New Study Validates Positive Family Impact of Kids’ Turn Services

This is where every community should be heading. Where are our Provincial and Federal Government Agencies who have millions upon millions to dole out for single gender issues but not for families. This program is family focussed, particularly on the children, and can serve as a wake up call to recalcitrant parents. I am so pleased to see this as a positive step in an otherwise negative act called divorce. The Video is a little over 6 minutes long and worth a look. The link to the Kid's Turn website and Facebook page is below.

I was made aware of a Calgary based service offering a comprehensive list of counselling Services that should be in every city and when related to DV and marriage breakdown should be part of the tax supported inititiatives currently offered by all levels of government for a single gender only.MJM


Calgary Counselling Centre

Sometimes, in our fast-paced lives, we need a little help to work out life’s problems.
Counselling can help you learn how to deal with your problems in a productive manner, and develop the skills to manage a stressful and changing environment.
Calgary Counselling Centre provides individual, couple, family, and group counselling for:

• Depression
• Stress
• Eating Disorders
• Separation and Loss
• Parent-Child Conflict
• Domestic Abuse Prevention
• Sexual Abuse
• Anxiety/Panic Attacks
• Sexuality/Intimacy
• Anger Problems
• Health Issues
• Personal Growth
• Self-Esteem
• Pastoral Counselling

No referral is necessary to initiate counselling services.
Receiving the help you need is quick and easy:

• Fill out our online Intake Form.
• Or you can download the printable Intake Form(PDF) and fax it to us: 265-8886.
• Or phone Intake at (403) 691-5991.
• One of our volunteers will conduct a 10 minute interview to assess your needs.
• 
  

Based on Intake information, you will be assigned an appropriate counsellor the next working day. You will be contacted by your counsellor within 48 hours to book an appointment. No counselling will be provided over the phone.

If there is a crisis, callers are asked to contact the Distress Centre (266-1605), where an experienced and trained telephone counsellor will assist you.

Volunteers conducting the interviews are trained intake workers, but they are not qualified counsellors. Counselling will begin in the first face to face session with a counsellor. There are no limits to the number of times a client can seek counselling, nor are there restrictions on frequency.

*Additional fees may be charged in relation to hypnosis therapy, the Driver Control Board program, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Treatment.

In order to register for a group program a client must first be enrolled in one-on-one counselling. The counsellor and the client then decide together if the client will benefit from participating in a group program. The counsellor that is assigned for one-on-one counselling will maintain your file throughout the group therapy process.

Group programs are offered on a regular basis throughout the year.

Fees for the Centre’s programs (with the exception of the Marriage Preparation Program) are based on a sliding fee scale, according to the client’s annual gross family income. Your fee will be established during the initial telephone call with our Intake Office. However, fee charges can be discussed with your counsellor during the first session, if the established fee is not manageable.

Fees are payable each session by cash, Visa, Mastercard, or Interac.
We no longer accept cheques for payment of counselling services. In order to provide efficient service, please inform our receptionist of any changes to your address or telephone number.

If you have medical insurance through work, or an educational institution, we will ask you for the following information:

• Insurance provider
• Coverage amount per calendar year
• Credential requirements for the counsellor

Your human resources or payroll department will be able to assist you in finding necessary information. You will need to pay for your counselling on the day of your session. We will then provide you with a receipt that includes your counsellor’s stamp (professional identification) so you can be reimbursed through your insurance provider. Calgary Counselling Centre does not provide credit facilities.

Attending Kids’ Turn Workshops Results in a Significant Decrease in Parent Conflict and Parental Alienation and Significant Decrease in the Children’s Internalizing Behavior Problems

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kids’ Turn (KT,) a San Francisco-based non-profit organization today announced results of a landmark study by Dr. Jeffrey Cookson, Department of Psychology at San Francisco State University.

In the study, conducted over four years, Dr. Cookson validated the impact of the Kids’ Turn curricula (The Kids’ Turn Way), which includes a six-week course for children and parents focused on reducing the negative impact of parental separation. Attending the Kids’ Turn workshop resulted in a significant decrease in parent conflict and parental alienation and a significant decrease in the children’s internalizing behavior problems.

Dr. Cookson evaluated behaviors of a sample of parents and children before and after attending Kids’ Turn workshops. According to the study, “Overall, our results indicate that the Kids’ Turn program has demonstrated the ability to improve the lives of parents and their children after a divorce. For parents, there is a decrease in parental conflicts and improvement in parent functioning (i.e., lower anxiety and depression). For children, there is lower anxiety and overall improvement in mental health. That we found change behaviors following participation in a community based program suggests that families will benefit from participation in the Kids’ Turn multiple session group. Given that divorce is one of the most difficult times that both parents and their children face and that the Kids’ Turn program has demonstrated the ability to help these families recover from the devastation, we are hopeful that further attention will be paid to offering these services in multiple communities.”

In making the announcement, Claire Barnes, Kids’ Turn executive director said, “The study unequivocally validates the work we are doing to increase hope and optimism of children of families going through parental separation. The negative impact that parental separation has on individual children and society has reached epidemic proportions. Children often find themselves caught in the middle of parental disputes. The tangential relationships between parental separation and childhood difficulties (e.g., obesity, developmental, academic, social, psychological problems, etc.) are well proven. Kids’ Turn takes children out of the middle of parental struggles and puts them at the center of family healing and resolution through a curriculum that teaches children a variety of coping skills and provides parents with appropriate parenting and conflict reduction skills.”

Kids’ Turn provides an opportunity for families facing parental separation to move forward with hope and optimism, reducing conflict and its negative effects. Children often find themselves in the middle of parental conflict. Employing the Kids’ Turn Way puts kids at the center of family healing and resolution and takes children out of the middle of parental struggles. Kids’ Turn is the only organization where the entire family participates in a comprehensive program that helps children develop essential coping skills and gives adults the critical parenting skills they need to support their children through family reconfiguration.

For further information on the study, including how to register for workshops in five Bay Area Counties, please go to http://www.kidsturn.org or write Kids’ Turn, 55 New Montgomery, Suite 500 San Francisco, CA 94105-3431. Also, see Kids’ Turn on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=42343701357&ref=ts.

Contacts

Kids’ Turn
Claire Barnes, 415-777-9977
kidsturn@earthlink.net

Michael Coren: Feminism revisited

My letter to the editor with respect to the column:

Editor - National Post

Mr. Coren's column was very accurate. I had read Erin Pizzey's family history article in the Mail Online last Wednesday, 23/9/09 and was profoundly touched by her childhood tribulations. She is an extraordinary woman whose career and strength is inspiring to both men and women

Mr. Coren's understanding of the systemic problems many men face is helpful and his commentary very accurate. The ecosystem that caters to female victimization has made eunuchs of many men, especially those of the political, legal and judicial classes.

One dad spent 47 days in jail for throwing a sock at his wife while she was berating him. He, while throwing this harmful item said metaphorically "put a sock in it." Now to test the lethality of your sock, take it off and throw it at something, even your computer screen, with normal velocity. (Do not throw it if you have been jogging in the rain for 10K it will get the item wet). She called the police and got away with verbal abuse but he was arrested for assault. Where did our judgment go with mandatory arrest policies?


This is just one of hundreds upon hundreds of stories, in many cases, based on false allegations, where husbands and dads are criminalized and vilified by the feminist mantra we are all abusers.

Remember Tom' Cruises' so called sci-fi movie "Minority Report" about stopping a crime that hasn't yet occurred. With men we are already convicted in certain quarters, especially those mentioned above, well before anything happens.

Its got to stop.

Mike Murphy

Posted: September 29, 2009, 1:00 PM by NP Editor

Michael Coren, feminism

Growing up in Britain in the 1970s it was impossible not to be awareof Erin Pizzey. She was the iconic face of feminism, as she appeared ontelevision seemingly every other night to expose what she saw as theoppression of women. She also founded of one of the first domesticviolence shelters in the world. They were known as battered women’shomes in those days but the nomenclature, as well as the politics, haschanged over the years. So, it seems, has Erin Pizzey.

“I would go so far as to say,” she wrote last week, “that themovement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists andbatterers, was based on a lie that, if allowed to flourish, wouldresult in the complete destruction of family life ... Feminism, Irealized, was a lie. Women and men are both capable of extraordinarycruelty. Indeed, the only thing a child really needs — two biologicalparents under one roof — was being undermined by the very ideologywhich claimed to speak up for women’s rights.”

Pizzey seems to have arrived views which run delightfully,diametrically against the very core of contemporary feminism. And it’sdifficult to know which claim will cause the most offence to thewomen’s movement. The battle of assumptions — that all women are merelya step away from abuse — was actually won some time ago. As early asthe 1980s we were told that 50% of all women had been abused by theirmale partners at some point, and to question the statistic implied thatthe critic had something to hide.

The figures are largely inflated, heavily politicized and includewomen who during an argument with their husbands or lovers have beenshouted at. When, by the way, sociologists tried to research the ratesof lesbian abuse and indicated that they appeared to be extremely highthey were told that such work was redundant and the results far toosubjective to be reliable. What is beyond dispute is that women aresometimes abused, that they are seldom as physically strong as men andthat there was far greater acceptance of such base behaviour 40 yearsago than there is now.

It’s a crime. But one that is treated with a particular aggressionand activism by police, lawyers and judges. The mere claim of domesticviolence invariably leads to a man being removed from his home, oftenaway from his children. He is presumed guilty until he can proveotherwise, and if the incident occurs during a break-up or divorce it’sunlikely his spouse is going to suddenly admit that it was a mutualargument and that she called the police out of spite.

A very different scenario from that of a man who is, perhaps,repeatedly slapped, punched or emotionally abused by his wife. It’slikely that he will be too embarrassed to call for help and, even if hedoes, he will not be taken seriously. If the marriage ends he will belucky to see his children one day a week and perhaps every secondweekend. If, though, he misses his sometimes exorbitant supportpayments he will be called a deadbeat by allegedly responsiblepoliticians and probably treated like a career criminal.

The other aspect of Pizzey’s new analysis of feminism will probablycause even more outrage, even though it seems axiomatic and harmless:“two biological parents under one roof.” This is a philosophical warcrime for the new moralists. If we were force-fed the notion that womenwere perennial victims, we were given intravenous doses of the ideathat single-parent families were equal to the traditional variety. It’sjust not true. No child needs a bad father or dysfunctional parents butthis should not be — but frequently is — considered the conventionalnorm to which any alternative is compared.

The genuine choice is, with the exception of orthodox adoption,between two good natural parents and, yes, a broken home. Honestresearch constantly shows that we should aspire to both genders as rolemodels, male and female, to show different but equally valid forms oflove and care, the safety and certainty that there is a physical linkbetween parent and child and the stability, if at all possible, ofbeing raised in a permanent home with mum and dad rather than a daycare with someone else’s mum and dad.

Erin Pizzey has discovered a great deal over the years. Some wouldargue that her conclusions were always obvious, if only we were willingto look.
National Post

Michael Coren is a TV host and author. His website is www.michaelcoren.com.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/29/330834.aspx#comments#ixzz0SW43qqL9

by WhiteRabbit Sep 29 2009 1:31 PM

Many feminists would have it that men are responsible for almost all domestic abuse. Such a fiction is propagated at the expense of the children.
by Mel from Calgary

Sep 29 2009
2:09 PM

"The genuine choice is, with the exception of orthodox adoption, between two good natural parents and, yes, a broken home."
There are only so many "orthodox adoption" parents out there and with "natural parents" being human we need plan "B" for when this doesn't happen.
I love Michael Coren clumsy use of code words.
by Sassylassie

Sep 29 2009
2:25 PM

Feminism is no longer a relevant cause, the political left cling to their lies and propaganda for government grants and to achieve special status in Academia. Personally I believe it was never about gender equality but gender supremacy by assigning victim status to all women.
Harper drastically cut funding to the mother of all feminist groups SOW and then in the next budget he returned funding to it's orginal levels. Sickening really, millions going to women to do studies on stupid subjects that have no relevance for real women.
by Anonymous66

Sep 29 2009
2:49 PM

In my opinion, Ms. Pizzey should have been challenged a lot more harshly about forgetting that "exception of adoption".
by Dirt farmer

Sep 29 2009
2:54 PM

The left likes to keep the lies going in order to destroy the family and lay the ground work to create the new "Soviet" man. It should be more important for society to work on and fix the dysfunctional characteristics of both men and women.
by rossbcan

Sep 29 2009
3:01 PM

“that the movement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists and batterers, was based on a lie..."
Yes, but the lie is far more pervasive and deadly than this narrow issue.
Easily refuted:
We live in an action precedes consequence reality. Nothing is REAL until an action occurs, spawning a consequence according to the laws of physical reality. This means, that all allegations of fixed "nature" implying "potential to X" to an individual or group is sheer speculation and slander, at a minimum.
This particular lie is a product of a provoked gender war between men and women, initiated by the legal "profession", aided by their partners in crime, the equally corrupt psychiatric and social "science" "professions". They feed and prosper from divorce court conflict, a protection racket by threatening the survival of BOTH spouses. The children are caught in the crossfire, abused collateral damage. When the litigants are impoverished, the legal "profession" loses all interest.
This in turn is a particular aspect of the general methodology of WAR (used most recently against Iraq, Iran now in the target sights):
1) Demonize target group (enemy) using false allegations, speculation regarding "potentialities" equated to reality by fake "experts"
2) Watch public response. When "idea" takes hold that enemy is a threat, get real and initiate aggression, with public "tolerance". Alternatively, aggress in a more subtle manner, evoking a defensive response from the enemy, which is spun as the enemy "initiating aggression"
3) Duke it out. Economic interests profit by feeding BOTH sides of the conflict and prepare to profit by rebuilding.
4) Once force has prevailed and enemy is incapable of organized defense, prey by stealing resources and enslaving the people. Demonize any dissidents as terrorists.
5) Provoke new enemy, start again at (1)
Our far wiser ancestors once stopped this madness and placed us on the path to civilization with the "rule of law" which is:
Sanction those who initiate aggression (and compensate victims) and OBEY:
http://www.cli.gs/RuleOfLaw
How do I know this? Our corrupt divorce courts taught me. A fatal tactical error, to attack an enemy while ignorant of their capabilities. What you do not know WILL kill you.
by Rectificatif

Sep 29 2009
3:03 PM

Michael, this is an excellent and important article.
BUT: You should have referenced your quotes from Mrs Pizzey. Was this the source? www.celticsurf.net/.../pizzey.html
Stats now tell us that an entire generation of young men are being disenfranchised and disadvantaged in various ways. The fabric of society, men and women together, is undermined, as natural male roles and masculine postures are ridiculued and stigmatised. Example: Rona Hardware, which has run the most virulent anti-male TV advertising we've ever seen, over and over for the past 6 months. You know the one: the husband who builds a deck inside his living room to avoid talking to his wife.

Canadian men are eunuchs; if they weren't, they'd have closed down Rona inside a month by boycotting it. But no, anti-male theology is undisputed.
Mrs Pizzey helped found the true women's movement in the UK. I hope she can reclaim that movement and help it recover from the lesbian putsch.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/29/330834.aspx#comments#ixzz0SW60aJ71



by Sassylassie

Sep 29 2009
2:25 PM

Feminism is no longer a relevant cause, the political left cling to their lies and propaganda for government grants and to achieve special status in Academia. Personally I believe it was never about gender equality but gender supremacy by assigning victim status to all women.
Harper drastically cut funding to the mother of all feminist groups SOW and then in the next budget he returned funding to it's orginal levels. Sickening really, millions going to women to do studies on stupid subjects that have no relevance for real women.
by Anonymous66

Sep 29 2009
2:49 PM

In my opinion, Ms. Pizzey should have been challenged a lot more harshly about forgetting that "exception of adoption".
by Dirt farmer

Sep 29 2009
2:54 PM

The left likes to keep the lies going in order to destroy the family and lay the ground work to create the new "Soviet" man. It should be more important for society to work on and fix the dysfunctional characteristics of both men and women.
by rossbcan

Sep 29 2009
3:01 PM

“that the movement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists and batterers, was based on a lie..."
Yes, but the lie is far more pervasive and deadly than this narrow issue.
Easily refuted:
We live in an action precedes consequence reality. Nothing is REAL until an action occurs, spawning a consequence according to the laws of physical reality. This means, that all allegations of fixed "nature" implying "potential to X" to an individual or group is sheer speculation and slander, at a minimum.
This particular lie is a product of a provoked gender war between men and women, initiated by the legal "profession", aided by their partners in crime, the equally corrupt psychiatric and social "science" "professions". They feed and prosper from divorce court conflict, a protection racket by threatening the survival of BOTH spouses. The children are caught in the crossfire, abused collateral damage. When the litigants are impoverished, the legal "profession" loses all interest.
This in turn is a particular aspect of the general methodology of WAR (used most recently against Iraq, Iran now in the target sights):
1) Demonize target group (enemy) using false allegations, speculation regarding "potentialities" equated to reality by fake "experts"
2) Watch public response. When "idea" takes hold that enemy is a threat, get real and initiate aggression, with public "tolerance". Alternatively, aggress in a more subtle manner, evoking a defensive response from the enemy, which is spun as the enemy "initiating aggression"
3) Duke it out. Economic interests profit by feeding BOTH sides of the conflict and prepare to profit by rebuilding.
4) Once force has prevailed and enemy is incapable of organized defense, prey by stealing resources and enslaving the people. Demonize any dissidents as terrorists.
5) Provoke new enemy, start again at (1)
Our far wiser ancestors once stopped this madness and placed us on the path to civilization with the "rule of law" which is:
Sanction those who initiate aggression (and compensate victims) and OBEY:
http://www.cli.gs/RuleOfLaw
How do I know this? Our corrupt divorce courts taught me. A fatal tactical error, to attack an enemy while ignorant of their capabilities. What you do not know WILL kill you.
by Rectificatif

Sep 29 2009
3:03 PM

Michael, this is an excellent and important article.
BUT: You should have referenced your quotes from Mrs Pizzey. Was this the source? www.celticsurf.net/.../pizzey.html
Stats now tell us that an entire generation of young men are being disenfranchised and disadvantaged in various ways. The fabric of society, men and women together, is undermined, as natural male roles and masculine postures are ridiculued and stigmatised. Example: Rona Hardware, which has run the most virulent anti-male TV advertising we've ever seen, over and over for the past 6 months. You know the one: the husband who builds a deck inside his living room to avoid talking to his wife.
Canadian men are eunuchs; if they weren't, they'd have closed down Rona inside a month by boycotting it. But no, anti-male theology is undisputed.
Mrs Pizzey helped found the true women's movement in the UK. I hope she can reclaim that movement and help it recover from the lesbian putsch.

by MikeMurphy

Sep 29 2009
5:10 PM

I am a researcher and activist dealing with the current flavour of 3rd wave feminism (call it Victim, Lifeboat, or Gender if you like, they are all the same). Mr. Coren has apparently seen the light and had an epiphany which I salute.

I will be launching a HRC against Deb Matthews, Chris Bentley, Premier McQuinty and the local DV shelter in the coming months based on gender discrimination as they offer no services for Battered men. This has changed in Australia, the UK and in California. Its time has come in Ontario and the rest of Canada.

My goal has been for several years to find an equivalent service for men that provides tax supported emergency and reasonable term housing, food, and counselling for an abused man and his children. There is none in Sault Ste. Marie today as I experienced in 2006 when I first called local agencies.

This is unfortunate as I could have used this counselling a very long time ago. Had it been available perhaps it could have saved my marriage and my children a great deal of grief. I will re-commence the completion of my Human Rights Complaint once the decision on my custody battle with the ex is known.

Keep in mind an equal or greater proportion of DV related to sexual assault, robbery, bodily harm, discharging a firearm with intent, criminal negligence causing bodily harm, criminal harassment, and uttering threats, occurs after separation/divorce, not during the marriage. Eight (8)% of major assault and 40% of common assault also occurs after separation. (Stats Canada, 2008 report on Family Violence in Canada).

But look at this chart from a Stats Can Social Survey in 2005 looking at the trends to 2004. (Go here to see chart - parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/.../deb-matthews-feminist-minister-for.html) It clearly shows the rates of spousal violence after separation, shown in blue, are higher by a wide margin.

The social surveys draw information from a much broader sample than police reports and so I would conclude these DV shelters may well be part of a bigger problem that causes a greater degree of conflict after separation. This is not rocket science and it will not be one source but can I point you in a direction. DV shelters, family court judges ( a 9-1 ratio in awarding physical custody to moms), marginalizing men and using them as revenue spigots. An ecosystem designed to feed the female appetite for victimization.

Feminists or their sympathizers working in agencies like the CAS who don't solve problems and purport to know the right "maternal" way to do things, feminist sympathizers at other agencies who receive tax dollars for supervised access and who ostensibly deal with the mental health of children but would rather spend money on lawyers to try and intimidate dads who seek information on their children.

Did I mention many lawyers who say they only have the best interest of children in mind but as soon as your money runs out they are gone. The best interest of the Lawyer and the revenue lining their pockets is all that matters to most of them. Did I also mention that 75% of divorces in Canada are initiated by women! Do you start to get a better image of the deck and how it is stacked.

Also in the report and in my letter to Matthews is the 2006 table 4.1, page 43, from the same Stats Can 2008 report on the most recent spousal homicide numbers for 2006.
Male deaths 22 up from 12 in 2005, 56 Female deaths down 6 from 2005 and the rate per million spouses of 2.6 for men and 6.3 for women.

Turn those numbers around because they are based on 1,000,000 spouses, and as Dr. Don Dutton, PhD, UBC points out, you get 999,997.4 women do not kill their partners and 999,993.7 men do not kill their female partners. Does this warrant $208,000,000.00 for women's issues and not a cent for men.

It is pretty clear what the value of the gender of men is to the Liberal Government of Ontario and they will not even fund prostate cancer tests for men unless he already has symptoms. Women, on the other hand, can get all kinds of tests done free of charge including breast xrays. The patriarchy and feminists in government obviously like "boobs."

As these data include common law spouses where a greater degree of DV and homicide occur. All data available clearly point to the safest place for men, women and children is in a marriage. Yet these shelters are doing exactly the opposite and counselling women to "empower" themselves into single motherhood with all its attendant negative social outcomes, especially for children.

A new paradigm for DV is needed that involves all parties who are affected by it in the family.
Matthews recently decided to maintain the current gender paradigm (ie men are abusers and women victims) and she did this by having some feminist ideologues at the University of Ontario Institutue of Technology write a report confirming this should be government policy. I have asked if this contract was soul sourced in order to determine if the terms of reference were stacked to get the result Matthews want before the report was written. You can read my letter to the Matthews here if you so choose and a tiny part of my research parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/.../deb-matthews-feminist-minister-for.html
I am told it has the bureaucrats in a tizzy with lots of electronic messaging going on within the "Sisterhood" including the above mentioned academics at UOIT. Many of these self same bureaucrats are "Sisterhood" ideologues as well.
by Denis Pakkala

Sep 29 2009
5:17 PM

Thank You Michael Coren for speaking the truth, rather than the politically correct feminist mythology that has slowly destroyed families and eroded the rights of men to being second class citizens.

The left and the right are scared of feminist backlash and have quietly played along with the feminist agenda of blaming men and helping women.
Excellent comments above. Canadian men are eunuchs, especially politicians.
by Rectificatif

Sep 29 2009
5:27 PM

Mike Murphy, God bless you.
by teatime25

Sep 29 2009
5:32 PM

Take Back the Night marches are a bunch of phoney-victim-BS too. Interesting note about lesbian abuse Mr. Coren. Of course the feminazi's protect their own and don't want those statistics to be known.

Bigger question: where are all the so-called feminists while women in Islamic countries suffer daily under the oppression of sharia law? That is true subjugation, not the loser-mentality they teach at women's studies courses at universities.
by Rhino Party Whip

Sep 29 2009
5:32 PM

Go Mike Murphy!

by Anonymous66

Sep 29 2009
6:20 PM

MikeMurphy - HRC's are evil, and using them taints the cause you're trying to advance. You have some good points, but it would be more admirable to advance them by the political process than the kangaroo courts.

by rossbcan

Sep 29 2009
6:24 PM

@Mike Murphy

HRC's are not about fact, reason or law. The are about the private social "engineering" agendas and profit of those who run them.

The best you can do is further discredit them. But "justice", c'mon.

Ask Ezra

Besides, when the cons get their majority, bybye HRC's.

Yours is a matter of objective law and reparations. Good luck. Opening this can of worms risks a class action far larger than residential schools.

Try to find a "Plan B" that does not involve the agreement (or profit) of those who profit from this.

by Van Grungy

Sep 29 2009
6:39 PM

Umm,

Yeah, so what happened the night D'Arcy Sheppard was placed in the back of a cruiser on a domestic disturbance call?

Just wondering, cause of all those warrants ya know.

by erin17

Sep 29 2009
6:43 PM

I did open the first refuge in the world in chiswick London in 1971. I knew that violence in the family was not a gender issue. both my parents were violent and it was my mother who battered me. I said from the very beginning and I warned everyone that my vision was hi-jacked by the emerging feminist movement across the western world. They wanted a just cause and funding so they demonised all men and deified all women. The result has been the distruction of family life and fathers have been made redundant. The reason why now people are suddenly discovering what I have always been saying is that only now fifty years later am I being given a hearing. erin pizzey

by hunter902

Sep 29 2009
6:45 PM

Applaud your efforts, Mike...the imbalance needs to be brought to the forefront.

Teatime...take back the night is less about feminism than it is about how rape of women/children doesn't really get the consequences for the perp that it should in the criminal justice system.

Having agreed with most of what Mike's post was about, and feminism to the side for a moment, I would think that we could all agree that our daughters, mothers, sisters and wives should feel at least as safe as men from the fear of rape. This doesn't in any way shape or form discount the valid argument Mike put forward...it just happens to be a basis of fact. I want the streets as safe as possible for men, women and children. Random violence is not gender specific, I know...but the facts remain that more women and children are raped than men (though male rape absolutely does happen.)

Let's not confuse or equate feminism with wanting equal measures of safety for those more suceptible physically to violence.

by MikeMurphy

Sep 29 2009
6:57 PM

by Anonymous66 Sep 29 2009

6:20 PM

MikeMurphy - HRC's are evil, and using them taints the cause you're trying to advance. You have some good points, but it would be more admirable to advance them by the political process than the kangaroo courts.

____________________________

You must be new to the game. We have been trying with the political process for over 20 years. A good general when waging a battle will use any means that appear to move his strategy forward. Sun Tzu has said many wise things and this is but one.

"It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used."

One can look at HRC's as the enemy but they are ostensibly there for all sides. If they do not take up the issue then you can be assured they are as evil as many state. That, in and of itself, will be more ammunition to eliminate them.

One must and cannot ignore agents of change simply because they have served a purpose that does not suit another's viewpoint or agenda. To ignore any and all mechanisms to achieve a strategic goal is to accept defeat. You are seeing one of my tactics but you do not know the overall strategy. I believe that at times one must use the system in place, however distasteful, to change it.

Always keep in mind when in battle, and this is indeed a battle, to look at all your options. If you do not and the enemy sees it you will be thwarted and they will take advantage of it.

The feminists have a ample resources from your pocket and mine courtesy of many levels of government from municipal to federal. We do not.

by rkozga

Sep 29 2009
7:05 PM

Congratulations to Michael Coren. No doubt, the publicly-funded, United Way Campaign- supported thriving Canadian women’s groups and feminist organisations will mobilise their network of “volunteers” to target Mr. Coren as misogynist, for anyone who disagrees with their prejudices and stereotypes, is a misogynist. Meanwhile, the feminists at Statistics Canada will soon come out with their misleading: report on: “Family Violence in Canada” for 2009 again reporting only half of the domestic violence reality in Canada, as well as perpetuating the stereotype of women=poor victims, and men=violent abuser/ bad. A report which includes, as an actual act of violence against women, accusations made by women which are later found to be unfounded claims and/or mere vindictive fabrications. A report which relies on “Data Sources” such as biased women’s organisations and shelters, with not one men’s organisation or men’s abuse shelter consulted nor involved in the data gathering (since the constructed prejudice is that men do not need such services!). Thank you Mr. Coren, for your courage in addressing a reality that Canadians have been conditioned (for over 34 years) never to question nor challenge.

by rossbcan

Sep 29 2009
7:13 PM

My Plan B:

http://www.cli.gs/FamilyCourt

When aggressed against, basic choice is FIGHT or FLIGHT. When children are involved, FLIGHT is morally unacceptable. If you do, you bear full moral responsibility for what happens to them. That leaves FIGHT.

The problem is, the FIGHT is moderated and orchestrated by the legal "profession". Why on earth would they allow it to be resolved before impoverishment of the most prosperous spouse?

It is a TRAP (moral hazard of misdefined marriage), laid by "no fault" divorce which is really a license for one spouse to prey on the other during and after marriage.

Lawyers are the snake in the garden, promising entitlements and irresponsibility for those who initiate divorce under the impression they can have their spouses prosperity, without said spouse.

by MikeMurphy

Sep 29 2009
7:18 PM

Hunter 902 This isn't about ignoring violence. Its about crushing an ideology that promotes violence as a one way unidirectional process - from male to female.

I have 4 daughters who are pretty independent, self sufficient, traditional in many ways, and I would want the two youngest to train in martial arts (they are reluctant so far) to give them a greater degree of self confidence. They are strong girls regardless.

Violence against a weaker person is wrong no matter who carries it out. Keep in mind too Lesbian violence in partnerships is greater than in hetero relationships. In a case in Florida not that long ago the one female partner stabbed the other a total of 222 times "Carol Anne Burger killed her former lover by stabbing her 222 times with a Phillips-head screwdriver and then took pains to hide her crime, police said Wednesday." This was in Boynton Beach Florida in October, 2008. parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/2008_10_30_archive.html

We may see more of this violence go public in jurisdictions allowing same sex marriage because they will now have to go through the same painful and adversarial legal process the rest of us do. The latter getting changed is also part of a longer term strategy.

by teatime25

Sep 29 2009
7:39 PM

Gay on gay lover spats are often the worst kind of violence. Ask any ER nurse. Multiple stab wounds are common when homo's have a tiff.

by Sassylassie

Sep 29 2009
7:56 PM

You go Mike, the CHRC is suppose to protect people from Human Rights Violation, sic, not just violations against females as a protected group. It's time the CHRC provided services for all Canadians and that includes the discrimination of men. Go get them. It's discrimination to deny men access to domestic abuse shelters, it's discrimination to deny men access to community violence case workers the list of services denied men is long.

Mike I highly recommend you encourage your daughters to take self defense classes, they are much more concentrated towards stopping an assailant.

by hunter902

Sep 29 2009
8:01 PM

Mike,

That was exactly my point - to teatime...

Your earlier post hit a lot of major points that should be on everyone's radar, then came teatime's post.

Take Back the night is all about promoting safety. It still takes nothing away from your articulate viewpoint or merit in its content. Going forward, I'm sure you'll be gaining more support than you bargained for!

by Rectificatif

Sep 29 2009
8:15 PM

Murphy is correct to bother the HRC on this if he legitimately feels that his human rights have been violated. It forces the hrc to reveal its biological biases.

But, big butt, don't let the hrc bureaucracy silence you while they pee all over the case for 18 months. You must be aggressive and seek other means.

Other than that, we yearn for a political party, or at the least, a _group_, ready to defend fathers and the male population. Can Sterility be reversed?

Gentlemen, you put up with anything for Sex and Silence.

by Denis Pakkala

Sep 29 2009
11:43 PM

I applaud Mike Murphy's efforts to raise awareness of Equal Rights issues.

In the past 10 years there has been a rapidly growing field of credible peer reviewed research and professional support for treating domestic violence without gender bias.

Domestic violence is quickly becoming a big topic of debate. Any and all public awareness of these Equal rights issues is worth it.

by etarking

Sep 30 2009
1:00 AM

Feminism is the only political movement that is directly funded by the Canadian government, with your tax dollars. I wish the Canadian people understood how dangerous it is to publicly fund this political ideology.

We do understand the danger when it comes to traditional political parties, but feminism, paternalistic attitudes toward women, and pandering for the woman's vote have led us to a place where we can't question feminist dogma, even when we know it's false. It's a crying shame that what started as an equality movement has gone so wrong, and become a movement to get power and privilege. Millions of people have been victimized by feminism, including men, women, and children, without anyone in authority either recognizing it or daring to speak up about it.

The world is improved by Michael Coren's recognition that the "man bad/woman good" approach to reality is dangerous to children. Media, politicians, academia, "helping" professionals, and law bureaucrats have all used bent reasoning and bent research for decades now to promote irrational fear and loathing of men. I hope Coren's conversion is an indicator of change among the nation's opinion leaders.

We use radical feminist reasoning by default to examine every social issue, even though most women long ago repudiated it as an extremist view. We have persuaded married people that they don't have an obligation to stay together and work things out between them. We have fooled ourselves about childrens' actual parenting needs, which include secure dependence on both parents. We have frightened ourselves into treating every father in a family breakup as if he were a danger to the rest of the family either physically or psychologically, when he is actually the most powerful safety factor for the ordinary family, even those threatened with divorce.

All of this foolishness causes untold grief for millions of children that we claim to care about, and millions of women that we definitely do care about (and who don't divorce as wealthy and happy as they're led to expect), and millions of men and boys that we should care about but don't.

It's long past time to wise up, but we're so shot through and saturated with destructive myths that it is going to take a long, hard, conscious effort to recognize all of the hate and fear that we have built into virtually every social system we have. That will put us half way to rooting out our hateful habits.

-Eric Tarkington

by RobertA9

Sep 30 2009
8:20 AM

Laws and policies that marginalize and criminalize divorced fathers won't help women and certainly won't help children. In fact, they are stupidly, viciously and dangerously wrong. No one is more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose.

(For the record, I'm neither divorced nor a father.)

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/29/michael-coren-feminism-revisited.aspx#ixzz0ScMYWdkR

New Research on Alienated Children

by Daniel H. Swerdlow-Freed, Ph.D. (Daniel H. Swerdlow-Freed, Ph.D.is a Licensed Psychologist. Contact information is available at the end of this article.) Several years ago, our newsletter featured an article on parental alienation, in which we summarized Richard Gardner's proposition that parental alienation syndrome, or PAS, was a diagnosable disorder with distinct features. Over the past several years, his opinions have received much criticism and led mental health professionals to formulate research-based explanations of the dynamics that cause children to reject contact with a parent. On the basis of their research, Drs. Joan Kelly and Janet Johnston recently published a new theory of the alienated child, which we believe advances understanding of this complicated issue. Since this topic is of interest to so many of our readers, we are providing a summary of their paper. ** Kelly and Johnston define an alienated child as "…one who expresses, freely and persistently, unreasonable negative feelings and beliefs (such as anger, hatred, rejection, and/or fear) toward a parent that are significantly disproportionate to the child's actual experience with that parent." Their definition requires that the child's behavior toward and relationship with the alienated parent should be the primary focus, rather than the behavior of the alienating parent, as Gardner suggested. Furthermore, they note the importance of differentiating the alienated child from other children who resist contact with a parent for realistic or developmentally appropriate reasons. This new formulation conceptualizes a child's relationship to each parent as falling along a continuum from positive to negative. At its most healthy end, a child enjoys a positive relationship with both parents and wants to spend approximately equal time with each of them. The next position is for children who have an affinity with one parent. These children feel closer to, and prefer to spend more time with one parent but desire substantial contact with the other parent. Some children express a consistent preference for either their mother or father during the marriage, and have formed an alliance with that parent. Following separation or divorce, these children may desire limited contact with the non-preferred parent, although they do not completely rejecting this individual. Alliances often develop because of unhealthy dynamics that existed during the marriage, intense post-divorce conflict or children's moral assessment of their parent's behavior. Such alliances have the potential to become unhealthy, particularly if parental conflict continues at a high level. Two factors that distinguish allied from alienated children are that the former are willing to acknowledge positive feelings for the non-preferred parent, and they can articulate credible reasons for seeking reduced contact with that individual. Children who have witnessed or been subjected to violence, abuse or neglect, are at increased risk to become estranged from the parent who perpetrated these acts, although their feelings about that parent may only be expressed after separation has occurred and a sense of safety has developed. A child may also become estranged from a parent who is extremely immature and self-centered, consistently unreliable or inadequate, or chronically angry, rigid or critical. While estranged children may present as if they are alienated, they differ from alienated children because their fear and anger have a basis in reality and their attitudes and behavior are in proportion to these experiences. At the unhealthy end of the continuum is the alienated child, who completely rejects a parent without showing any guilt or ambivalence, and refuses all contact with that individual. Severe distortions and exaggerations often characterize the child's reports about the relationship with the rejected parent. Close scrutiny reveals that these youngsters are often responding to dynamics that occurred during the divorce process, to ill-advised parental behavior and to their own psychological vulnerabilities. Using a systems framework, Kelly and Johnston identified a series of factors and child responses that are critical to accurate diagnosis and effective intervention. They determined that while risk factors vary from one case to another, they often contain the following components: a child who has become triangulated in the parental conflict, a spouse who experienced the decision to divorce as a profound humiliation, an ongoing pattern of intense conflict and litigation, and to the involvement of new partners, extended family or other professionals who purposely or unwittingly contribute to conflict. If a child perceives that s/he has been abandoned by a parent, that child is vulnerable to become alienated. Feelings of abandonment may occur when a parent leaves the marital home, when a child is seriously confused about the reasons for the separation or divorce, or when a parent begins a new love relationship and devotes less attention to the child. In some cases, separation followed by long periods with no contact between the nonresidential parent and the child can exacerbate the child's sense of abandonment. Children who were psychologically vulnerable prior to separation often lack the resiliency to cope with the pressures that accompany divorce. Some children find it easier to deal with anxiety and uncertainty by siding with one parent against the other, and thereby securing the preferred parent's loyalty. Children who do have good reality testing may become confused by events they witness or overhear, and are vulnerable to misinterpret or misunderstand their meaning, especially if they cannot discuss these situations with a caring adult who can help them make an independent evaluation of their experience. Through our work with divorced children and parents, we know that no single factor produces an alienated child, and that these convoluted, difficult situations threaten the psychological well being of each family member. We believe, along with Kelly and Johnston, that a comprehensive assessment is needed to clarify the multiple factors that have led a child to reject a parent with whom s/he previously enjoyed a meaningful relationship. Only with the benefit of such an evaluation, can each pertinent factor be identified and accounted for, and an effective intervention strategy planned and implemented. http://www.psychologyinfo.com/forensic/alienated-children.html

Married to the State

How government colonizes the family

By Stephen Baskerville

In 1947, with the baby boom in its infancy and few disposed to hearing of family crisis, Harvard sociologist Carle Zimmerman saw the long-term reality: the family had been deteriorating since the Renaissance and was nearing the point of no return. Whenever the family shows signs of dysfunction, Zimmerman observed, “the state helps to break it up.” During the 19th century, “law piled on law, and government agency upon government agency” until by 1900 “the state had become master of the family.” The result, he wrote in Family and Civilization, was that “the family is now truly the agent, the slave, the handmaiden of the state.”

Today we might regard 1947 as a golden age for the family. Without perceiving it, each generation has become acculturated to family deterioration and added to it. We now accept as normal what would have shocked our grandparents: cohabitation, illegitimacy, divorce, same-sex marriage, daycare, fast-food dinners. Indeed, shocking the previous generation is part of the thrill of filial rebellion.

What should shock even the liberal and the young—but today does not much disturb even the conservative and the old—are destruction of constitutional protections and invasions of personal freedom and privacy by the government’s family machinery. Some four decades ago, the Western world embarked on the boldest social experiment in its history. With no public discussion, laws were enacted in virtually every jurisdiction that ended marriage as an enforceable contract. Today it is not possible to form a binding agreement to create a family.

Few stopped to consider the implications of laws that shifted the breakup of private households from a voluntary to an involuntary process. Unilateral divorce involves government agents forcibly removing legally innocent people from their homes and seizing their property. It inherently abrogates not only the inviolability of marriage but the very concept of private life.

The most serious consequences involve children. Through involuntary divorce, a legally unimpeachable parent can be arrested for seeing his own children without government authorization. He can be charged with domestic violence or child abuse, without evidence that he has committed either crime. He can be hauled before a judge for not paying child support without proof that he actually owes it. He can even be arrested for not paying an attorney or psychotherapist whom he has not hired. No formal charge, no jury, no trial required.

To justify this repression, the divorce machinery has generated hysterias against fathers so inflammatory that few dare question them: child abuse, wife-beating, nonpayment of child support. The accused parent simply loses his family and finds himself abandoned, with everyone terrified to be associated with an accused “pedophile,” “batterer,” or “deadbeat dad.”

Our passivity before repression this serious is stunning and the starkest example yet of the erosion of that civic virtue that has been integral to American political thought since before the founding of the Republic.

Conservatives have labored this idea into a cliché. We preach that people must be more virtuous, less selfish, and more devoted to the public good. But these exhortations earn us nothing but contempt when we remain silent in the face of real tyranny, which, as usual, has appeared where we least expected it and are least equipped to resist it. Instead of resisting, we lament a decline in “culture” and declare there is very little we can do.

But as Linda McClain writes, families are “seedbeds of civic virtue” and “have a place in the project of forming persons into capable, responsible, self-governing citizens.” The family is where parents and children learn to love sacrificially, to put others’ needs before their own desires, to sacrifice for the welfare and protection of the whole. If this does not begin with one’s own home and loved ones it, does not begin at all. People unwilling to sacrifice for their own flesh and blood will not do so for the strangers who comprise their country. In the family, children learn to obey authorities other than the state—God, parents, clergy, teachers, coaches, neighbors. By accepting these, some of whom they love, children learn that government is not the only authority and is one that can and must be limited.

Conservatives have recently been eager to declare marriage and the family to be “public” institutions, largely in response to homosexual insistence that families are purely private and therefore may be defined according to the whims of individuals. But it is more precise to say that the family mediates between the public and the private, ensuring each its proper sphere. In the family children learn to distinguish and defend private life from encroachment by public power. Involvement in public affairs, which is important, begins as an extension of private responsibilities as parents, homeowners, neighbors, and parishioners. Citizens participate in public life as amateurs with a stake in their families, homes, and communities, not as professionals with a stake in a government program or ideology.

Children raised without intact families do not as readily absorb concepts such as family privacy, sacrificial love, parental authority, limited government, or civic virtue. For their rules and values come not from parents but from government officials, who have ultimate sovereignty over their lives: courts, lawyers, social workers, forensic therapists, public-school bureaucrats, and police. These are the figures they must obey rather than their parents. Thus children whose authority figures are government officials cannot distinguish the private from the public and come to see the public sphere as a realm not of civic duty and community leadership but of abstract ideology, government funding, professional employment, career advancement, and state power, in whose growth they acquire a vested interest.

It is no accident that the traditional family is described as patriarchal and that civic virtue traditionally suggested masculinity. It is also no coincidence that fathers are the ones marginalized by family decline.

Enormous attention has been devoted to the crisis of 24 million fatherless children, a phenomenon directly linked to every major social pathology from violent crime to substance abuse and truancy. Because these ills justify almost all domestic government spending, fatherlessness has resulted in a huge expansion of state power. The Obama administration aims to promote virtue with programs preaching “responsible fatherhood” and nagging men to practice “good fathering.” The Bush administration used similar schemes to argue for the importance of marriage. The result is the same: bewailing other people’s moral failings at taxpayer expense.

There is certainly truth in the connection between fatherhood and civil society. “Fathers play a key role in developing and sustaining the kind of personal character on which democracy depends,” writes Don Eberly of the National Fatherhood Initiative. Government therapy, on the other hand, cannot create virtue because it requires no sacrifice. Federal funding only gives officials incentives to perpetuate problems, so it is hardly surprising that not only have these programs done nothing to improve either fatherhood or marriage, they have exacerbated the breakdown of both.

Eberly’s point connecting fathers and freedom contains a larger truth. While families require sacrifice from all members, it is fathers whose sacrifice may extend to their very lives. Children deprived of their fathers by state officials therefore lose more than a parent. They lose the parent who connects them with the civic order. When the father protects and provides for his family, he will resist the state’s efforts to assume those roles. Under his leadership, the family is a force for limiting state power.

The single mother does not resist the state’s encroachment. On the contrary, she is our society’s principal claimant on a vast array of state services, without which she cannot manage her children. When the state usurps the roles of protector and provider and disciplinarian, the state becomes the father.

This is the story of modern politics: increasingly centralized police, plus the regulatory and welfare states that also promise various forms of protection. These paternal—and increasingly maternal—substitutes brought massive bureaucracies, fulfilling Tocqueville’s prophecy that democracy would lead to increasingly bureaucratic intrusion into private life. These agencies expanded by creating problems to solve. As police functionaries, they had to create criminals and newfangled, nonviolent crimes that most people (such as juries) could not understand and required “experts” to adjudicate—crimes that were safe for female police, crimes that could be committed only by men.

Fathers whose children are taken away by state officials do not heroically rescue them or organize opposition to the divorce machinery because the enervating power of the bureaucratic behemoth makes resistance pointless. Men are thus politically neutered and, as a result, often despised by their own children and the rest of us.

That most people do not regard these practices as tyrannical may be the most alarming aspect of all. Government agents seize control of children and property of vast numbers of law-abiding citizens through literally “no fault” of their own, and we accept it because of jargon that makes it all appear banal: “custody battle” and “division of property.” Fidelity to one’s word—let alone one’s spouse—is disdained. Basic civilities become irrelevant because family members can be made to obey through court orders. Family wealth—traditionally used to leverage both obedience from children and limits on government—is useless for both purposes. In divorce it is simply confiscated.

So vast numbers of children now grow up believing from the earliest age that it is normal for government officials to assume control over their family life, to order their parents about as if they were naughty children. This is causing more than social chaos. It is destroying our freedom and our will to defend it.

Stephen Baskerville is associate professor of government at Patrick Henry College and author of Taken into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family. A longer version of this essay will appear in The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy.

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/married-to-the-state/

Deb Matthews Feminist Minister for Women in Ontario Government plays Gender Card on Domestic Violence

I had a pleasant and informative discussion today with the local DV shelter "Women in Crisis" 705-759-1230, to ensure they still only provided direct services of a bed, food and counselling to women. This was confirmed by a very helpful person who gave me the name Raphael. I may have that wrong as she spoke with an accent but whose English was very good. She gave me references to social housing, 705-946-2077, Crisis Services, 705-759-3803, and Vincents Place, 222 Albert Street East, 705-253-2770 which is an overnight mission style place providing shelter for men over 18 down on their luck and does not specialize in abuse cases, nor do they take children. The crisis line, which I understand is also available for any one to call, but they do not specialize in battering or abuse of spouses, particularly men.

My goal has been for several years to find an equivalent service for men that provides tax supported emergency and reasonable term housing, food, and counselling for an abused man and his children. There is none in Sault Ste. Marie today as I experienced in 2006 when I first called local agencies.

This is unfortunate as I could have used this counselling a very long time ago. Had it been available perhaps it could have saved my marriage and my children a great deal of grief. I will re-commence the completion of my Human Rights Complaint once the decision on my custody battle with the ex is known.

Keep in mind an equal or greater proportion of DV related to sexual assault, robbery, bodily harm, discharging a firearm with intent, criminal negligence causing bodily harm, criminal harassment, and uttering threats, occurs after separation/divorce, not during the marriage. Eight (8)% of major assault and 40% of common assault also occurs after separation. (Stats Canada, 2008 report on Family Violence in Canada).

But look at this chart from a Stats Can Social Survey in 2005 looking at the trends to 2004. It clearly shows the rates of spousal violence after separation, shown in blue, are higher by a wide margin. The social surveys draw information from a much broader sample than police reports and so I would conclude these DV shelters may well be part of a bigger problem that causes a greater degree of conflict after separation. This is not rocket science and it will not be one source but can I point you in a direction. DV shelters, family court judges ( a 9-1 ratio in awarding physical custody to moms), marginalizing men and using them as revenue spigots. An ecosystem designed to feed the female appetite for victimization (did I mention people like Patricia Tossell at Ontario works) - see Chapter 17 (http://parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/2007/09/chapter-17-interference-by-city-of.html) for my exchange of information with her and her legal/administrative cohorts at the City of Sault Ste. Marie). Feminists or their sympathizers working in agencies like the CAS who don't solve problems and purport to know the right "maternal" way to do things, feminist sympathizers at other agencies who receive tax dollars for supervised access and who ostensibly deal with the mental health of children but would rather spend money on lawyers to try and intimidate dads who seek information on their children. Did I mention many lawyers who say they only have the best interest of children in mind but as soon as your money runs out they are gone. The best interest of the Lawyer and the revenue lining their pockets is all that matters to most of them. Did I also mention that 75% of divorces in Canada are initiated by women! Do you start to get a better image of the deck and how it is stacked.































Also in the report and in my letter to Matthews is the 2006 table 4.1, page 43, from the same Stats Can 2008 report on the most recent spousal homicide numbers for 2006.

Male deaths 22 up from 12 in 2005, 56 Female deaths down 6 from 2005 and the rate per million spouses of 2.6 for men and 6.3 for women.

Turn those numbers around because they are based on 1,000,000 spouses, and as Dr. Dutton points out, you get 999,997.4 women do not kill their partners and 999,993.7 men do not kill their female partners. Does this warrant $208,000,000.00 for women's issues and not a cent for men. It is pretty clear what the value of the gender of men is to the Liberal Government of Ontario and they will not even fund prostate cancer tests for men unless he already has symptoms. Women, on the other hand, can get all kinds of tests done free of charge including breast xrays. The patriarchy and feminists in government obviously like "boobs." As these data include common law spouses where a greater degree of DV and homicide occur all data available clearly point to the safest place for men, women and children is in a marriage. Yet these shelters are doing exactly the opposite and counselling women to "empower" themselves into single motherhood with all its attendant negative social outcomes, especially for children.

A new paradigm for DV is needed that involves all parties who are affected by it in the family.

This same Stats Can report also indicates fathers as the most likely to kill their children. These numbers cannot be believed. The compilers of these statistics refuse to break the category of males into biological fathers, boyfriends, step fathers, and other male. They categorize all of the above as "father" including foster parent. This is sexist and discriminatory bias and ought to stop. Australia used to do this as well but they changed and the data clearly shows biological fathers as the least likely to kill their children and biological mothers alone and with their boyfriends/new partners as most likely. U.S. government data over many years shows likewise and can be viewed here. http://parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/2008/10/mothers-commit-vast-majority-of.html. There is a link to the U.S. government site if the reader wishes to see the data there although it is harder to find and view over several years.

Politicians like Matthews play into the hands of the proponents in the DV Industry and their cheerleaders in the bureaucracy, who do not reduce friction but through their vilification of men, which can be viewed as a form of misandry, and through the junk science (psycho-educational model) of the Duluth wheel, exacerbate the friction. Matthews brags about her $208,000,000.00 for women but what if investigations found she was complicit in creating a furtherance of violence after separation by funding male denigration? Minister's come and go but the entrenched ongoing government of public servants are the fuel that keeps the engines of male vilification in operation, not only with the current government, but between governments. Walter Fox, in the lengthier video below, also notes this phenomena. Having once worked in public service over many different governments of different political ideologies I have seen and experienced it first hand.

The entrenched and ideologically predisposed Civil Servants no doubt will feel threatened by any change in the status quo and will likely resort to dirty tricks as my HRC moves forward. Some of this can be monitored by those within the government who disagree and I will rely on their feedback as well as electronically including their IT department who can easily trace where they are going with computers or wi-fi networks and what they are doing on the tax payers "dime." Since my letter was sent to Matthews a great deal of electronic activity on the internet has started with email exchanges and even Blackberry's getting involved at both the Provincial and Federal level. The Federal DOJ is interested in the activity according to my sources. I will watch and check with great interest and some bemusement at the hysteria. I am advised also that some of the people in these agencies can resort to dirty tricks and out right lies. Keeping the matter in the public eye is important so a reasoned debate can occur and perhaps draw out of the woodwork the entrenched bias within the permanent government of bureaucrats and their minions in the political classes. If you think Minister's rule the day - well - you might get disabused of that notion depending on the mass of strength a certain ideology has with the public service. That men are abusers and women benign is well entrenched and job tenure relies on it staying thus for many.


The indoctrination the women receive at these shelters, even if no violence has occurred, teaches the women how to best "screw" their partner. Many women who go to these shelters suffer no violence at all but if they say they do they are believed. Many are drug addicts needing a place to "rest" for a week or two. These are some of the most violent of women and will do anything to get a "fix." The 2008 report from Stats Can noted above confirmed 74% of the residents of these refuges were there due to "reported" abuse. (pge. 15) This, of course, means a minimum of 26% were there for other reasons using tax payers dollars. What is 26% of $208,000,000.00 dollars? I would posit the 74% figure is high because women are encouraged before they even go to say they have been abused because that opens even more doors, assuring custody, child support, perhaps spousal support, government cheques, tax credits, legal aid, the house frequently and control of the assets on occasion. In other words the system is set up to transfer wealth from the man to the wife very quickly if all advice is followed including a restraining order.

They are counselled, based on junk science, to leave the marriage and be empowered and they are promised "we" will get you social housing, welfare, and help you find a job, Additionally, with the help of other public servants in the welfare department of the Oxy Moronically named Ontario Works, like Patricia Tossell, a self styled expert on violence against women, defend your right to lie about your male ex and write letters to the lawyer the shelter recommends you get defaming the male spouse. I say with a certain degree of accuracy that Tossell will have not likely ever have written such a letter on behalf of a male client trying to get social housing and welfare. Tossell has had her own public marital difficulties in court records available on the internet and even though she was trained as a lawyer she doesn't appear to be able to practice law as a stand alone profession. She is in indeed one of the ideologues I speak of above.

The shelter staff require the clients to sign non-disclosure agreements for a very good reason. They do not want their indoctrination methods made public or become fodder for lawsuits although one is now in progress in Oklahoma which is being watched with great interest. Many clients follow through using this advice in a variety of ways, sometimes hiring unscrupulous lawyers as their hired gun, and get legal aid money through your tax dollars from Ontario Legal Aid under the aegis of the Attorney General of Ontario, sometimes with disastrous results. This legal aid bill will become attached as a lien to your property (house) and will likely be in the neighbourhood of $25,000.00 if the divorce is contested. This would have paid for a good deal of post secondary education for a child if done in the local community. In this case, as with most others, it will line the pockets of a lawyer to make payments on his many accouterments including the BMW or Lexus - or was that a Mercedes. That is only one of the bills. The man will pay a like amount if he does not represent himself.

The politicians, in the name of Matthews, Bentley, McQuinty and it might appear at the Federal level with Minister of Justice Nicholson, based on his remarks in Ireland as he pandered to the Canadian Bar Association, are sometimes unsuspecting dupes but often are willfully blind to what is going on due to their own Political Correctness (PC). This PC is - men are abusers - women are benign - the Patriarchy oppresses women and the nanny state (the proxy patriarch) needs to act as their guardian. Its as though these women have never reached adulthood and cannot find their way in the world without hand holding.

If you recall Bentley at a press conference wearing his white ribbon as a result of investigations after Katelyn Sampson, a young girl, was killed at the hands of two drug addicted female prostitutes, one her natural mother, preening before the press like a male peacock. Guess who he was pandering to and guess who he used as advisers. The centerpiece of his recommendations arising from the killing of a little girl through the acts of two women was to criminalize more men through the use of restraining orders. Every one of his advisers, thanked on his web site, were those with a vested interest in the outcome including shelter industry people. Not one father's or men's group was approached or involved. There is no bias in the office of the Province's Chief legal officer, no politicization of justice or pandering to vested interests is there? It's an almost incestuous relationship between those who receive tax dollars as beneficiaries and the political/bureaucratic classes. The feedback/response loop is of a closed system unable to see the big picture and, more to the point, who don't want to see it.

I find it interesting that those of us who know much about the scourge that true Intimate Partner Violence is and its impact, particularly on children who observe it, who may not be large in physical stature, who may be handicapped (I know what this is like), do not go looking for fights, know how to avoid physical confrontation, may have a rudimentary knowledge of self defense, but may still get "battered" emotionally, financially and occasionally physically don't develop the victim persona in the manner promulgated by Matthews and her acolytes. It can be a self fulfilling prophecy. Men do, however, deserve to be helped when needed and not suffer discrimination simply because we are a different gender.

View the videos at the end to get an impartial view of the kinds of observations made by people, some formerly involved in the shelter movement, about this vocal minority of tax supported vilifiers of men.

Although not directly a target in this Human rights complaint this is just one example of the discrimination shown by Matthews and her colleague AG Bentley. Bentley was involved in the launch of this initiative as he is responsible, supposedly at arms length, for the administration of justice in this province. The administration of justice is heavily politicized and discriminatory.

There is nothing wrong with educating citizens on Family Law but the mindset of these people is men must know all about it and women not. Here is a quote by Matthews on the launch of the Family Law Education for Women (FLEW).

“The Family Law Education for Women campaign is unique in Ontario. It builds on Ontario’s commitment to protect and support vulnerable women in our province” said Deb Matthews, Minister Responsible for Women’s Issues. “There is one family law for all Ontarians and women deserve to know their legal rights so they can fully benefit from the law and make informed decisions.”

Note she describes vulnerable women but its target is all women and not one man. This is an earlier quote in the same press release.

On December 10, 2008, International Human Rights Day, Family Law Education for Women (FLEW) will unveil a public education campaign called “All Women. One Family Law” to ensure that Ontario women know their legal rights under Ontario family law. FLEW is a public legal education project funded by the Ontario government to develop materials that will inform women’s decisions about family law issues.

Note it describes All Women. The press release is here. http://smr.newswire.ca/en/flew/all-women-one-family-law The FLEW website is here. http://www.onefamilylaw.ca/ Does any one see the irony in the name "One Family Law" The term Family used to describe a mom a dad and children if any. Not any more according to the Province of Ontario - it describes only women.

For those men, beaten down by the misandry of all this feminist rhetoric, let me remind you of what it is men do for human kind, in its darkest hours, and how all of us - not feminized to think twice about these things - will risk our lives and die for others. This is the tail end of one of the best descriptions of heroism by anyone flowing from the 9/1/1 disaster but this is written by a woman, Christie Blatchford, then with the National Post of Canada. For the whole article go here. http://f4j-soo.blogspot.com/2008_09_11_archive.html


Always keep in mind - you would do this too as many of our forefathers have done in fighting wars and oppression for these same women who now cry abuse at the hands of all men and who do not think twice about lying about it. These men, and women who have adapted to these difficult tasks, however, may be required to do this any day they are called upon.

"The raw physical courage of all those who had raced to the scene and headed into the very towers that they, of all people, with their knowledge of structures and the sort of damage that a fireball could inflict upon skyscrapers, would best know were at risk of collapse, was enormous; their collective selflessness, putting women, children and civilians before themselves, utterly astonishing.

I am old enough to remember what some call the "feminization" of these very organizations, and the military, that began all over North America.

As the rhetoric went then, integrating women into these places would be good for the men, would gentle their inherent violence and risk-taking, temper the soaring levels of testosterone, somehow better the culture.

The truth is, it did nothing of the sort. If anything, the women who became firefighters and police and soldiers took their cues from the men. And in the end, there remains such comfort in this, in knowing that, push come to shove, should you find yourself in crisis, in a burning building or a car crash, the ground treacherous and shifting beneath your sandal-shod feet either literally or metaphorically, a burly figure will be coming for you, and he will be driven enough to find you and strong enough to lift you up and away.

There is nothing to better here. There never was."

MJM

Michael J. Murphy
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario P6A 6J8
email: mike.murphy@nospam.ca

Hon. Deb Matthews
Minister Responsible for Women's Issues
14th Floor 56 Wellesley St W
Toronto ON
M5S 2S3 via fax 416-212-7431 and email dmatthews.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

My Dear Minister Matthews:

I was made aware today you and the Liberal Government will be keeping a gender based perspective on IPV. I am very disappointed with this decision and understand you will be speaking about it at the Durham Region’s Intimate Relationship Violence Empowerment Network 4^th annual forum in Whitby, ON, October 2/09.

Given the Liberal government will be taking this official stance despite the science showing IPV is mutual and close to equal, is initiated by females more often than males - as high as 70% in some studies, males are injured and killed as well as females, that children are murdered and maltreated more often by their mothers in Canada, the U.S.A. and Australia I can only conclude your government puts a premium on being female and discounts males. That is unconstitutional!

I would respectfully request a copy of the Minister's speech as part of my research into preparing a Human Rights Complaint against the Attorney General, Ms. Matthews, Premier McQuinty, and the local DV shelter who refuses to support battered men.

In addition I note most of the members of the Council who advised the Minister on this decision have a vested interest in the status quo as they are indeed recipients of tax payers money. I also note one of the speakers at this forum is an academic from the UOIT, Molly Dragiewicz. This Professor is a noted feminist ideologue and a recipient of your largesse in obtaining contracts to produce information forming the basis for your conclusions to keeping the status quo. She too has a vested interest in this approach as it is less threatening to getting contracts from your $208,000,000.00 allotment of tax payer's money targeted exclusively for women. Was this contract and others awarded to Dragiewicz, and her colleague at UOIT, sole sourced or was there a tender involved? I would like to know your policy generally and specifically with the one that has led to your official announcement of using a gender based approach.

Let's do a little math using Barbara Kay's figures given as a rebuttal to your assertions on a National Post story in December 2008. In 2006 there were 605 murders in Canada and 78 were spousal homicides. Women numbered 56 - 6 fewer than 2005 but males jumped 12 to a total of 21. You spend $208 million on women annually according to your response to Ms. Kay below – none is allocated specifically for men. For every female death you have $3,714,286 available and, of course, none for males. I use the larger figure to demonstrate the apparent willful blindness of your government. You have indicated women die more often, are injured more often, 6 times more likely to seek medical attention etc. Some of these figures had no attribution and they are suspect as men do not report their injuries very often (between 10 & 17%), the higher figure from StatsCan and so the female numbers become less comparable even if they have scientific credibility.

Not all spousal homicides are reported as such. Women are devilishly clever at killing their spouses and sometimes these killings are reported as something other than DV. Just in your riding we saw a murder/suicide by a female police officer who killed her partner then herself. This was not classified as a spousal homicide but should have been. If a new boyfriend is coerced into killing the husband, if a contractor is used, if undetectable methods are employed, or if it just plain appears as accidental it will not appear as a spousal killing. I would further want you to understand that there could be as many as 2,000 deaths of men by suicide per year due to family court marginalization (children are awarded to mom in a 9-1 ratio and dad becomes an ATM) plus false accusations of rape or violence that ruin men's lives. That is a serious number. All deaths are tragic but I believe the pendulum has swung way too far to the left giving your government a truly feminist oriented agenda at the expense of males.

You have also used cherry picked Coroner's reports showing, and I quote, females were the victims in 95% of domestic violence fatality cases. See the official numbers above.

Guess who gets involved on these death review committees with the Coroner. Yes, a representative sample of the same tax supported people you are speaking to on October 2, 2009 multiplied Province wide. Do you see where this is going? You have a beholding group of people operating DV shelters who are never audited, either financially or operationally, who make clients sign "non disclosure agreements, (why is that?) who make out reports to send to the government recording the "official" numbers of women helped but, as a rational human being, who can believe them if they aren't independently audited. I also make note they provide no services to battered men, and yes we do exist. Your government is already beset with scandals is this another one in its infancy?

Your response to Barbara Kay follows:

Re: Fed On Myths, Preying On Men, Barbara Kay, Dec. 6.

It's important to address Barbara Kay's assertions that were raised on such a significant and solemn occasion, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. In response to her statement that "emotion, not reason or facts, drives the domestic violence industry", there are facts to support that domestic violence is not gender-neutral.

According to Statistics Canada, women experience more severe forms of violence, more often, than men. Women are twice as likely as men to be injured as a result of spousal violence, six times more likely to seek medical attention and three times more likely to fear for their lives.
And according to the Chief Coroner's Domestic Violence Death Review Committee, females were the victims in 95% of domestic violence fatality cases. That means women were victims in 19 of every 20 domestic violence deaths. That's not gender-neutral.

Our response must, and does, recognize this reality. With our community partners, we support women and their children escaping violent situations. Each year, our government invests more than $208-million in services that support and protect women from violence, including our $87-million Domestic Violence Action Plan.

Stopping domestic violence is everyone's business. And its existence is not to be trivialized and distorted.

Deb Matthews, Minister Responsible for Women's Issues, Toronto.
National Post
Published: Thursday, December 11, 2008


Professor Don Dutton of UBC also supplied a response to your comments as follows:

Another view on domestic violence
Saturday, December 13, 2008
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1071290

Re: Women's Issues Minister Responds, letter, Dec. 11.

This letter from the Ontario Minister for Women Issues is typical of the misleading information that plagues Canadian policy on domestic violence. Partner homicide is extremely rare, and the Ontario Death Review Committee cherry-picked cases that would support the Ministry's view of domestic violence. The Ontario cases are ones that the committee decided were domestic violence, and do not include all cases of homicide, as the system selects out female precipitated homicides as "manslaughter" or lesser charges.

When one compares the committee's finding -- that 95% of partner homicides are male perpetrated -- with actual research, the picture changes dramatically. An analysis of all U. S. partner homicides from 1976 to 2001 reveals a 2:1 (female victim: male victim) ratio for 50,000+ partner homicides. Canadian data show a spousal homicide ratio from 1974 to 1990 to be about 3:1 (female victim: male victim) -- and this translates to eight husbands killing their wives (out of one million couples) and 2.3 women killing their husbands.

Put somewhat differently, 999,992 men and 999,997.7 per million women do not kill their spouse -- I would say that is not then a gender issue. If such a miniscule group of either gender kills, then something else beside gender must be involved. Government ministries that repeatedly misrepresent domestic violence statistics to perpetuate their existence do no favours to taxpayers, be they male or female.

Don Dutton,
professor of psychology,
University of British Columbia,
Vancouver

Domestic Violence is a serious issue but it will not get resolved using the gender based approach. How can it when only one side of an issue is dealt with rather than the whole. Just imagine if Doctors only looked at one possible scenario of many to heal us. In any problem solving exercise a wide array of possibilities is examined. To ignore 50% of the problem, be that a male or female, is to throw good money after bad. Your government spends a great deal of money on only women's issues. Where are the results?

I look forward to your governments defence of my Human Rights Complaint and I also hope this debate will be very public, as it should be. I will issue press releases when I am ready to send it in to the OHRC. The complaint will be personal, representing only me, but the results may have a benefit for all men in this province, and if the dominoes fall, eventually all battered men across Canada.

Do you want to be the Minister and Government defending a one sided single gender approach, forced into submission by your own HRC, as California was by a court verdict last year, or will you change your policy and treat men and DV with equality?

Yours truly


Mike Murphy
cc Dalton McQuinty, Premier of Ontario, David Orazietti, MPP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, Chris Bentley, Attorney General, Ontario,

Roger Galloway, former MP with 4 children and 3 sons, never divorced, discusses the scourge of tax supported feminism and SOW Canada.


Feminist mischief within Canada's Justice System - Former Parliamentarian Roger Galloway speaks out - Never before seen footage! from Canada Court Watch on Vimeo.








October 27, 2008

Senator Ann Cools speaks to members of the Toronto Police Services on the subject of domestic violence and fraudulent information statistics being promoted by women shelter advocates.

Senator Ann Cools speaks to members of the Toronto Police Services on the subject of domestic violence and fraudulent information statistics being promoted by women shelter advocates.

Category: Nonprofits & Activism

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Ann Cools domestic violence

Toronto criminal defence lawyer, Mr. Walter Fox speaks before Toronto Police Services on the topic of how government funded women shelter advocates in Ontario have effectively bypassed the democratic process using inquests to make their own hidden agenda the law in Ontario.

Ontario's zero tolerance policies and practices that have come about as a result of these inquests have effectively labeled men in Ontario as monsters not worthy of equal treatment under the law.




Ontario Lawyer speaks about flawed domestic violence inquests and fraudulent women's shelter community groups from Canada Court Watch on Vimeo.







This is Walter Fox discussing the Hadley Inquest with more detail than the previous one above.


The Untold Story and Gender Politics behind Ontario's Hadley Murder-Suicide Inquest from Canada Court Watch on Vimeo.