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BC Justice Review

This is a work in progress, democracy in action, you might say..Make additions to your page by emailing me here: BC Justice Review Updates    

Some observations made so far:

Regarding the Legislation:

1. Where it isn't already the case, BC legislation must be brought into conformity with the Charter of Rights & Freedoms,  so that male and female parents are equal in status, and that their parental rights must therefore be waived before separating any child from either natural parent.   The product of BC's compliance with the Charter will be that joint custody and joint residency of the parents will automatic after divorce, and the time the children spend with a parent must naturally be divided as equally as practicable between the parents. These are the overwhelming requirements  we call "Equal Parenting". 
   
   Reference:   Charter of Rights & Freedoms:  Equality of Male and Female Parents
   Section 15.1   http://laws.justice.gc.ca./en/charter/index.html#egalite and Section
   Section 28:     http://laws.justice.gc.ca./en/charter/const_en.html#dispositions
   
   That a disruptive parent (typically the mother) is permitted to refuse to peacefully  co-parent after divorce does not seem to be a deficiency in existing federal legislation.  The Divorce Act's Section 16.10 provides the remedy by providing for the loss of custodial rights to for a disruptive parent.  The problem here in BC seems to be the ubiquitous prejudice in favor of mothers amongst BC Family Law practitioners.  Under the Divorce Act and the Constitution Act, a parent who falsely accuses the other parent to gain sole custody may be penalized by transferring their inherent joint custodial rights to the moderating parent.  We think that the resulting sole custodial rights of the moderating parents should be made on an undertaking to
   the Court to remedy the disturbance, not to license further disturbance by the alternate parent.
   
   Equal Parenting does not require that co-parents agree on "every little thing" because the parental right to make a decision about day to day parenting is held at any given time by one parent only, alternates between the parents, and is distributed across the calendar equally.  
   
   Physical custody will usually alternate in tandem with the right of decision-making , but it doesn't have to.  A parent can make the decision to put the child in the physical custody of the other parent without loosing their right of decision-making.  We think it is probably in the best interest of children that if baby-sitting or day-care is needed that both parents should have the "first right of refusal" before going to third parties. 
   
   If such an Agreement such as this which observed the Constitutional rights of both parents to be treated equally cannot be arrived at by consent, one can be imposed by BC Courts.  An Equal Parenting Agreement can be easily enforced because the parent having the right to make day to day parental decisions is written right into the Agreement, and available for any enforcement officer to read. 
   
   If enforcement of Equal Parenting Agreements is made normal in BC, compliance with Parenting Agreements will become normal, and a great violator of our children will be removed.  Mutual respect between the parents will be fostered, and the current Persecutor/Appeaser relationship between Custodial and Non-Custodial Parents caused by  rejecting the Constitutional rights of fathers will not be tolerated. 
   
   Equal Parenting  will  likely reduce the rate of divorce in existing marriages by at least one third, and by two thirds in new marriages .  It will likely reduce the cost of divorce to families by at least three-quarters.   It will reduce the emotional damage to the children following divorce (almost eliminating it when a "single community" is formed)  and preserve the children's right to be present with both parents.
   
   Equal Parenting will reduce the cost to society which currently arises from divorce (addiction, crime) and will allow the Province's  resources now being consumed by the Family Law business to be reallocated.  In short, Equal Parenting  will save the government untold millions in the costs now being spent annually mopping up the problems due to government sponsored promotion of Separation and Divorce as the solution to marriage problems, and the many Social Services jobs created by divorce. 
   
   The only down side of Equal Parenting will be the loss of revenues to the Divorce Industry, many, many millions each year, leaving that money in the hands of families, for housing, higher education, and inheritance.  Perhaps they can find themselves another job, prosecuting criminals for example.
    

2. In British Columbia, 92% of divorces are initiated by woman, and if their demand for sole custody is contested by the father, they have a 91% probability of taking sole custody through litigation.  With sole custody they gain the right  to unearned income taken from the father, and  to alienate the fathers from the children.
    

3. Women in BC are allowed to lie with impunity to justify their breaking up a family, and to gain sole custody.    If they hadn't known this, or thought of this on their own, they receive "counseling" from numerous government sponsored Ministries and organizations to do so.  This is a practice Heti Fry fought tirelessly to maintain during the "For the Sake of the Children" deliberations which sought to change this.
    

4. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights assures the same rights of family as enjoyed before divorce, but in British Columbia, Family Courts fathers are routinely refused the rights of family.
    

5. BC Family Law lawyers are making an industry out of creating anger or inflaming emotions of the divorcing couple to further their own means.....and abusing the children of the marriage as a result. Lawyers are knowingly drafting FALSE affidavits for the females to get ahead in the courts. with no repercussions.   Solution? Mandatory 12 mediation sessions before a Family law Judge,  or someone that has nothing to gain from the proceedings); Immediate and EQUAL division of child -parent contact so as to eliminate any further incentive from either parent to screw up their kids for the sake of 'getting even'
    

6. BC Family law as currently applied causes massive deprivation of family to some 30,000 children a year contrary to their rights as well as their fathers. The First Nations are currently suing the Federal Government for $12 billion on behalf of about 140,000 natives sent to residential schools for, among other things, deprivation of family.  The Divorce process creates that number of people in about 3 years. think of the cost to the country that is going to arise out of the future claims of Children of Divorce for deprivation of family inflicted on them by a BC judicial system which denied them their Constitutional rights..
    

7. So far as we are aware, there are no BC laws which protect the family, which is a requirement of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights
    

8. Canadian law is unclear as to what are the “best interests of child”, which allows the arbitrary and self-serving interpretation of the term in Family Courts..
    

9. Spousal/child support is made without any reference to living expenses of payor (mostly father). There are no guidelines provided by the Government was to what constitutes acceptable living expenses and what will not be taken into consideration. As a result awards are made which slowly bankrupt the father - who is then subject to the FMEP - drivers license withheld, garnishees, passport withheld etc. The latter are usually done by FMEP without any due process. Fundamental rights of Canadians - as set out in Charter of Rights and Freedoms are routinely taken away without due process.
    

10. There are no guidelines for spousal maintenance
     

Regarding BC Government Ministries and Agencies:

1. A Minister seeking to route out corruption in their government Ministry must not be held responsible for corruption in their Ministry when they find it.  The outgoing Minister of Children and Families, Gordon Hogg, is perhaps an example, of wrongly holding a Minister responsible for a corrupt civil service.  Ministries with corrupt staff, such as the MCF simply cannot be cleansed  with the continued practice of demanding the resignation of any Minister finding corruption in their Ministry.  The Minister is the democratically appointed representative of the people being governed by the Ministries.  It is the currently entrenched civil service, such as the Deputy Minister and the head of every government office which must firstly be held responsible to the Legislature (the representatives of the governed ) for corruption within their office.  The Minister is already accountable to the governed every election for the misdeeds of his Ministry.
    

2. The Ministry of Children & Families routinely will not investigate complaints by fathers but will always do so when made by women. If the child's right to representation was enforced in divorce, little of this would happen.
    

3. There is little in  support services for men relative to those for women.  Drastic cuts to spending on women's issues and modest increases in spending on men's will be of great benefit to children in BC.  Spending must decrease, but the disparity in spending must be small.
    

4. Some Ministries, notably the Ministry of Children and Families, have adopted the  practice of making false allegations of abuse with immunity, and due to what seems to be systemic corporate narcissism,   is incapable of seeing any wrongdoing in their concerted persecution of men, and protection of even horribly abusive mothers and fellow government employees.  Claims for losses due to false accusations are denied by the BC Judicial system, allowing these abuses to persist.  Claims against the Ministries abuse of the trust placed in them must be permitted to censure them.  Claims against the particular individuals making the false claims must be allowed.  It must be possible for BC employees making false claims to be fired without pensions for making false accusations..
   
   False allegations are made by our own government employees to harm the relationship between fathers and their children in a malicious betrayal of the public trust.  False allegations and father hatred seems far less prevalent when government services are been passed on to independent organizations like SHARE who presumably have renewable contracts based on merit.
    

5. Go into any BC Government family related or YWCA office, and you will find racks and racks of literature promoting father hatred.  They are put there almost entirely by government sponsored Ministries and agencies hiring women who have made the career choice of promoting father-hatred and now rely on father hatred to make a living.  This must be stopped.  Stop the funding these groups, and you'll stop the promotion of father-hatred.
    

6. There are no procedures for reduced payments in times of unemployment. Courts won't make reduction in orders for a small time, man gets behind and can never recover and so goes bankrupt.
    

7. Maintenance awards can only be changed by court order: which violates the right of parents to contract.. SCC has changed this but FMEP ignores it.

Regarding the BC Attorney General's Office:

1. The AG enforces payment of support but does not enforce access. This is clearly a gross abuse of the child and, by definition, is sex discrimination since the majority of payers are fathers. Alberta has enforcement of access. Why does BC not adopt this.
    

2. Neither the AG or police will prosecute for fraud or perjury in domestic cases which violates the  Charter
    

3. ABOVE ALL, THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF BC, WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EQUAL APPLICATION OF THE LAW S OF CANADA, IS FULLY AWARE OF THE DISCRIMINATION THAT IS PRACTICED BY BRITISH COLUMBIA'S COURTS AGAINST CHILDREN AND THEIR FATHERS.  YET NOTHING IS DONE TO PREVENT IT.

Regarding the Family Courts:

1. Most Judges in Family Courts simply don't bother making judgments in compliance with legislation.
   
   For example, the Divorce Act requires Judges to "give effect to the principle that a child of the marriage should have as much contact with each spouse as is consistent with the best interests of the child, and for that purpose shall take into consideration the willingness of the person for whom custody is sought to facilitate such contact."  (16.10)  
   
   Where BC Judges to comply with this instruction, the current practice of women withholding their children from fathers with the immunity would not be tolerated.  Family Courts, like other Ministries, seem to go to great lengths to keep the battle between the sexes going  in custody cases, by their reckless support of women's claims.
    

2. There are numerous other examples.  Sections 15.1; and Section 28 of the Charter, for example make clear that the burden of proof is clearly on the parent claiming sole custody to prove Equal Parenting is NOT in the best interests of the child.  BC Family Court Judges historically fail to acknowledge this, and place to burden of proof on the father to prove he can peacefully co-parent with a mother they permit to falsely accuse him with immunity.   Fortunately some Judges are breaking rank with their peers in this regard.
   
   Our position, however,  is not to give more fathers sole custody when mothers have have not caused the Divorce Acts's 16.10 to come into play.  Our position at EPG is supportive of the Charter's 15.1 & 28, that without compelling evidence to the contrary, children shall  be co-parented under a program equivalent to the Equal Parenting arrangement advocated in the first paragraphs above..
    

3. So far as we know there is no law prohibiting claims for Punitive Damages and Loss of Opportunity resulting from false claims in Family Court.  In other Courts these counter-claims provide a penalty which might be imposed on those instigating malicious law suits.  Not so in Family Court.  We can't think why.
   
   On reflection these damages are the natural deterrent for  spurious, false, applications from even being made in the first place.  If the Family Law practitioners see themselves as a business, putting its interests over their clients' (never mind the children) they wouldn't want spurious, false applications deterred.  Is this another Ministry "out of control" of our elected representatives?
    

4. It has been said in the Charter publication that "Canada at the moment is a parliamentary democracy in which the will of Parliament is supreme.  If there were not notwithstandings in the proposed Constitution, this supremacy would shift to the judges, who would decide whether or not a law offended the Constitution."  Hmmmm!  What use is a notwithstanding if it is never used?  Maybe the Legislative houses better start evoking the Notwithstanding clauses!
    

5. Children are prevented from maximum contact with the father when Mother (who has custody) is allowed to take child across country or to another country. This is equivalent to forcible deportation which is expressly forbidden by United Nations in Rights of Child unless it is necessary - which is defined as when there is a physical threat to child. It does not mean when mother wishes to relocate.
    

6. Children are treated as second class citizens especially as they are denied the right to legal counsel which means it is always the father having to bring actions for access and not being enforced by the court. The Government takes away the rights of the father/child but does not take on the responsibility of enforcing the rights.
    

7. Courts are guilty of gross professional mis-conduct:

• Judges don't  read files
   

•  Judges are not appointed to a case - so it's a different judge every time
   

•  Judges rarely read the motions before hand
   

•  Judges will allow abuse of process for a mother but not a man
   

•  Judges allow proven perjured testimony to go as fact
   

• Judges don't enforce the production of documents by women
   

•  Judges threaten jail if payments are not made - but not if access denied
   

• Judges assume that child can live without father but not mother contrary to every psychologist report written which  clearly state that fathers are more important as the child gets older.
   

• Judges are very inconsistent: they only follow higher rulings when it suits them
   

• Judges don't explain their decisions
   

• Judges introduce new evidence/facts into reasons for judgments
   

•  Judges are not specialized so they don't know the law.
   

• Judges don't take a father seriously if they represent themselves.
   

• Judges routinely routinely fail to apply the law within the bounds of the Charter

Denial of Access: Fathers and children do not have the right to visit each other after divorce. Access is entirely up to the whim of the mother. In effect, according to the average Family Court Judge, mothers own the children. When a mother denies access between father and child, she rarely tells the child that she has denied access. Children have no way of knowing that the father's access is being blocked by the mother. The children are left believing that their father stopped loving them and does not want to visit his children. This creates painful emotional wounds in the children and the fathers.

Excessive Child/Spousal Support: Fathers are sometimes assessed support amounts that equal or far exceed their income. This is a hopeless situation that, coupled with denial of access, sometimes leads to suicide by the father, such as in the Darin White case.

Lack of Medical and School Records: Doctors and school principals often have a policy of not providing records to divorced fathers. This makes parenting difficult and puts the child at risk if they become sick during weekend access.

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