Paul Forseth, past M.P., (New Westminster-Coquitlam-Burnaby)

We are fortunate in British Columbia to have a number of pro-family parliamentarians.  Of particular prominence is Paul Forseth, M.P. -  member of the "For the Sake of the Children" Committee, co-author of the Dissenting Opinions, and a staunch advocate of pro-family concerns.  Paul has put in many years pushing to have Equal Parenting issues brought forward to the Canadian Parliament, and faced fierce opposition from the Prime Minister.   Both Paul and Senator Cools have pressed on to redeem fathers from groups like the Status of Women (SOW) enduring multiple death threats from various radical feminist groups while serving on the Committee.  These MPs are tough.

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MP Paul Forseth's EP Update, Nov.7th 2005

Dear Equal Parenting-BC:

"Conservatives are committed to Shared Parenting. The national party “Policy Declaration” that was passed by delegates at our March 2005 Montreal convention says clearly that:   Shared Parenting:  is an objective of the Conservative Party of Canada. 

A Conservative Government will make the necessary changes to the Divorce Act to ensure that in the event of a marital breakdown, the Divorce Act will allow both parents and all grandparents to maintain a meaningful relationship with their children and grandchildren, unless it is clearly demonstrated not to be in the best interests of the children.    

My Liberal colleagues that served with me on the Senate-Commons committee that wrote the “For the Sake of the Children report, admitted that they have little confidence that their Party will ever enact the needed amendments to the Divorce Act, that completely fulfills the report recommendations. The NDP opposed us during the Committee process, and have never been supportive of dads.

Conservatives are the only hope for fairness and reasonableness in Divorce and Family Law. I encourage those who care, to focus their energy where it will help the most, by working to elect as many Conservatives as possible. I hope that the many who are frustrated, not become sidetracked into protest, which does nothing during an election but undercut our ability to make good things happen. The Liberals and the NDP will say anything in an election to get a vote, but they will never deliver “shared parenting”. Every vote that does not go to a Conservative in the next election is a vote against “shared parenting”. Paul Forseth MP

More:  Issues:  Forseth, MP Paul: FTSOTC Panelist

Conservative Party of Canada's policy on Equal Parenting

 The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) has a policy document describing its platform. ... The current document is at HERE.   It has this to say about family law:

56. Family

i) The Conservative Party of Canada believes that the family unit is essential to the well-being of individuals and society, because that is where children learn values and develop a sense of responsibility. Therefore government legislation and programs should support and respect the role of the Canadian family. September 8, 2004 Page 16 Conservative Party of Canada

ii) The Conservative Party of Canada believes in the right and duty of parents to raise their own children responsibly according to their own conscience and beliefs. We believe no person, government or agency has the right to interfere in the exercise of that duty except through due process of law.

iii) The Conservative Party of Canada believes that Parliament, through a free vote, and not the courts should determine the definition of marriage. A Conservative government would support the freedom of religious organizations to determine their own practices with respect to marriage.

...    Robert T McQuaid,  Orangeville Ontario,  Decriminalize parents

Paul Forseth, MP: Address to NSPA Conference, 1999-05-xx

IMPORTANT NOTE The following contains the basic notes and working text, which I gave as a speech to the Shared Parenting Conference in Regina Sask. on May 15/99. Most of the material sources are borrowed, and I claim no originality in phrasing or sentence structure. However, I accept accountability for what was said, as the comments reflected my understandings of the political and legal situation at the time of the Conference. Speech delivery may have varied slightly from the working text

Plenary Address

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you this morning. We are here today, because we have a deep concern about how Canadian society values children, especially concerning dissolving families. Much can be said about the social place and significance that children play in defining who we are -as a people -as Canadians. I am reminded this morning of the song from a recent "Rankins CD album, where they sing, "we rise again, in the spirit of our children". So in emotionally reaching, and thinking about the future, we reflect on how we as Canadians are raising our children. What is the spirit, which is rising and living on?

Times are changing. Technological capacity and economic capacity, creates its own new demands. Expanding boundaries of "the freedom to know", "the freedom to move", and "the freedom to be and become", challenges the core of social orders. The freedom to move across the landscape, the change in our social relationships and parenting styles, the post war emergence of the "rush hour", the journey to work in a car on the freeway, and the myriad of social permutations that we are able to paint into the "picture of our lives", brings exciting prospects, -but they also bring new challenges and consequences. So in the middle of the emerging "cyber-age", the well-being of our children is of grave concern to me.

I come from a background of public and community service. My father was a Reverend Minister who led by example, and dedicated his life to serving others in the larger community. My mother, as a stay at home mom, raised my sister and I, in that way. Mom had our home open, always serving the temporarily dispossessed individual. The choice to have a parade of people through our house, was premised on the principle of helping, and showing encouragement for those who were downcast so they could help themselves, and that a better tomorrow could be made. My parents left me an example of lives helped, -and most importantly that in life, showed me there was more to life than just acquiring "things".

Maybe that example had some effect on my choosing an academic goal of obtaining a teaching degree to become a High School Counsellor, (service over sales, helping over acquiring) which then led me into a 23-year career as a professional helper in the forensic social work field. I became a B..C. government public servant in the Corrections Branch of the Provincial Attorney General, and became an Officer of the Courts of British Columbia, giving advice to Judges on sentencing, and doing pre-court diversion, and alternative resolution programs. I was also a Probation Officer and a Parole Officer, and administered Orders of the Court on individuals. I was also the eyes and ears of the Judge in the community to make recommendations on disputed child custody and access cases. I served as a divorce mediator and referee on disputed child maintenance and access problems. I recite a few of these things for you, to provide perspective on my work, as I have represented the Reform Party view on the workings of the Divorce Act, and what the present Liberal government is not doing.

Again we have the picture, that the Reform Party has a well-researched and broadly popular plan of action for change to the Divorce Act. Note the 48 recommendations of the Committee, as well as the dissenting opinion on page 106-107. The Liberals are defending what we have now, resisting change, and not taking action in view of the obvious community need. How many times has the country been in that situation -whether it is managing the economy for growth and full employment, -criminal justice reform, -national unity, -or caring for our children. It is the official opposition vrs. the government. Reform vas the Liberals -positive change vs. stay where we are. -what a picture!

Obviously there is a lifetime of work for me to accomplish as an MP Perhaps it can be seen that I am just the pointed tip, out in front of a great community effort to bring Canada successfully into 21st century. We must admit, that we have what we have from government, because people voted for it. If you didn't vote that way, I say don't give up and opt out, but work to convince just a few more to vote positively for a vision, rather than just sorting between options to consider which would do the least amount of damage. Politics matters.

As a historical marker for national change, we must remember the Joint Senate-House of Commons Report "For the Sake of the Children". As a member of that Committee, we brought forward 48 recommendations from well over 500 witnesses, and a very balanced investigation of the present situation. The recent government response is to it, is merely a message of "just further consultation". From the Official Opposition viewpoint, the government's answer to the Committee Report, from my perspective, - is a carefully crafted "no". When one reflects upon the government response, it becomes much more like an "in your face" bold "no", to the Committee and the country, when one clears away the snow. At best, we have the likelihood of a political promise for action from the Liberals that might arise during the next election. Then we know how reliable are Liberal election promises. The Liberals never wanted the joint Committee in the first place, and has been resisting ever since, while not wanting to offend anyone, but just hoping that the whole thing would go away.

But I want to turn to the need for change. For change begins with the recognition that a problem exists. Sadly, the government is in denial. Let me talk awhile about the problem as I see it, -from an insider's view from within the court system. For I had a ringside seat with the operations of the family law system for years. I witnessed systemic hypocrisy, sanctimony, and incompetence. The picture is that the divorce process in this country is a mess. Let us sharpen our view and see that not all fathers are deadbeats or child abusers, and not all mothers are blameless victims. Both men and women can get shafted in divorce, both can become victims. We live in a society where a mother can poison her children's mind against their father, then steal the children away and nobody will give a damn. Politicians need to change that.

However, in some Unified Courts where there were extra services, or in situations where truly neutral mediators were provided, I saw a lot of good work being done to respond to marital breakdown, and to protect children from at least the worst of what a father or a mother were perpetrating on the other, and their children.

The problems are more widespread than most realise. I saw from working inside the system, how rampant were the myths, prejudices, and sexist biases embedded in our views about men, women, and divorce. I saw how gender politics inflamed and clouded the issues, how a pervasive media bias then distorted them, how a blind enslavement to political correctness was preventing justice from being served and the truth from being told. In view of what I have seen, as a politician I see the need to speak out, to become a spokesperson from the Federal Reform Party of Canada, to let the country know where we stand and how we are committed to change things. We are fundamentally committed to basic fairness and equality.

In the 35th Parliament, Bill C-41 established federal support guidelines and introduced punitive measures, such as revoking passports and driver's licenses, for payers who were usually fathers, who failed to meet their payment obligations of support. While uniform child support guidelines might have been needed, the bill was regressive because, among other faults, it considers only the payers income, reinforced stereotypical notions about post-divorce parenting roles, and heightened the possibility of custody fights, because whoever got the children got the money, power and control, with no accountability required. The bill utterly failed to address the other side of the issue, which is the widespread problem of custodial parents -usually mothers -who denied non-custodial parents contact with their children, and consequently the best interests of the child did not result.

That legislation can be said to be degrading to fatherhood. It did produce a groundswell reaction once the public learned of the details by the time it hit the Senate. Justice Minister Allan Rock's exchange deal with the Senate to ensure passage, was a promise to establish a Joint Senate - House of Commons Committee to investigate the issues of child custody and access.

As the Committee got going, some of the media were awakened to the idea that there just might be another side to divorce -the real needs of children, rather than parental wants, or feminist victimology. We also became known as the "politically incorrect committee" because we were prepared to hear all sides, and ask tough questions.

We have the media cliché "the deadbeat dad" but perhaps the more predominant reality is perhaps "the deadbolted dad" -locked out of his children's hearts after divorce. I said at the beginning that times are changing, our social lives are being re-ordered. The greater role fathers are taking in direct raising and supervision of children is one of the strongest shifts in the image of the manly ideal. More men, whose wives are employed out of the home, are acting as primary caregivers to pre-school children. Yet when divorce occurs, the courts are still operating in the retro world of mother and female as victim of the male patriarchy. In many sad family stories, those characterisations are true, but maybe in just as many, it is not.

There is the continued Court bias in the struggle for control, using notions such as -continuity, sameness and predictability of the supposed child's perspective. What this often means, is what mother wants, rather than what children need. In the court, it is still sadly and wrongly viewed, that mothers meet child needs better than fathers. And in the larger social context, mother will most often win custody, because it is seen as a great social disgrace for a mother to lose custody of a child, as compared to a father losing.

According to Statistics Canada in 1994, mothers were awarded custody approximately 70 % of the time, and fathers approximately 10 % of the time. Parents wound up with joint custody 20% of the time, and on half the occasions that fathers fought for custody, they won. Fathers usually would only attempt to be the primary care giver when the evidence was already highly in their favour, yet they were successful only one-half of the time.

Family lawyers point out that they often see fathers who want some form of custody, but refrain from seeking it because they are advised and are convinced they will never win, while others embark on the fight but wind up so brutalised by the system that they eventually withdraw. Likewise, many devoted fathers become so frustrated dealing with "access" problems that they throw up their hands and walk. I can't tell you how many clients I have had in my office who appear to be very decent fathers who have no relationship with their kids. Many have untold access problems, and they often finally just give up.

The reality in Canada today is that no matter how good a father, a man might be, if his marriage ends and the wife wants child custody, it is almost a forgone conclusion that she gets control. Naturally nearly every lawyer will advise the mother to go for everything, as Bill C-41 has turned the child into a lucrative prize of power. If the mother decides to make it difficult for a father to see his young children, the chances are overwhelmingly that the father will lose the right to be a significant parent to his children. For where the kids go, so does all the power and control. There is sometimes also the attitude that if a parent got the kids, they obviously were not the "turkey" in the marriage relationship. Child custody is used to vindicate the winning parent over the other concerning the fight about why the parents divorced. Possession of the children to cover the sins in the marriage is a powerful motivator for control.

Yet despite too many fathers being only at the edges, an impressive and growing body of social science research tells us that fathers are vitally important to children's lives, that they want to parent, that they grieve when they cannot, that children want to be parented by their mothers and their fathers, and that when fathers are absent, a litany of disastrous social problems like poor school performance, drug and alcohol abuse, teen suicide, welfare dependence, and child poverty follow. Fatherless boys become confused about their masculinity and disproportionately become violent criminals. Fatherless girls believe their fathers have abandoned them for not being good enough or pretty enough, suffer from low self esteem, and fail to learn how to conduct healthy relationships with men as adults. We also know that there is absolutely no reason to value the contribution of one parent over the other. Mothers and fathers give their children different gifts, but each gives something necessary and valuable. Are we raising a generation of fatherless children -heaven help us when that generation decides to pay us back.

We know that fathers who live with their children, usually work hard to increase their incomes, while fathers who have been banished from the day to day routines of raising their children tend to lose the sense of meaning to put sacrificial effort and money into the estranged mother's household. There is no widespread problem in this country of fathers refusing to support their children within marriage. It is unlikely that all of these same men who have supported their children when married, suddenly turn into deadbeats once divorced. The crux of the issue is that when we evict fathers from their children's lives, then tell them their only function as a father is to pay the bills, we should not be shocked if some of them temporally withhold support money. It is often the only leverage they can use to see their children. Many lose heart and drift away, or perish the thought, become criminal.

The sudden amputation of their fathering role -the hurt of cut off visitations and the pain of partings, the sadness they feel knowing their ex-wives new partner will see more of their children than they -becomes unbearable for them. So they fade out of the picture and tell themselves it is disruptive for the children if they do. Often they gravitate towards second families, where they can be fathers again -fathers who have the opportunity to support their children not only in a financial sense, but also in an emotional one.

It is important for children to maintain relationships with their fathers and mothers. Some feminist academics, family lawyers, lobbyists, advocates in government-funded women's groups, the Justice Department, as well as some feminist journalists, are arguing that what is best for women and children is to maintain the legal status quo -mothers should be the primary caregivers with the final say in most matters for the children. In effect that means that mothers have dictatorial powers regarding the children, that they are not held accountable if they violate court orders or deny their children contact with fathers, and that fathers will see their children at the mother's discretion, while providing them with child support on pain of having their wages garnisheed or their drivers licenses and passports revoked should they fail to make payments.

These particular kind of feminists who have controlled the debate and the direction of legislation pertaining to "women's issues" most often speak as if women and children are one entity, as if the two are inextricably bound, and that what is good for one is automatically good for the other. They assume that fathers have nothing to do with children's issues, nor have any place in discussions about the future of their children. They argue that child support and access parenting should not be linked, because children are entitled to the financial support of both parents, regardless of the parental relationship or parent-child contact. This view also says that there can't be a presumption of joint custody in our divorce law, because of widespread domestic violence. The violence thing is always thrown in to manipulate and side-track the debate.

However, the tendency to lie, cheat, and be an unreliable person, to act like a bully, or even a child abuser, is not gender specific. Both men and women equally fail to fulfil their duties in life, and as parents. But the mother as "saint and victim", and father as "disinterested brute" still holds far too often.

These kinds of ideas were presented to the government prior to the passage of Bill C-41, and to members of the joint Committee on Child Custody and Access. They have been used to encourage the government to introduce ever more punitive measures to punish fathers who fail to meet their support obligations, and are at the centre of a strenuous lobbying effort designed to prevent change in the divorce laws that would give fathers a greater role after divorce than they are currently permitted. This manipulative contest is also waged at the Provincial level to deepen biases, both in statue and in social services practice.

We know that some men walk away from their children and support obligations, but we know little of what was done to them that contributed to that behaviour. We also know that, statistically so far, divorce causes women more economic hardship than men, but it is changing. It is a sad fact that domestic violence goes on in far too many homes. However, with all the selective "abuse" statistics being hurled from both sides of the gender divide, and the media's denigration of divorced fathers through repetition of inflammatory phrases like "deadbeat dad" and "power-monger etc" it is easy to forget that what makes a good parent is character, not gender, and that the vast majority of divorced parents in our communities are decent citizens who don't shirk their obligations, and they just want to raise their children to the best of her abilities. The media also falls into the trap by talking about "violence against women and children", instead of reporting on the social stain of "family violence" in all its subtleties.

Feminists pulled down the walls of the patriarchy in part to help create the new man -the dad who is in the delivery room when his children are born, who enrols them in their classes, reads them stories, nurses them when they are sick, stays home from work for child emergencies. Ironically, the kind of man feminists might have celebrated as an ideal father to his children in marriage, is the same man feminists attack for not walking away from his children except to pay the bills. For me, that is the essential bankruptcy of the feminist position in family law.

Feminism as I define it, is about equality, about mutuality between the sexes, not about replacing one double standard with another, or a patriarchal society with a matriarchal one. The sad truth is that there's a double standard at the heart of some feminism that is as bad as what it sought to replace. Many feminists, who speak about women's issues in relation to divorce, refuse to acknowledge that there is another side to the family-law story. They may demonstrate a blinkered stone-hearted lack of understanding and compassion for what that story might be. What's truly best for the children of divorce is eclipsed by a deep resentment of men. Even the institution of marriage itself is sometimes described as oppressive for its very existence. In other situations, there is an overshadowing anger at ex-husbands, and the need to seek revenge against them with an us-against-them mentality based on the idea that men are finally getting what they deserve, and that is it is payback time for the oppressive patriarchy. What most know but few will admit, is that for the ex-wives who wish to exact revenge on their ex-husbands or extort money from them, the best weapon is the children.

Both sexes play the system using the cards that they are dealt, and there is no question that in the "heat" of divorce, the adversarial process can bring out the worst in everyone. But the women to whom I am referring, cash in on the perceived moral superiority of mothers, beat their breasts and play the victim card all too often. They leap to the moral high ground and appropriate the language of children's best interest to advance mainly their own interests.

Gender politics and a certain brand of feminist rhetoric has blinded us to the fact that most men are decent, that most make wonderful fathers, that many make far better parents than their female partners, and that after divorce, separation, or just making a baby, not only do children yearn to continue to be parented by both parents -they are entitled to be -socially and legally. Politics and rhetoric have obscured the reality that maintaining involved relationships with both parents is truly best for children, except in the minority of cases where a parent is abusing a child. It is also well documented but not widely known, that child abusers often are mothers -pathology and sin is not gender related.

The one-upmanship game of domestic disputes is too often played for years through the children. PAS - Parent Alienation Syndrome, cited by Dr. Richard Gardner, is real. In Canada, many judges, assessors, and court authorities are ignorant of parental alienation syndrome and of the basic empirical social science data on the needs of children of divorce. Others are reluctant to dispute the court's prejudices about the inviolate mother-child bond. Our Committee recommendation number 8 tried to bury the "tender years doctrine" forever. In addition, the idea that women are incapable of wickedness permeates our legal system. In the courtroom setting, "the presumption of innocence rule" has taken a major hit in a misguided attempt to have sensitivity to witnesses who are seen as particularly vulnerable. Children are unreasonably treated as truth tellers for the purpose of mother's claims.

As a result, the crime of parental alienation -and I really think it is a crime, -is going unpunished. Parental alienation is also largely a silent crime, one that exists in the public consciousness precisely where the crimes of domestic assault an child abuse existed years ago. We once considered those problems private family matters and dirty linen. Today we know better.

Because of the subtle and sometimes unconscious nature of the programming for children, parental alienation syndrome is extremely difficult to prove in court. Yet even when the evidence is plain and the syndrome can be proven, the odds are overwhelming the court will do nothing. Having turned a blind eye to the problem while it is happening, the Court would most likely say that once the children were programmed to hate their father, there was nothing it could do. The defence is "the kids just don't want to be with him". The Courts almost never remove a child from the custody of an alienating mother. This deeply rooted belief, that mothers are morally untouchable and children of divorce are better off with them, almost regardless of the circumstances, is a too prevalent notion that we must overcome for our children's sake.

The judicial system tends to hurt men and women in different ways. Because it favours the litigant with the deepest pockets, men are usually perceived to have the upper hand in divorce court in the financial realm, and sometimes that is the case. However, it is also the case that many women can qualify for legal aid, while their husbands are driven into bankruptcy battling the infinite resources of the state. Men are at a clear disadvantage in seeking custody through the Courts, and they are more likely to be held accountable for violating a Court Order, which is usually for support. Men are also far more vulnerable to false allegations brought before the Courts.

Many men who wish to protect their rights to a relationship with their children now know they cannot just leave the home when their marriage dissolves. For their wives, making false allegations against them has become an all too easy way to get them out of the house, to gain the advantage in the battle for property and child custody. Family lawyers regularly see clients who are using the criminal justice system to help them tactically in family law proceedings. As members of the Joint Commons - Senate Committee, we heard horror stories of false allegations, that my colleague from the opposite Liberal side of the House and one of the joint chairpersons of the Committee, was led to speak in the press, saying that the Divorce Act is becoming an instrument of the Criminal Code.

In some reported cases, lawyers coached female clients to provoke an incident. Get him to loose his temper -get him to shove you or hit you. Sadly the term abuse is now so broadly defined that a man can be permanently evicted from his home for stamping his foot and yelling at his wife in the heat of a domestic argument, behaviour that while socially offensive, hardly warrants the intervention of the police. The "no discretion policy" when police are at the door of the house has not curtailed domestic violence, but has brought the justice system into disrepute. For that reason, lawyers routinely advise male clients, particularly those still living in the matrimonial home, to scrupulously avoid situations that could result in a nuisance charge, and to photocopy and keep safely outside the house any documents they might need in a divorce action.

In recent years police have responded to complaints of spousal abuse more zealously, laying charges even in the absence of supporting evidence, or even indications of the contrary. The politics of the matter has resulted in provincial Attorneys General issuing directives to the justice system to proceed on any domestic and sexual assault complaint, and that the normal and prudent standards of investigation have been suspended. We see occasions when charges have been brought forward to Provincial Court when there was really nothing but a vindictive motive and no real assault incident. Too often the male is assaulted, and he might respond within the lmits of the law of the most minimal force necessary to defend himself and prevent further assault, but the standards of law change from outside the home to inside the home. While sadly, there are male "controllers" who use various methods of intimidation and violence behind closed doors to control the spouse, women do it too.

Some judges, confronted with abuse allegations have tended to operate on the assumptions that it is better to be safe than sorry. Caution may prevent tragedies, and has the added advantage of protecting judges from criticism by women's groups or the media. Once charged, a man will often be handcuffed and removed from his home, often in front of his children, then forced to spend the night in jail, have a restraining order slapped against him, or bail conditions set that restricts him from returning, except to collect his personal effects. Although the charges against him may be uncorroborated, he will be guilty until proven innocent. If the charges are ultimately dismissed, the damage to his reputation will be done. The stories are legion of fathers whose lives have been destroyed by malicious allegations, but it is virtually unheard of for the woman who falsely accuse them to be held accountable.

(Part two to follow)

This phenomena has turned out to be a boon for a certain type of woman, not to mention a certain type of lawyer for whom any tactic, no matter how morally rank, seems justifiable, in the vigorous pursuit of the client's interests. Some women don't need to pay for such advice; they are becoming wise to the opportunities now afforded them in the law.

Many feminists have not been willing to admit that such women exist, let alone say that their actions cause irreparable harm, or that they should be held responsible for their reprehensible acts. Instead, they attack those who voice contrary views, as merely anti-feminist mouthpieces for the fathers rights groups, who are just a bunch of angry men who can't admit their problems. Even Senator Ann Cools who served on the Committee with me, and who was a pioneer of the Canadian women's movement and helped found one of the first women's shelters in Canada, was tagged with the "anti-feminist" moniker for speaking out against feminist bias.

Fathers groups have for years been trying to raise public awareness about the issue of false allegations, along with injustices that divorced fathers and their children face, but the media have been highly sceptical of the claims of men they perceive to be mostly angry marginalized, and misogynist.

It is no coincidence that it took a female Senator with a history of feminism to bring them to national attention. On these matters men have been silenced in our culture. Men are simply not perceived to have the credibility to speak about issues of sexual politics, even though the debate dramatically affects their lives. And while some fathers groups attract women-hating extremists, just as some women's groups thrive on man-hatred, most of the politically active fathers I have met are dedicated individuals, putting in long hours at their own expense to change attitudes, and without funding from any level of government, to make their voice heard.

I have said quite often publicly, that the family law system in Canada is in a mess. Indeed, the picture that emerged from the Committee's hearings was one of a system designed to serve the interests of the legal establishment, while treating with contempt, the citizens who desperately need its help and are paying for its operation. We as Committee members heard of a system rife with vested interests, where judicial discretion is often synonymous with judicial bias, where perjury in affidavits is rampant and goes unpunished, and where bringing false charges to gain advantage has become frequent, and where scorched earth tactics are so common that lawyers regularly attend professional development seminars on how to combat them.

I have seen normal people become neurotic, and neurotic people become psychotic, as a direct result of embroilment in adversarial proceedings associated with their divorces. I encountered uninterested lazy and uncommitted judges, or ones with very strange social attitudes, during my years as an expert witness. While not all lawyers exploit their clients by encouraging protracted litigation, some divorce lawyers are overtly extreme with absolutely no appreciation of the grief they are causing children.

Lawyers are fond of saying that they're only acting on their client's instructions, and therefore it's really the clients who are to blame when divorce cases turn ugly. While the excuse that "I was only acting on my client's instructions" conveniently lets lawyers of the hook for any conduct, it ignores the fact that client's lives are in pieces and they are emotional wrecks. Thus scared and confused, the vast majority do exactly as they're advised to do by their lawyers. They have entered foreign intimidating territory and much is at stake. Some are hell-bent on revenge for real or imagined marital pain, or for all the broad disappointments of their lives. Some are walking time bombs of repressed rage and have finally found the perfect forum to act it out. Those are the clients who go looking for a hired gun -an unscrupulous lawyer.

The process is so brutal that many are reduced to a dysfunctional state where they become easy prey for those manipulative lawyers masquerading behind fancy credentials for whom the fee, the right fee, and the win is everything. Most parents who turn to the Court system at this traumatic time in their lives have little idea what lies ahead. They enter the system, wishing they did not have to be there, but innately respectful of the process and believing that if they have the evidence and just tell the truth, justice will prevail. Whether they win or lose in the end, typically they emerge from the experience unspeakably angry at the process that appears to have little to do with justice, and they remain with the feeling that they have been fleeced. How much they spend before the scales fall from their eyes seems to depend on how much they have.

The law may appear arcane and beyond the understanding of mere mortals, but, stripped of its cumbersome, obfuscating language and forms in triplicate, what family lawyers do is not rocket science and is made to seem far more complicated than it is. The staggering amount of money people are forced to spend to dissolve their marriages is the main reason we are unlikely to see initiatives for reform coming from the family law community. It is they who are the chief beneficiaries of the current system. We cannot rely on the legal profession to clean its own house, nor to protect us from unscrupulous lawyering. Judges and lawyers by virtue of their background, their training, and sometimes their personalities, are hardly the best professionals to deal with family issues. A short course for lawyers to become certified family mediators, poorly serves the community. And the court system, the blunt instrument that it is, is the worst possible place to bring a family in crisis. And the most ethical lawyers, those who care about their client's problems and are sincerely dedicated to solving them in the most expeditious manner possible -are powerless to help within a system that consistently rewards the unscrupulous.

The judicial system is fundamentally an adversarial forum based on competing rights, where two spouses are forced to duke it out and where one can carry on a personal vendetta against the other indefinitely, given the will and enough cash. Anyway you look at it, such a system is damaging to children. So are words like "custody", "access", "visitation", "primary parent","day to day care and control parent" - language which only reinforces the terrible idea that children are property, and that in divorce, one of the parents becomes more important and powerful to the children, to the child's psychological detriment.

Canada is seriously lagging behind other western countries in divorce reform. The trend in other western countries such as Britain and Australia and in certain American states such as Washington and California, tries to get parents out of the courts and around a table where they work out a parenting plan as part of the process. These jurisdictions have shifted the focus of their divorce process from parental rights and wants, to parental responsibilities and children's rights. -which is the direction in which our thinking must turn. If couples were told that they must come up with a parenting plan that is based on some form of co-operative parenting, and that if they can't, it will be imposed on them, they'd be better served than they are by the options available to them now.

Parents need a forum where they can take the ongoing problems that inevitably arise. Fathers who want to co-parent should be allowed to do so, while those who feel insecure should be encouraged to take it on. More fathers need to come forward and defend and protect their children from poor mothers. Mothers who are not really very good caregivers should be able to admit it and work out a more appropriate role as a parent. Keeping both parents actively involved in their children's lives after divorce is not only better for children, its better in the long term for parents and the community. Joint parenting also means that fathers should not automatically be expected to leave the home after divorce.

Any form of alternative dispute resolution will be useless, however, unless it's mandatory and timely, unless it involves binding arbitration and enforcement of decisions, and unless both parents are held accountable, as much for defaults on support obligations as for denying children contact with their parents. Committing perjury and making false allegations should be considered serious offences. Parents who are given guidance but continue to demonstrate that they won't exercise their parental obligations responsibly, should lose those privileges. Criminal court is the place to deal with criminal matters -charges of child abuse, or domestic violence or parental alienation.

As I wrote in the Joint Committee report, changes should be based on what we know children need. That means paying attention to our common sense, to the social science literature, and to what children of divorce tell us, not what judges with preconceived notions or assessors with vested interest or special-interest groups with political agendas would have us believe children need. The whole concept of child support should be broadened to include emotional as well as financial benefits. Children need parents who support them not only with money but also with love. We punish parents who don't pay their child support, but do nothing to ensure that children receive the other kind of support they need, even though children are probably far more able to cope with a lower standard of living than with losing the guidance and model of a loving parent.

The process of divorce must offer fair value for the dollar and lie within the financial grasp of the average citizen. Families suffering the trauma of a divorce are already facing tremendous stresses and downward mobility; and they should not have to drain their life savings to dissolve their marriages, nor should their children be robbed of their inheritances.

As a society, we have to face our fears, examine our prejudices, and begin talking about these questions, however disturbing or uncomfortable they may be. These are questions that concern us all, whether being involved in divorce or not. In the end we cannot legislate that people be good parents. But we can protect those who want to be, and ensure that the children of divorce continue to be nourished by all those who love them.

Divorce should not be reduced to a gender issue, as it is rather a societal and human issue. To speak of divorce is to speak about matters of the heart and soul that reside at the centre of everything we cherish. They reflect the values we hold as a society, and they distinguish the path we want to establish for the next generation. If we hope to prepare our children well for their journey down that path, we cannot avoid the fact, that on this issue we are failing them, and that we have to fundamentally change our thinking and our practices around divorce.

Divorce is about loss, about being cut loose from the moorings of a former life, forced to watch helplessly as the shore recedes, never sure that one will make it back to solid ground. It is one of the most traumatic calamities that can befall a family. In addition to the sordid, unseemly mess of it, a divorce brings pain, anger, vengefulness, and deep wounds. We do not need to add to that agony. We do not have to destroy completely a family already crippled by marriage breakdown. We must deal with the devastating realties of divorce, wisely and intelligently and compassionately. We owe it to ourselves and to our children to see that we do.

I have painted the picture. But what can we in this very room do about it. We can have conferences like this one. We can lobby our Member's of Parliament. But most of all, we can look at what we know is right, then ask ourselves -"how much do we want to change things?" What are we prepared to do, to defend what is right against those who now have control, and who dominate the national policy agenda. I tell you, the ultimate answer is a political one.

Do you want just more of the same? -I think not! Wake up and make a political judgement, a report card for performance if you will. Ask seriously, who is committed in Ottawa to give you what you want? What Party and MPs speak for you? If we don't like what we have, why would we continue to support those who are directly responsible for the unsavoury situation that we have? Remember that all we have had in Parliament, is Liberal and Conservative governments -they are responsible and must be held accountable for what we have today.

I call upon you in this room to action. We will hear a lot in the next two days of this conference, that we should galvanise our commitment to real action. It is about how we define ourselves as Canadians. Who reflects us in Parliament, -who will change the laws to give us our vision?

I have painted the picture that we now have. In closing remember -my parliamentary colleagues in my Party are unequivocally committed to deliver a new vision of fairness and equality. Give us 150 MPs who are of like mind, and overnight we will change "what we have", into "what can be" for the 21st century.

Paul Forseth, former MP for New Westminster - Coquitlam, 
FTSOTC Panelist

Paul Forseth, MP - Google Search

1999-12-xx_FORSETH-Petition.pdf

"Conservatives are committed to Shared Parenting. The national party “Policy Declaration” that was passed by delegates at our March 2005 Montreal convention says clearly that: Shared Parenting: is an objective of the Conservative Party of Canada.

A Conservative Government will make the necessary changes to the Divorce Act to ensure that in the event of a marital breakdown, the Divorce Act will allow both parents and all grandparents to maintain a meaningful relationship with their children and grandchildren, unless it is clearly demonstrated not to be in the best interests of the children".

1997-10-28 Child Custody and Access Reform, Special Joint Committee Established

More:  Issues:  Forseth, MP Paul: FTSOTC Panelist;
Issues: Vellacott, Maurice, MP:  Equal Parenting Advocate, Bill C-422;
About:  Equal Parenting How-Tos, "Three Layer Cake";
Issues:  Kruk, Edward:  "Child Custody, Access & Parental Responsibility";
Issues:  Hill, Jay MP for presumptive joint custody on divorce, Bill C-245;
Issues:  Galloway, Roger MP: FTSOTC Panelist
Issues:  Toews, Vic:  Age of Consent;
 Issues:  Pizzey, Erin: Women's Shelter Scam;
Issues:  "Women's Shelter" Gulags:  Lesbian Brainwashing & Seduction

Liberal Anne McLellan says "Joint Custody Perpetuates the domination of men over women"

Former Liberal Justice Minister, Deputy Prime Minister

Anne McLellan , MP - Google Search

In "Women and the Process of Constitutional Reform" McLellan warns that <Horrors!> "Provincial Legislatures may impose a presumption of Joint Custody... and perpetuate the domination of men over women"  

The Liberal Party and Child Sexual Abuse

More:  News:  McLellan , Liberal Anne "Joint Custody Perpetuates the domination of men over women"

Edward Kruk:  Child Custody, Access & Parental Responsibility

edward kruk, ubc - Google Search edward kruk, ubc - Google Videos

2008-12-xx_Kruk-Child-Custody(full).pdf

More:  Issues:  Kruk, Edward:  "Child Custody, Access & Parental Responsibility";
Issues: Vellacott, Maurice, MP:  Equal Parenting Advocate, Bill C-422;
About:  Equal Parenting How-Tos, "Three Layer Cake"