Good news for men who want to marry in Ontario.
Excerpt:
One man I spoke to, for instance, says his ex-wife falsely accused him of slamming a van door on her leg. And even though that assault charge was later withdrawn by the Crown attorney, the man says the allegations damaged his reputation during proceedings with a family court judge who restricted his access to his kids.
It’s those kinds of situations that the fledgling London Equal Parenting Committee will explore during “an evening of awareness in relation to domestic violence” Thursday at Crouch Library.
The evening’s main speaker is Roger Gallaway, the former Sarnia-Lambton MP who co-chaired a 1998 federal report called For The Sake Of The Children, which examined issues surrounding child custody.
“What I find distressing is the lack of objectivity around this whole subject,” says Gallaway, who represented his riding for the Liberal party from 1993 to 2006. “There has to be some type of balance put into the discussion. And it’s sadly lacking.”
Gallaway regrets that none of the 1998 report’s recommendations — including a call for stricter rules regarding the reporting of abuse — were ever adopted.
“An allegation of violence is a weapon,” he says. “And in Ontario we have a zero-tolerance policy, which generally speaking says that when allegations are made, it’s the male who’s removed (from the residence). And that then casts the die for what will occur in terms of child custody or access.”
Gallaway adds that more and more people are starting to realize that more and more deserving fathers are being shortchanged when it comes to contentious custody battles.
“There’s a growing constituency . . . that sees what’s occurring and knows these men aren’t bad people,” he says. “So the doubt about what is being said about (so-called) violent men is growing.”
What I’ve heard is that Ontario has the most unfair family court system in Canada, so this is welcome news. The more that courts discriminate against men and paint a portrait of men as unreliable and abusive, the less men will marry and stick around to be fathers. Men rise to the occasion in order to gain respect. No man wants to get involved with marriage and parenting when he is not going to be respected and valued by his wife and by society as a whole.
Men’s Rights activist Glenn Sacks comments on the article’s counterpoint against shared-parenting:
As a counterpoint, the article quotes DV advocate Peter Jaffe as saying that false accusations of DV are “rare.” Actually, in the U.S. studies have shown that as much as 71% of DV restraining orders were either unnecessary or received under false pretenses. Other studies show that over half involve not even the allegation of physical violence. In Canada, reports of child maltreatment are deemed to be unsubstantiated or without evidence in 55% of cases according to the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect. So what Jaffe said looks to be far from the truth.
Shared-parenting is one of the measures that Dr. J said would encourage people to get married and stay married, which benefits the children. Biological fathers are not really a threat to children – it’s the stepfathers and live-in boyfriends who pose a threat to children.
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