly worrisome since they
turn existing laws into mechanisms to implement them. Examples
are subsections 1(2), paragraph 6, and subsection 1(3). The
obscure wording can have such wide applications and ill effects
on other sections of the bill that we would need hours, not the
20 minutes provided here, to present them to this committee.
As it is presently written,
the sections could be easily used for parental alienation
purposes or to gain the upper hand in custody and access
disputes.
Should this committee chose
to ignore the pleas for reason, we believe that this bill should
be reviewed only after pending changes to the Divorce Act and
Ontario Family Law Act are implemented. This would minimize
the animosity among the
disputing parties and the possibilities for abuse of process that
an act like the proposed Bill 117 entices.
We are fair believers that
disputing, separating or divorcing parents need help, not to be
thrown into an adversarial system that further pits them against
each other, increases animosity and depletes them of financial
resources, something which goes to the direct detriment of
children. This bill provides all the financial incentives for
parties to try to harm each other.
Do you have any
questions?
The Acting Chair
(Mrs Brenda Elliott): Thank you, Mr Flores. We have time
for questions. Are there any questions from the Liberal caucus?
No. Mr Kormos?
Mr Kormos:
No, thank you.
The Acting
Chair: Conservative caucus? No. No questions for you.
Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.
WALTER FOX
The Acting
Chair: I would like to now call upon Mr Walter Fox,
please. Welcome. Please proceed.
Mr Walter
Fox: Hello. I don't think I'll be very long at all. My
name is Walter Fox. I happen to be a criminal lawyer and I'm here
representing no one but myself.
It came to my attention
yesterday morning that this legislation was actually coming
forward. At that time I spoke to the person who arranges for
people to come and speak and I was slotted in for this afternoon.
I've spent two busy working days-I tend to be in a criminal
courtroom every working day of my life-and I thought very long
and hard about what I might say, between making submissions to
judicial officers, to this committee.
The first thing that
occurred to me, having a quick look at this legislation, was that
you really need to know what's going on in the real world. I came
in late and I only heard three speakers. It seems to me they're
getting that message across.
I also recall that during a
nomination convention when Jean Chrétien was nominated as
leader of the Liberal Party-I believe it was 1983 or 1984-he
said, "Do not adjust your set. What you see is what you're going
to get." It seems to me you're going to hear a lot more of what
you've heard so far today.
I would like to point out
to you that you will hear from groups, usually women's groups,
that those groups are funded. The men who come before you today
or in the course of these hearings come before you at their own
expense, with no funding from anyone. Keep in mind, most often
these are men who are paying support and sometimes are working at
two and three jobs. They're here to tell you the harm and the
difficulty and the problems that the existing regime in family
law is creating for them and how this particular legislation will
make it even worse.
1710
It's pretty clear to anyone
who's got any legal training that this is criminal legislation in
the guise of a provincial statute. The scheme, the regime, here
is some vague definition of what might or might not constitute
domestic violence. Then we go through some kind of court process
which is a bastardization of anything we've seen before and at
the end of it we come out with an order, and you can go to jail
for violating that order. It's a pretty transparent scheme to
create criminal law without the usual safeguards that Canadians
have always taken for granted, things that are now enshrined in
the charter and originated in the common law and started way back
with the Magna Carta. It seems that the ideological winds are
blowing so strongly that they're going to sweep away basic
protections that every Canadian expects to have living in this
country in the name of some ideological objective which has no
basis in statistics or in anything to do with the real world.
That's the first view of this legislation.
Consider the legal,
political and cultural context in which this legislation lands.
We have a family law system which is basically "winner take all."
Mom gets custody. Maybe that should be the law. As you read the
law, it says the person who can best provide for the best
interests of the child will get custody. As a practical matter,
mom gets custody. It beats me. Why don't we just say, "In any
custody dispute, custody will be presumed in favour of mother." I
don't understand why we can't admit that publicly. Maybe that
ought to be the law. But we can't, and the debate gets obscured
because the best interests of the child come to be defined as the
best caregiver or the primary caregiver and it goes off the
rails.
Once mom gets custody, she
gets the house, she gets spousal support and she gets child
support. That's a pretty big prize. That's a pretty big incentive
for somebody to maybe do something that's not proper. But the
family law as it exists fails us because there's no control. If
mom lies to a judge, if mom files a false affidavit, how does
that detract from her being the primary caregiver? How does that
detract from giving her custody? So we're caught in an
environment where mom is going to get custody and everything is
going to flow from that, and now you throw in this legislation
and the fun starts.
One of the open secrets
among family lawyers is that once a court order is made, be it
what's called "interim interim" or "interim," that order can
rarely be changed, because you can't get back into court, because
there are no controls. Technically, what happens is that mom
files an affidavit and she says, "Dad has sex with chickens. I
know. The neighbours saw it," and on the basis of that allegation
she gets custody, the house, support and whatever. Dad moves to
cross-examine her. She doesn't show up for the cross-examination.
In civil litigation, she would be liable in costs. She might have
her case struck out. Not in family law. All that happens is, she
doesn't show up. Well, then she doesn't show up the third time or
the fourth time. Well, maybe she does show up to be
cross-examined, but she leaves. There is no control over her
conduct once she has an order.
Understand that clearly and
then you'll understand what one of the serious problems in this
legislation is, because
the legislation provides that you can make the
one-shout-in-the-house allegation-the newspapers talk about one
shout and you're out. It isn't even that good. It's an allegation
of a shout. It doesn't mean you actually shouted; somebody just
thought you shouted.
There are two alternatives.
It can go by way of notice-you serve the other side and they come
to court and maybe they argue it out-or you go the emergency
route. Guess what happens; guess what's going to happen. It's
going to be the emergency route nine times out of 10.
"Don't worry about it, Mr
Fox. The emergency route provides that within 30 days you come
back to court." Well, on day 12 she can't come to court because
the children have a cold, on day 16 her lawyer is in another
court, and on and on with no control. Does the legislation say
that if she doesn't show up within the 30 days to really discuss
the issue in a fair and open way, she loses the order? It doesn't
say that. Within half a kilometre of where we're sitting there
are probably a 1,000 lawyers who can tell you, "Give me this
order and I'll protect it and I'll make sure it doesn't get into
court for two years. I don't care what the legislation says,
because I know how to delay, I know how to adjourn, especially if
I'm acting for a mother, and she never has to pay costs."
One last thing. At a
certain level this legislation is a version of strengthening what
are called restraining orders. There's no one thing that's a
restraining order. A bail condition can be a restraining order, a
probation order can be a restraining order and maybe what is
contemplated by this legislation can be a restraining order.
One of the facts that
everyone in the criminal courts knows is that when he's arrested,
he's held overnight, he's brought to court the next morning and
he's told he can't go home. If it's Friday morning, Wednesday
morning, it doesn't matter; he can't go home. Well, she's stuck
because the in-laws are coming for the weekend, the mortgage
payment is due, they've got to close the cottage, any one of a
thousand domestic things. There is a court order, based on her
fear of him, that he can't communicate with her. She phones him
with impunity; she calls him. He takes the call: "The children
are stuck in the car somewhere. I need the insurance policy." He
answers the question. Guess what. They're both in violation of
that court order. Any lawyer worth his salt will tell you that
they're both in violation of that court order, but she won't get
charged. He will. That's how it works.
Everybody in the criminal
courtroom knows, and I was quoted in the press with this
statement-the judge knows, the prosecutor knows, the defence
lawyer knows, the person who sweeps up the court knows-that that
court order prohibiting him from contacting her will be violated
by her. We have no reason to believe that it won't be violated by
her in these circumstances as well.
Just to follow up and
finish this particular one off: I was quoted in the press as
saying that. I was in the old city hall. That's as far as I'll go
in identifying anyone. Sorry-I was in the East Mall one morning,
and the justice of the peace stopped me and in open court said,
"I saw what you said in the paper. I agree with you. We all know
that's how it works and that's what's going on." There may even
be a transcript of those remarks. Later that morning I bumped
into another justice of the peace, one from the old city hall,
and he said to me, "You know, you're absolutely right. That's how
these orders work. Everybody knows that she's going to violate
the order."
Keeping all of that in
mind, I can't imagine what you hope to accomplish with this kind
of legislation except maybe to keep the cold winds that blow out
of the Toronto Star and out of the Globe and Mail from blowing in
here and somehow dissipating your votes. It makes no sense to me.
I'm not a politician; I'm only a criminal lawyer.
Those are my submissions. I
hope they're of some use to you. Are there any questions?
Mr Bryant:
Let me just understand: are you saying that these legislative
changes are going to have no effect?
Mr Fox:
No. They're going to make everything that's going on worse.
They're moving in the wrong direction. They're not dealing with
reality.
1720
Mr Bryant:
I take it you're not referring to the vast majority of victims of
domestic violence who don't turn to the criminal justice system,
or is that what you're talking about?
Mr Fox:
What vast majority of victims who don't turn to the criminal
justice system? What group are you talking about? What numbers
are we talking about?
Mr Bryant:
I'm talking about the 75% of women who do not go to the criminal
justice system.
Mr Fox:
How do you know that?
Mr Bryant:
Because I go to women's shelters. We go to groups. We meet with
police officers. We know of these victims.
Mr Fox:
I'm not certainly buying that line. I know all about the kinds of
statistics that you are talking about, the one-sided statistics
where there are no data: the famous survey that was taken of 13
women in a shelter in San Diego, California, in 1976 and
trumpeted that 98% of women in Canada will be sexually assaulted.
I know about those statistics.
Mr Bryant:
I think those are all my questions.
The Chair:
Anyone from the government side?
Mr Garry J. Guzzo
(Ottawa West-Nepean): Mr Fox, thank you very much for
coming here. We've heard some very interesting presentations
today. I think we have acknowledged that this was far from
perfect legislation. I think the Attorney General in his opening
remarks in the House first of all stated that he was prepared to
look at some amendments. Certainly he was clear in caucus on that
point.
I'm fascinated that you
would take time out of your billable hours to come down here. Let
me tell you I practise in Ottawa-Carleton. I don't know whether
it would happen there, and I commend you for it, because you
don't have an axe to grind. I'm not suggesting that the people
who appeared before have an axe to grind, but they appear to have one. They
represent a group; they're organized for that purpose. Let me
tell you that not just in this legislation but in a lot of
legislation and a lot of committee hearings that detracts from
how all of us-I'm no different-feel.
I want to ask you
something. First of all, how long have you practised criminal
law?
Mr Fox: I
have practised law 32 years. I've been pretty much doing criminal
law since the mid-1970s.
Mr Guzzo:
You did some family law before that?
Mr Fox: I
have even recently done some family law, occasionally.
Mr Guzzo:
You try to avoid it, though, correct?
Mr Fox:
Like most lawyers I know, family law is the last place I want to
be.
Mr Guzzo:
Why? Explain to the committee just briefly why that is.
Mr Fox:
Family law is not law by any definition we would ordinarily
follow. Most law ends up with a trial. Most law ends up with an
ability to go before a court. A contract is meaningless unless
you can have a trial somewhere down the road to enforce it. You
hope that the law is done so well by the court and by the
legislation that you rarely have to go to court, but all
contracts have to be interpreted against the background of a
court.
In family law there's
absolutely nothing resembling this. Family law lawyers will tell
you that they are proud of the fact that only 3% of family law
cases get to trial. That's the number they use: 3%. They say,
"That means we're doing such a good job that 97% of our cases
settle." Madam Justice Kiteley, relying on a decision by Madam
Justice L'Heureux-Dubé and the rest of the Supreme Court of
Canada, has just told us that settlements and agreements in
family law are worthless. They don't mean anything. They can be
reviewed and revised and revamped at any time. To me it's
demeaning to women, it infantilizes women, but that's what the
law tells us. So now you have a legal system where you can't get
a trial and the settlements are not binding. Who wants to
practise in that area?
Mr Guzzo:
Unfortunately, some of us do. But let me just make the point for
the committee that on that we do agree. There is a consistent
point with Ottawa-Carleton, and let me tell you, as a former
provincial judge sitting in numerous areas around this province,
including Toronto, that's a constant factor right through this
province. That is a fact of life right through this province, and
the 3% might be high. Coming from Ottawa-Carleton, I was
interested in Mr Windsor's comments. I don't think you were here.
He mentioned the children's aid society report done on
Ottawa-Carleton that suggested that two thirds, 66%, of the
allegations were proven to be misleading, false allegations with
regard to abuse. If I recall that study, it applied to
allegations against children, which is again the common thread.
Do you have any difficulty with that figure?
Mr Fox: I
think that figure is low. Without getting into the statistics and
my disagreement with Mr Bryant as to what constitutes proper
statistical methodology, the incentive is there. If nothing
happens to you if you lie in court or if you lie in affidavits,
and you get the big prize, which is custody of the children and
the house and the support payments and all of that, why wouldn't
you do it?
Mr Guzzo:
Are you suggesting that two thirds of lawyers practising
matrimonial law in Toronto would insert some form of an
allegation in documentation that would lead a provincial court
judge or a Unified Family Court judge hearing an interim
application to believe that there was a threat of violence, a
threat against the child or against the spouse?
Mr Fox:
I'm not sure I understand your question. Is your question, would
lawyers do it? Let's start with, clients would do it. Let's start
with that. Would lawyers do it? Lawyers will take the position,
"I don't know. I wasn't there. These are the instructions I've
received and this is the procedure I'm going to follow."
I've always felt that if
you want to clean out half of the family law files, clean out
half the paperwork, you just have to lay a charge on one father's
lawyer and one mother's lawyer for filing false affidavits. You
don't even have to get them convicted; just let them know they're
not immune, and I think you'd clean up half the paperwork out of
those courts overnight.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Mr Fox.
We're a little ahead of
schedule. I am wondering if Maxine Brandon of Mothers for Kids is
here yet. OK, perhaps we'll take a 10-minute recess, committee. I
wonder if I could just have a very quick, informal subcommittee
meeting with Mr Bryant, Mr Kormos and Mrs Elliott.
Mr Kormos:
Our job is to serve you, Madam Chair.
The Chair:
We'll be back in 10 minutes.
The committee recessed
from 1727 to 1737.
The Chair:
We'll call the meeting back to order. Is Maxine Brandon here from
Mothers for Kids?
Interruption.
The Chair:
No. I certainly would want to have the consent of the full
committee to do that. We'll give Ms Brandon a few more moments
because she's not scheduled to speak, actually, until 10 to
6.
I have received a request
from a member of the public who is present to reiterate what we
said in terms of the subcommittee direction yesterday with
respect to the deadline for written submissions. Members of
committee, you may be aware that originally we had suggested that
the deadline for written submissions be November 9. The committee
changed that to November 7 at 12 noon, so I'm repeating that for
members of the public who are present here today. If you do wish
to send written submissions, the deadline to receive those is
November 7. There's just a minor glitch with that, the minor
glitch being that the newspaper publication did go out with the
original date, so if we do receive submissions after November 7,
we will continue to circulate those to members of the committee.
Any questions?
Mr Bryant:
Not on that, Madam Chair. Just to go back to the previous point,
is the gentleman who wants to present now, and I'm in the hands of the Chair,
already slotted to present later on anyway?
The Chair:
I have no idea because I don't know what his name is.
Interruption.
Mr Bryant:
Can I just say one more thing, Madam Chair? While I think it
really should be up to the clerk to decide who fills this
gentleman's spot, we can't have spot substitution. That said, if
he wants to speak now and he's already scheduled to speak later,
it doesn't sound like we're going to have any objection from the
government.
The Chair:
No. I guess I'm in a bit of a dilemma though, members of
committee, because we did finish early and we have to wait until
10 to 6 because Maxine Brandon was scheduled for that time slot.
We can't really hear from anyone unless you want to give him five
minutes.
Mr Bryant:
Could we not hear from him in the interim?
The Chair:
If you want the five-minute interim to be filled, it's up to
committee. What do you want to do?
Mrs
Molinari: Yes, sure.
The Chair:
OK, Mr Colosimo. Can you say what you want to say in five
minutes?
Mr
Colosimo: I can talk for five minutes, certainly.
The Chair:
OK, please do.
GENE COLOSIMO
The Chair:
How are you?
Mr
Colosimo: Hello, my name is Gene Colosimo. I think
Marilyn might remember me from tennis 25 years ago.
The Chair:
Yes.
Mr Kormos:
Were you an instructor?
Mr
Colosimo: Well, I could have helped her a little bit, I
suppose, on that.
I have talked to about
5,000 fathers in eight years. What we're missing here is that
access denial is spousal abuse. I have not seen my little girl
for seven years. My mother hasn't seen my little girl in seven
years. I haven't worked in five. I'm not the guy you know.
Maybe I'll just do a
poem.
You don't know me, little
one
but I'm the man that gave you life.
Once we were a happy family,
your mother was my loving wife.
You have no memory of that time;
you were just a baby on my knee,
But I remember everything;
your memory's all that's left to me.
I remember on a lazy morn
counting piggies on your toes
Or else with thumb between my fingers
I'd pretend that daddy got your nose.
Sometimes we played at patty cake
or peekaboo or don't-you-cry
And when the sandman came to greet you,
I soothed you with a lullaby.
I remember how you cooed with laughter
when we nuzzled face to face.
You wore a handmade cotton jumper
that grandma finished all in lace.
But she is lost to you forever,
the angels took her long ago,
She could not bear the separation
from a child she longed to know.
I remember blowing clouds of soapy bubbles,
strolling through a petting zoo.
These are things that I remember,
stolen moments I shared with you.
Divorce is such a tragedy,
broken lives and shattered dreams,
But until you've lost your little girl
you cannot know just what it means.
Survivors of a hurricane and earthquake
or a fire or a flood
Will gladly part with everything
when escaping with their flesh and blood.
But we did not avoid disaster,
we suffered worse than nature's blow.
The court saw fit to separate us,
a father's love you'll never know.
"Child abuse," I cried in anger,
before I learned I mustn't cry.
The courts deal swift with a righteous temper
so I lost the apple of my eye.
Joint custody's the only answer
for a broken family to survive,
Not damning men into isolation to live apart.
To live apart is not to thrive.
I often think about your life,
what greater deeds you might have done
Had both your parents shared the vision,
not just a selfish, spiteful one.
I wonder if the holidays
that I endure with such disdain
Might be a cause for celebration
and not a time of haunting pain.
I do not trim a tree at Christmas
or carve a pumpkin at Halloween.
What use have I for fireworks?
Through children's eyes they must be seen.
I do not hunt for eggs at Easter,
Valentine's can come and go.
Without my little girl beside me
I can't make angels in the snow.
I do not rustle through the leaves in autumn
or jump in puddles when it rains.
A grown man needs his children with him;
alone he'd surely look insane.
I do not care for cotton candy
or sandy castles on the beach.
I could not share them with you, Dolly;
your mother kept you out of reach.
I have no need of Frosty Snowman,
I have no will to fly a kite.
Your absence killed the child within me,
your laughter was my heart's delight.
I've lost a bit there. Anyway, it's not coming
out here that access denial is child abuse, that it's spousal
abuse. I've seen many Ontario Women's Directorate pamphlets that
say if you separate a woman from her family and friends, it's
psychological abuse. It is abuse, it is violence to separate a
woman from her family and friends if you are a husband and you
cut her off. I have been separated from my family, from my little
girl. My mother who is 82, prays on her knees and cries and I
can't help her. I can't run to the Attorney General. I can't call
the police. I can't go to a shelter. There is no place for me to
go. I can't see my little girl.
I have a bachelor of
science degree. Marilyn knows I was on top of the world when she
knew me. I've crossed Australia in a four-by-four. I did 38,000
miles. I've been to Australia two different times. I spent five
months on a motorcycle around North America, 20,000 miles. I've
been to Japan. I've been to New Zealand; I bought a motorcycle
and did both islands. I've been all over the world. I haven't
worked in five years.
This has destroyed me. It's
easy, as this lawyer Walter Fox said, it's easy to keep a matter
out of court. Once you're separated from your daughter, it's
easy. I spent $80,000 trying to get back into court. Do you know,
if you file a 3,000-page appeal, you can't be heard in court? You
have to get a special appointment date six months down the
road.
You can't wait six months.
A little girl won't wait for you. She was three when I lost her.
She was four and a half before they said I could see her again,
and then she wasn't ready to see me. Without any access to her, I
couldn't get professionals. I couldn't get the Clarke Institute.
My wife appealed their order. I couldn't get a child psychiatrist
at Thistletown. I have a psychologist and I couldn't get an order
for him because the orders were appealed and appealed and
appealed, after $80,000 of my money and $160,000, I estimate, on
the other side; a quarter of a million dollars on one
three-and-a-half year-old.
Now I'm a deadbeat dad. You
can have me, Mr Flaherty. You can take me now. You've already
taken my little girl. Do you think I'm afraid of jail? Men like
me kill themselves. We don't care about anything. I'm not afraid
of jail.
You've played your big
card. If you want my driver's licence, take it. It's government
issue that can be government-rescinded. But if you want my child
support you're going to have to talk to me. Sir Thomas More was
killed by Henry VIII. You've always been able to take a man's
freedom and his life, but you can't take his will. St Thomas More
would not consent to the marriage of Henry VIII. You cannot
separate my purse strings from my heart strings. You cannot ask
me to put food on the table and never let me sit at that table.
You can't lock me up because I don't care. Every day without my
little girl is a living hell. This is child abuse and 30% of
fathers are having it. I'm not kidding. I've talked to 5,000
men.
1750
Call 410-FACT. It rings at
my house. I've talked to men all over North America and they're
willing to return the calls. I don't work any more. I had it all.
I was technical services with Pepsi-Cola. I flew all over this
country. Incidentally, my trips to Japan were first class, all
paid with frequent flyer points, and I don't work any more.
What are you doing? Why are
we here? Seventy women were killed last year. Why are we here?
What's the agenda? Why isn't there funding for men's groups? FACT
has been around five years, they spoke, they didn't even ask for
funding. What's going on? Don't I count? Doesn't my mother count?
I have two sisters; they don't see their own niece. I have a
mother, two sisters and a daughter. These are women, these are
abused women. Access denial is child abuse and it's spousal
abuse.
There's a book called From
Courtship to Courtroom, What Divorce Law Is Doing To Marriage. I
suggest you read it. It's a quick read. Jed Abraham, the Harvard
lawyer, says in that book that when it comes to divorce, men are
two-time losers. They must pay child support for children they no
longer fully father and maintenance to women who are no longer
their wives.
If you think access works,
it doesn't work. I've seen men crying their eyes out because
their children don't love them any more. I don't know what would
happen if I even saw my daughter on an infrequent basis. But if
the brainwashing is complete, it's irreversible and men are
destroyed. La famiglia stops in Canada.
Hitler, was he a violent
man? I don't think he killed anybody. Was he prone to outrages?
He loved children and women, but he could pick up the phone and
he could have you eliminated. That's what we feared from this
horrible man. In Canada now if you pick up the phone, storm
troopers will come and take you out. If you dial 911 and you're a
woman you can be taken away, like we hear about the gulags and
things in other countries. Foreign men come here. They have no
idea what they're getting into. They have no idea that we've come
this far.
The Chair:
Mr Colosimo, unfortunately as a committee we do have to go into
the House to vote.
Mr
Colosimo: I'm very appreciative of the time you gave
me.
The Chair:
We've got perhaps a couple of minutes if there are any questions,
but we really will have to cut it off.
Mr
Colosimo: I'm more than appreciative of what you've done
already. Thank you.
The Chair:
Thank you for coming this afternoon.
Mr
Colosimo: Are there any questions?
The Chair:
Any questions? This meeting is adjourned to go to vote.
