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Post by BadCompany on Jun 19, 2008 11:43:27 GMT -5
Court quashes dad's grounding of 12-year-old daughter[/size]
A father plans to appeal after a Quebec court ruled that he didn't have the right to punish his 12-year-old daughter by banning her from a school trip.
Quebec Superior Court Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier ruled Friday that the girl should be allowed to attend the three-day trip within Quebec this week.
The father first forbade his daughter from going online after the Grade 6 student posted photos on a dating site, the Globe and Mail reported in its Thursday edition.
The girl's parents are divorced, and after she had an alleged row with her stepmother, the dad barred her from going on a school trip to mark the class's graduation from elementary school, the newspaper says.
"When he said, 'OK, it's final. You're not going,' she smacked the door, left and went to live with her mother," the father's lawyer, Kim Beaudoin, told CBC News.
Last Wednesday, the dad received a motion petitioning the court to overturn the punishment.
Two days later, the justice ruled that the punishment was too severe since the girl had already been sufficiently disciplined, said Beaudoin.
Beaudoin said the justice also said there was no reason for the punishment to stand, since the girl was now living with her mother, even though the father has custody.
Beaudoin said the father, who has four children, was "devastated," especially since the ruling came days before Father's Day.
While Beaudoin said the case is a first for her, she doubts it will trigger a flood of similar claims.
"Usually children have lots of respect for their parents and they wouldn't go there," said Beaudoin.
She said the judge stressed that the case was an exception. "But for a field trip, I'm thinking this is a big exception."
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Post by franko on Jun 19, 2008 11:57:23 GMT -5
The Senate has just passed a bill [on its way to Parliament] forbidding parents using the age-old discipline of spanking [unless the kids really really need to be spanked and you can prove they did]. Another discussion. Or is it? It's all about the nanny state, or governmental/state intervention [to spank or not to spank: what a question. Didn't work on me; used other methods with my kids]. How about A Barrie mother of an autistic girl is considering legal action against her local school board after a psychic's prediction to a special educational assistant sparked a sexual abuse report to the Children's Aid Society. the rest [must say, I loved the mom's final comment toward the school board: They might want to take out a Ouija board or hold a seance, I'm not sureLived under the Barrie School Board: not the sharpest pencils . . . Not trying to derail the initial post, BC -- think the court's intervention is ridiculous . . . I'd say "you want her to go; you pay!" Except then the father would be labeled a dead-beat and would lose custody. |
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Jun 19, 2008 13:36:04 GMT -5
It should be parents raising their children, not the courts. If a truly abusive situation is discovered, the child should be removed from the home for protection, but individual decisions like can a father stop his daughter from dating Guy Lafleur's son is up to the parents.
Spanking a two year old who is throwing a tantrum in Steinbergs is fine with me.
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Jun 19, 2008 15:53:44 GMT -5
I agree with HFLA. I honestly believe that this intervention is BS. No physical or emotional abuse; no spanking to quibble over. She just smacked the door, left for her mother's place and ignored her dad like many young, know-it-all, pre-adolescents do.
Couldn't go on a field trip ... smacks the door ... and now she lives with her mom? Unless there's more to it, I don't think dad is the issue actually.
Franko, you might remember a case in Southern Ontario a few years back (98/99?) where a father spanked his daughter in public for trying to run out into parking lot traffic. The man was an American and he was charged (I think by another citizen ... can't be sure) for physically abusing his daughter.
He was made to come back to Canada at his own expense to appear in court, whereupon the judge promptly apologized for the whole scenario and the father was free to go. I'll try to find a link to it later.
I saw the exact same scenario at the South Keys Plaza in Ottawa only it was the girl's grandfather.
Cheers.
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Post by MC Habber on Jun 19, 2008 17:22:25 GMT -5
I can't understand who thought it was necessary to take this to court, or why. Was the father somehow going to physically prevent the girl from going, even though she is living with her mother? Or did the father go to court, trying to use the mother's lenience to force the daughter to live with him? Because that's the only way I can understand why the judge didn't throw out the case immediately. Since when do the courts have jurisdiction over how parents punish their children within the law? EDIT: Here's what happened: However, the school wouldn't allow the girl to go unless both parents consented or she obtained a court order. That prompted the girl, with her mother's support, to take legal action against her father, culminating in the ruling.a more detailed articleI still think the courts have no place in this. |
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Post by franko on Jun 19, 2008 17:27:03 GMT -5
You remember well, Dis. A citizen's complaint and a waste of time as far as the judge was concerned.
HFLA: the problem is what constitutes a "spanking". A one-shot paddle on the behind in a store/parking lot? That's no beating (and I had my share of those, as I'm sure many on this board over a certain age did).
No, punishment discipline-du-jour is time-out (and you can't make a kid stand in the corner now, no-siree -- send him to his room . . . except now you can't take away television/ internet/ Wii privileges).
Since when is not going on a school trip (and come on, a 12-year-old has a necessary rite of passage?) a human right? Sheesh! "Not setting a precedent"? Are our judges that daft? Of course it sets a precedent: don't like what mommy or daddy says, don't worry -- you're 12, you're an adult!
Again . . . sheesh!
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Post by Cranky on Jun 19, 2008 18:32:46 GMT -5
Our society is getting better by the day. Soon, we are going to be PERFECT.....
...just lobotomize us and implant those chips.
*middle finger salute*
Don't worry guys, soon you will all have more "crank" in you then you know what to do with.......
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Post by CentreHice on Jun 19, 2008 22:50:53 GMT -5
Quebec Superior Court Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier Hmmmm.....I might take some flack for this but...... I wonder if the ruling would have been different... a. had the judge been male....or b. had the adolescent in question been male. This is the dawning of the Age of Crankiness........ 
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Post by Skilly on Jun 20, 2008 7:20:31 GMT -5
C'mon thisis another of BC's pranks by Avril Phoule ... right? ... Well if a 12 year old can take a parent to court , then a parent should be able to take a 12 year old to court .... does that not open the door to contsitutional rights and equality? Our whole legal system is based on kids under 12 not having any culpability in the courts because they lack mens rea ... time to re-think that now huh? My duaghter wouldn't have gotten out of the house in the first place .... thats what grounding is ... oh wait, now I up for kidnapping, forcable confinement, and the "law du jour" abuse of parental rights. Madame Tessier ... here, why dont you raise my daughter, you seem to know what's best.  |
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Post by BadCompany on Jun 20, 2008 8:24:06 GMT -5
I loved this line: Beaudoin said the justice also said there was no reason for the punishment to stand, since the girl was now living with her mother, even though the father has custody.Yep, no need to apply daddy's rules... I mean, he's just the father, not anybody important... Tell me, if the roles were reversed, and it was the mother trying to impose some punishment, what would the verdict have been? Dan Quayle took a lot of heat for his infamous "Murphy Brown" speech many moons ago, but in my opinion that was just one more example of the media quasi-reporting something to make somebody look stupid. Something which, by the way, Dan Quayle did not need the media to help him with. But the truth is, that was a very good speech by Quayle, one that even Candice Bergen, Murphy Brown herself, said she agreed totally with. An excerpt: Empowering the poor will strengthen families. And right now, the failure of our families is hurting America deeply. When families fail, society fails. The anarchy and lack of structure in our inner cities are testament to how quickly civilization falls apart when the family foundation cracks. Children need love and discipline. They need mothers and fathers. A welfare check is not a husband. The state is not a father. It is from parents that children learn how to behave in society; it is from parents above all that children come to understand values and themselves as men and women, mothers and fathers.
And for those concerned about children growing up in poverty, we should know this: marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program of all. Among families headed by married couples today, there is a poverty rate of 5.7 percent. But 33.4 percent of families headed by a single mother are in poverty today.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Where there are no mature, responsible men around to teach boys how to be good men, gangs serve in their place. In fact; gangs have become a surrogate family for much of a generation of inner-city boys. I recently visited with some former gang members in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In a private meeting, they told me why they had joined gangs. These teenage boys said that gangs gave them a sense of security. They made them feel wanted, and useful. They got support from their friends. And, they said, "It was like having a family." "Like family" - unfortunately, that says it all.
The system perpetuates itself as these young men father children' whom they have no intention of caring for, by women whose welfare checks support them. Teenage girls, mired in the same hopelessness, lack sufficient motive to say no to this trap.
Answers to our problems won't be easy.
We can start by dismantling a welfare system that encourages dependency and subsidizes broken families. We can attach conditions - such as school attendance, or work - to welfare. We can limit the time a recipient gets benefits. We can stop penalizing marriage for welfare mothers. We can enforce child support payments.
Ultimately however, marriage is a moral issue that requires cultural consensus, and the use of social sanctions. Bearing babies irresponsibly is, simply, wrong. Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong. We must be unequivocal about this.
It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown - a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman - mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another "lifestyle choice."
I know it is not fashionable to talk about moral values, but we need to do it. Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood; network TV, the national newspapers routinely jeer at them, I think that most of us in , this room know that some things are good, and other things are wrong. Now it's time to make the discussion public.
It's time to talk again about family, hard work, integrity and personal responsibility. We cannot be embarrassed out of our belief that two parents, married to each other, are better in most cases for children than one.The rest of what I think is a pretty good speechBut it was so much easier for the media to just jump on the one paragraph talking about Murphy Brown, than to actually report the whole five pages... Quayle was right. We've made fatherhood irrelevant. Not necessary. And now, an inconvenience. "Daddy said you can't go?? Sheesh... now we have to go to court. What a putz that Daddy is." Child psychology experts will always tell you that a united front is needed when dealing with, and especially when disciplining children. You should NEVER contradict your spouse/partner/ex in front of the children. Hash it out in private, fight about it if you have to, but don't contradict each other in front of the children. But this court ruling says one thing; don't like what daddy says, then take him to court. Tell me, now that this has worked, the next time the mother tries to discipline her daughter (assuming she does), will the daughter simply turn around and ask her father to take her mother to court? Worked once, right? Precedent and all that? |
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Jun 20, 2008 12:23:26 GMT -5
You remember well, Dis. A citizen's complaint and a waste of time as far as the judge was concerned. HFLA: the problem is what constitutes a "spanking". A one-shot paddle on the behind in a store/parking lot? That's no beating (and I had my share of those, as I'm sure many on this board over a certain age did). No, punishment discipline-du-jour is time-out (and you can't make a kid stand in the corner now, no-siree -- send him to his room . . . except now you can't take away television/ internet/ Wii privileges). Since when is not going on a school trip (and come on, a 12-year-old has a necessary rite of passage?) a human right? Sheesh! "Not setting a precedent"? Are our judges that daft? Of course it sets a precedent: don't like what mommy or daddy says, don't worry -- you're 12, you're an adult! Again . . . sheesh!I understand your concern and as Clinton would say to the young girl that was spanked, "I feel your pain." Somewhere common sense is lost. A child is found with cigarette burns over their body, deprived of food, forced to live in a cage in feces and urine. Come on! This is journalism at it's worst. If one hundredth of one percent represents that type of parenting (and it is terrible and one case like that is too many), 99.99999% of parent child relationships don't make it onto the 10 second sound byte or sensational newspaper clip. Comparing a parent that won't allow his daughter to go on a school field trip to parents in rural Germany that keep their children prisoner in the basement is wrong. Rewarding good behaviour and punishing bad is what parents do. If a father can't withold special privilages not earned, how can he motivate the child to improve grades. Spanking?? Next will be the father that refused to give his child a new BMW when she turned 16 because her grades were too low, the terrible cad. (can Ryder go see the judge and complain that Carbo wasn't giving him enough ice time?) What's worse than a three day field trip in Quebec? A four day field trip in Quebec? |
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Post by clear observer on Jun 20, 2008 13:38:47 GMT -5
This B.S. disgusts me to no end, seriously.
The instances of dad's getting rammed in our family-court system are astounding; the pendulum has swung sooooooooooooo far toward "mommy's corners" that good men (dads) are literally being destroyed in every way possible. Police, Judges, lawyers (on both sides), C.A.S.,....they're ALL in on this corruption.
Quebec Superior Court Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier can G.F.H. as far as I'm concerned.
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Post by CentreHice on Jun 20, 2008 14:12:41 GMT -5
Quebec Superior Court Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier can G.F.H. as far as I'm concerned. Seeing as a man is unnecessary for that too..... |
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Post by MC Habber on Jun 20, 2008 16:14:44 GMT -5
Yep, no need to apply daddy's rules... I mean, he's just the father, not anybody important... Tell me, if the roles were reversed, and it was the mother trying to impose some punishment, what would the verdict have been? Dan Quayle took a lot of heat for his infamous "Murphy Brown" speech many moons ago, but in my opinion that was just one more example of the media quasi-reporting something to make somebody look stupid. Something which, by the way, Dan Quayle did not need the media to help him with. But the truth is, that was a very good speech by Quayle, one that even Candice Bergen, Murphy Brown herself, said she agreed totally with. I've always thought that was a pretty good speech, for the most part. But I'm not convinced this case has anything to do with gender. The fact that the father had custody suggests that the mother is seriously unfit, because mothers always have a big advantage in custody battles. You would think the ruling in this case would be based on whether one parent was trying to prove their authority to gain leverage in the (not yet finished) custody battle, but that doesn't appear to be the judge's ruling. We don't really know because all that gets reported are quotes from the father's lawyer, but according to her, the judge ruled the punishment was "too severe." It's worth noting that this is a special case, because the school was insisting on a court order. I wouldn't think that this case means that judges have authority over any punishment, such as being grounded from TV/friends/etc. |
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Post by Skilly on Jun 20, 2008 17:23:39 GMT -5
The fact that the father had custody suggests that the mother is seriously unfit, I dont agree with that sentence ... the mother could have very well not contested the custody. It doesn't make her unfit. We dont know the facts. She could have realized she couldn't support the child, or some other extenuating circumstance. She wasnt too unfit .. the child went back to her easily enough on her own accord. And the father wasn't using the courts to get the child back immediately like say, that Olympic skier's, (what was her name (Bedard?)) husband when she was going to go to the States....so the father trusted her somewhat. |
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Post by MC Habber on Jun 20, 2008 17:38:57 GMT -5
The fact that the father had custody suggests that the mother is seriously unfit, I dont agree with that sentence ... the mother could have very well not contested the custody. It doesn't make her unfit. We dont know the facts. She could have realized she couldn't support the child, or some other extenuating circumstance. That's a good point, although I had the impression the mother was still trying to regain custody. But the fact that she went to court over a field trip suggests a lack of judgement to me. But so far we are only hearing the father's side of the story. This is mildly amusing: Canadian children have scored an historic victory in their plight for emancipation from parental servitude. Quebec Superior Court issued a ruling this week which could finally make it illegal for moms and dads to "ground" their offspring.
The unnamed heroine is a 12-year-old girl who had been grounded by her father for improper Internet use. According to court records, her punishment was precipitated by a series of restrictions on her access to the information superhighway. But much like the dissidents living under oppressive regimes, the girl attempted to subvert his censorship by using a friend's Web connection, which was located outside of dad's dominion.
The father's lawyer, Kim Beaudoin, claimed that the daughter used that connection to post "inappropriate" images of herself on a dating site. Feeling that his authority had been undermined, Dad immediately cracked down on her dissidence by mandating a modified house arrest known to youngsters as grounding. Some reports indicate that a "row" between the girl and her stepmother may have actually been the "final straw" precipitating the martial discipline. Whatever the actual cause, she was grounded, and as a result, she was forbidden from going on her school's three-day field trip honoring the sixth-grade class's graduation from elementary school.
But unlike most children, who after years of dessert sanctions and bedtime restrictions accept their parent's mastership "because I told you so!", this junior Rosa Parks decided to take a stand. Specifically, she "smacked the door" and fled the house, seeking asylum at her mother's who had granted her immunity and allowed her to go on the trip.
But fearful of upsetting parents, the school took what can best be described as a diplomatically isolationist stance, telling the girl she needed consent from both parents in order to go. Still she would not back down. Imbued by the eternal spirit of liberty (and supported by her mother who lost custody during the divorce) she took legal action against her father's authoritarian policy. And last Friday, she won her freedom when Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier of the Quebec Superior Court found that denying the trip was an unduly severe punishment, especially since she was now living under the roof of her mother.
While the father was "devastated" by the ruling, Justice Tessier did not go so far as to strip parents of their full authority. Taking a narrow focus, she made clear her judgment applied specifically to this case and the loss of the field trip. Nonetheless, parents and other adults fear their ability to correct their children as they see fit could be compromised. "When a child can go to court to demand that they go on a school trip, where does that end?" David Quist of executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada was quoted as saying. "It becomes a little bit ridiculous at some point."
Despite such naysayers, the ruling is yet another bold step toward a rights-based society in which children obey their parents simply because they are bigger than them and take care of them. In 2004, Canada's Supreme Court took the bold step of outlawing spanking for children under two and teenagers, and now grounding which spanks not a backside but civil rights, has been called into question. Could "time-outs" or non-compensated "chore-time" be next? Is it far-fetched to dream that some day, perhaps children from Whitehorse to Wild Cove will be able to stay out as late as they want, eat dessert before finishing their vegetables and even pay taxes? |
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Jun 20, 2008 22:02:07 GMT -5
I dont agree with that sentence ... the mother could have very well not contested the custody. It doesn't make her unfit. We dont know the facts. She could have realized she couldn't support the child, or some other extenuating circumstance. That's a good point, although I had the impression the mother was still trying to regain custody. But the fact that she went to court over a field trip suggests a lack of judgement to me. But so far we are only hearing the father's side of the story. This is mildly amusing: Canadian children have scored an historic victory in their plight for emancipation from parental servitude. Quebec Superior Court issued a ruling this week which could finally make it illegal for moms and dads to "ground" their offspring.
The unnamed heroine is a 12-year-old girl who had been grounded by her father for improper Internet use. According to court records, her punishment was precipitated by a series of restrictions on her access to the information superhighway. But much like the dissidents living under oppressive regimes, the girl attempted to subvert his censorship by using a friend's Web connection, which was located outside of dad's dominion.
The father's lawyer, Kim Beaudoin, claimed that the daughter used that connection to post "inappropriate" images of herself on a dating site. Feeling that his authority had been undermined, Dad immediately cracked down on her dissidence by mandating a modified house arrest known to youngsters as grounding. Some reports indicate that a "row" between the girl and her stepmother may have actually been the "final straw" precipitating the martial discipline. Whatever the actual cause, she was grounded, and as a result, she was forbidden from going on her school's three-day field trip honoring the sixth-grade class's graduation from elementary school.
But unlike most children, who after years of dessert sanctions and bedtime restrictions accept their parent's mastership "because I told you so!", this junior Rosa Parks decided to take a stand. Specifically, she "smacked the door" and fled the house, seeking asylum at her mother's who had granted her immunity and allowed her to go on the trip.
But fearful of upsetting parents, the school took what can best be described as a diplomatically isolationist stance, telling the girl she needed consent from both parents in order to go. Still she would not back down. Imbued by the eternal spirit of liberty (and supported by her mother who lost custody during the divorce) she took legal action against her father's authoritarian policy. And last Friday, she won her freedom when Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier of the Quebec Superior Court found that denying the trip was an unduly severe punishment, especially since she was now living under the roof of her mother.
While the father was "devastated" by the ruling, Justice Tessier did not go so far as to strip parents of their full authority. Taking a narrow focus, she made clear her judgment applied specifically to this case and the loss of the field trip. Nonetheless, parents and other adults fear their ability to correct their children as they see fit could be compromised. "When a child can go to court to demand that they go on a school trip, where does that end?" David Quist of executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada was quoted as saying. "It becomes a little bit ridiculous at some point."
Despite such naysayers, the ruling is yet another bold step toward a rights-based society in which children obey their parents simply because they are bigger than them and take care of them. In 2004, Canada's Supreme Court took the bold step of outlawing spanking for children under two and teenagers, and now grounding which spanks not a backside but civil rights, has been called into question. Could "time-outs" or non-compensated "chore-time" be next? Is it far-fetched to dream that some day, perhaps children from Whitehorse to Wild Cove will be able to stay out as late as they want, eat dessert before finishing their vegetables and even pay taxes?The father didn't allow her to go on a field trip with her school mates. He didn't waterboard her or send her to Guantanamo. The punishment seems appropriate for refusing to stay away from questionable internet activity (like posting on HabsRus). Seven years hence the Supreme Court will overturn the ruling and the now 17 year old girl will have to throw away her photo scrapbook of the field trip. The world is full of mothers that abandon their families, children raised by grandparents because the parents are drug addicts. Here a responsible father is taken to court for ridiculous examination. The Democrats are running the asylum. |
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Post by The New Guy on Jun 21, 2008 17:38:27 GMT -5
The father didn't allow her to go on a field trip with her school mates. He didn't waterboard her or send her to Guantanamo. The punishment seems appropriate for refusing to stay away from questionable internet activity (like posting on HabsRus). Seven years hence the Supreme Court will overturn the ruling and the now 17 year old girl will have to throw away her photo scrapbook of the field trip. The world is full of mothers that abandon their families, children raised by grandparents because the parents are drug addicts. Here a responsible father is taken to court for ridiculous examination. The Democrats are running the asylum. I'm not sure sure that you (and a lot of other people on here) aren't blowing this a little out of proportion. I blame the media - but I blame the media for everything really. Although I am not a lawyer I imagine there are only a handful of things that the court has to look at here. First off is custody of the daughter. Although the father has legal custody, that the child is living with the mother and that father is (as far as we know) not contesting that situation tells me that the mother is going to have the final say in the child's discipline. It might seem convenient that the child can do that and in many cases the mother would probably uphold the father's discipline, at this time none of that matters. What matters is that the child is living with her mother, and that the mother says yes to the trip. (The other thing at issue is the right of the school to say you can only go on the field trip if both your parents say its okay. That's a ridiculous rule. It should be the parent with custody. The other parent is outta luck). Having come from a broken home, I know that things are not always the greatest between separated parents. I wound up with my mother, my father had to make do with visitation and phone calls. But it was my mother who set the rules. If my father saw fit to ground me for something, then he would ask my mother (fortunately my parents got on well enough that they managed to do a reasonable job of parenting). It only made sense for her to be the law - how can a parent raise his or her children if everything has to go through some third party that doesn't have to live with the direct result of the action or inaction? Unless there's an especially good relationship between the two parents, it's just going to cause chaos. Now, there also seems to be some issue with custody here. The father has it de jure, while the mother has it de facto. If I was the father, that's where I'd be making my case. The kid is living (illegally) with her mother. Unless there's a provision in the terms of custody that allows the child to chose (in which case, the parents should get their act together long enough to write something stronger so that the kid can't go whereever the rules are the most lax) then he needs to go to court and get her back. In fact the mother should want this too - by letting her daughter stay with her and violate the father's rules he might have a very good case to reduce or even remove her custody (the courts, IIRC, look down upon such things). Just my $0.02 |
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Post by Skilly on Jun 21, 2008 18:21:42 GMT -5
The father didn't allow her to go on a field trip with her school mates. He didn't waterboard her or send her to Guantanamo. The punishment seems appropriate for refusing to stay away from questionable internet activity (like posting on HabsRus). Seven years hence the Supreme Court will overturn the ruling and the now 17 year old girl will have to throw away her photo scrapbook of the field trip. The world is full of mothers that abandon their families, children raised by grandparents because the parents are drug addicts. Here a responsible father is taken to court for ridiculous examination. The Democrats are running the asylum. I'm not sure sure that you (and a lot of other people on here) aren't blowing this a little out of proportion. I blame the media - but I blame the media for everything really. Although I am not a lawyer I imagine there are only a handful of things that the court has to look at here. First off is custody of the daughter. Although the father has legal custody, that the child is living with the mother and that father is (as far as we know) not contesting that situation tells me that the mother is going to have the final say in the child's discipline. It might seem convenient that the child can do that and in many cases the mother would probably uphold the father's discipline, at this time none of that matters. What matters is that the child is living with her mother, and that the mother says yes to the trip. (The other thing at issue is the right of the school to say you can only go on the field trip if both your parents say its okay. That's a ridiculous rule. It should be the parent with custody. The other parent is outta luck). Having come from a broken home, I know that things are not always the greatest between separated parents. I wound up with my mother, my father had to make do with visitation and phone calls. But it was my mother who set the rules. If my father saw fit to ground me for something, then he would ask my mother (fortunately my parents got on well enough that they managed to do a reasonable job of parenting). It only made sense for her to be the law - how can a parent raise his or her children if everything has to go through some third party that doesn't have to live with the direct result of the action or inaction? Unless there's an especially good relationship between the two parents, it's just going to cause chaos. Now, there also seems to be some issue with custody here. The father has it de jure, while the mother has it de facto. If I was the father, that's where I'd be making my case. The kid is living (illegally) with her mother. Unless there's a provision in the terms of custody that allows the child to chose (in which case, the parents should get their act together long enough to write something stronger so that the kid can't go whereever the rules are the most lax) then he needs to go to court and get her back. In fact the mother should want this too - by letting her daughter stay with her and violate the father's rules he might have a very good case to reduce or even remove her custody (the courts, IIRC, look down upon such things). Just my $0.02 I disagree on one front ... the daughter was not "living" with the mother. She ran away to her mother when she didnt get her way ... legally, and in any other way you want to look at it, she was visting her mother. Semantics you say? No .. there is a huge difference. I too come from a broken home (my mother and father divorced/seperated when I was 6 and I never saw my father again until I was 26). But, he did, as your father, have visitation rights (although he never exercised them - mostly because my parents didnt get along). Now, if you went to your father's for a weekend, were you living with your father or visiting? Visting, obviously .. because legally the child can only "live" with the custodial parent. The fact the father did not contest the situation has nothing to do with it .... a court already gave him the right to raise the child as he saw fit. He'd be well within his rights to "force" (bad word) the mother to return the child (but then he'd further lose his daughter .... he is just being a father who doesnt want to put more gas on the fire with his daughter .... ) |
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Post by franko on Jun 21, 2008 18:31:20 GMT -5
Hmmm . . . . expected it to be from the onion! |
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Jun 21, 2008 19:52:15 GMT -5
Carbonneau benches Ryder.
Ryders agent goes to Justice Tessier to have Ryder reinstated on line one and given at least 12 minutes of quality ice time per game.
Bottom line:
The court has no business meddling in private jurisdictional affairs unless there is imminent danger of gross negligent injustice.
Let the courts concern itself with aboriginal rights, language laws, taxation issues, discrimination, drug violations.
This is the way I usually feel when I get a parking ticket from an officer who ignores a bank robbery.
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Post by The New Guy on Jun 21, 2008 22:08:14 GMT -5
I disagree on one front ... the daughter was not "living" with the mother. She ran away to her mother when she didnt get her way ... legally, and in any other way you want to look at it, she was visting her mother. Semantics you say? No .. there is a huge difference. I too come from a broken home (my mother and father divorced/seperated when I was 6 and I never saw my father again until I was 26). But, he did, as your father, have visitation rights (although he never exercised them - mostly because my parents didnt get along). Now, if you went to your father's for a weekend, were you living with your father or visiting? Visting, obviously .. because legally the child can only "live" with the custodial parent. The fact the father did not contest the situation has nothing to do with it .... a court already gave him the right to raise the child as he saw fit. He'd be well within his rights to "force" (bad word) the mother to return the child (but then he'd further lose his daughter .... he is just being a father who doesnt want to put more gas on the fire with his daughter .... ) It is semantics. But the entire legal profession is built on semantics, so it's really neither here nor there. The status of the child is dicey. You say 'visiting' (and then say the father isn't pushing the issue to keep the fires of family tension from igniting into an epic conflagration) but if the child is keeping a permanent residence there then maybe not so much. It's a fairly simple question to solve though. Ask the kid where she's living. If she says with her mother (which I imagine she did during the court case) then she is in her mother's custody and subject to the mother's rules (and not the rules of the father). The court doesn't (and shouldn't, really) care about the fact that the father has legal custody - the mother has de facto custody and consequently that is what the father should challenge, not the mother's right to set rules for her daughter who is living with her. As for the father not contesting the living situation, I don't buy it for a minute. If the father didn't want to make the situation worse he wouldn't have let them take it to court in the first place. Because really - is taking his ex-wife and daughter to court over custody going to negatively affect the father-daughter relationship any more that taking them on in court over punishment? I would guess that he doesn't like his chances in family court challenging the custody agreement (courts tend to unfairly favour the mother, and would take the wishes of the daughter into consideration, and he would likely lose) and so he hasn't pushed it. It's a tough situation to be sure, but contrary to some, it is one for the courts to decide. In fact my wife, who researches this kind of thing when I mention them, tells me that Quebec law makes it even more so - apparently divorced parents under Quebec law retain joint disciplinary powers regardless of custody. And when the parents disagree, the matter is taken to court (or to a court appointed mediator of some sort) who settles the final bill, so to speak. Apparently in this case the court had decided that the previous punishment was sufficient, and as I mentioned despite the father's legal custody, the de facto custody of the mother trumped his. She (my wife) also informs me that the situation is far more complex than the media has led us to believe, with this being the latest battle in a ten year custody war between the parents. So yeah - probably not simple in the least. |
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Post by CentreHice on Jun 22, 2008 2:49:06 GMT -5
It is semantics. But the entire legal profession is built on semantics, so it's really neither here nor there. That all depends what you mean by "semantics". |
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Post by BadCompany on Jul 14, 2008 11:16:04 GMT -5
Similar, but different. Manitoba's child welfare system has taken two children away from their mother because of her neo-Nazi beliefs. There is no evidence that the children have been harmed in any way (physically). Can the state take away your children because of your own personal belief system? Or, are they out of line, people are free to believe whatever they want as long as they don't break any existing laws, and by taking away children from people whose beliefs you personally, uh, believe to be reprehensible, then you are going down a slippery slope that nobody really wants to go down. Like, taking away children from people of differing religions (perhaps, just to really throw it open, radical Islamists). www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/07/10/swastika-child.html?ref=rss |
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Post by clear observer on Jul 14, 2008 11:49:31 GMT -5
Similar, but different. Manitoba's child welfare system has taken two children away from their mother because of her neo-Nazi beliefs. There is no evidence that the children have been harmed in any way (physically). Can the state take away your children because of your own personal belief system? Or, are they out of line, people are free to believe whatever they want as long as they don't break any existing laws, and by taking away children from people whose beliefs you personally, uh, believe to be reprehensible, then you are going down a slippery slope that nobody really wants to go down. Like, taking away children from people of differing religions (perhaps, just to really throw it open, radical Islamists). www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/07/10/swastika-child.html?ref=rssDraconian, indeed. |
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Post by Doc Holliday on Jul 14, 2008 11:57:45 GMT -5
...there is a VERY scary communist trend happening in Quebec right now, the state is EVERYWHERE, ruling this and that way beyond their scope.
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Post by franko on Jul 14, 2008 12:36:26 GMT -5
Manitoba's child welfare system has taken two children away from their mother because of her neo-Nazi beliefs. There is no evidence that the children have been harmed in any way (physically). Can the state take away your children because of your own personal belief system? Or, are they out of line, people are free to believe whatever they want as long as they don't break any existing laws, and by taking away children from people whose beliefs you personally, uh, believe to be reprehensible, then you are going down a slippery slope that nobody really wants to go down. Like, taking away children from people of differing religions (perhaps, just to really throw it open, radical Islamists). Another take: On the surface, a Winnipeg mother who risks losing her two children to the state because of her neo-Nazi beliefs might not seem to have much in common with Omar Khadr, the Canadian who has spent nearly six years at Guantanamo Bay after being captured on an Afghanistan battlefield. But both cases essentially are about the indoctrination of young people into despicable, fascistic ideologies, and the question of how our society treats them.
. . .
is being a historically ignorant hatemonger grounds for losing your children? If government social workers are going to start taking custody of every child whose parents express outrageous, hateful views, our provincial governments are going to have to start building thousands of new children's homes.
. . .
What about the thousands of Muslim children being raised in Canada who believe that mass murder on the scale of 9/11 is a perfectly reasonable way to deal with Jews and other infidels? Are our child services workers going to learn Arabic and monitor the sermons of Mullahs -- and then seize every child in the mosque if the talk turns to genocidal eschatology?
And what about extremist Jews who regard Arabs and Muslims as filth? For that matter, what about those old-school communists who bring up their children to worship Stalin or Mao? Is this a road we want to go down? As Canada's out-of-control human rights tribunals show, bureaucrats should never be trusted in the role of ideological guardian.
. . .
The example is worth citing in the context of the Winnipeg tragedy: If one is looking for a cautionary tale of murderous ideology being transmitted from parent to child, you could find no better example than the Khadr family. Yet Omar Khadr, far from being reviled as a willing conduit of his father's hatred, is in fact a cause celebre in Canada. Why?
A thought experiment: Would those who support the decision of Manitoba's child and family services case workers to take away the Winnipeg woman's children also have supported an intervention to strip the Khadrs of their children when they were living in Ontario in the 1980s and 1990s?
The fact that such an intervention would be unthinkable should make us wonder at the motives of Winnipeg's child-protection workers in this case. They clearly are not acting on any universal child-protection principle that they would dare apply in most instances of parental hatemongering. Rather, they are acting in this case only because it so happens that the hatemongering mother happens not to be a member of any politically correct minority group. That is to say, she's a white Christian. How's that as a basis for permanently separating a mother from the child she bore? the unedited article[btw, I shiver that this woman is used as an example of what a "white Christian" is] |
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Post by Cranky on Jul 14, 2008 19:35:29 GMT -5
Things like this that is pushing me harder and harder to the right. Too much government is NEVER a good thing. EVER.
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Post by Cranky on Jul 14, 2008 19:41:39 GMT -5
...there is a VERY scary communist trend happening in Quebec right now, the state is EVERYWHERE, ruling this and that way beyond their scope. How far left can Quebec go? Then again, when was the last time Quebec had a Conservative type government? Isn't the ADQ right of center? |
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Post by Doc Holliday on Jul 16, 2008 11:59:05 GMT -5
...there is a VERY scary communist trend happening in Quebec right now, the state is EVERYWHERE, ruling this and that way beyond their scope. How far left can Quebec go? Then again, when was the last time Quebec had a Conservative type government? Isn't the ADQ right of center? ...problem in the Q is that every political party are afraid to admit they are on the Right because over 40% of the population is unionized. The ADQ was definitely Right and almost swept the last election because they had ideas and positions we hadn't seen here in 25 years. But then they completely melted and started diluting their message... Result, all the Right voters felt betrayed and none of the left voters will trust Dumont, the party is in complete free fall. |
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