My comments to Kevin:
| from |  Mike Murphy | | sender time | Sent at 09:30 (GMT-04:00). Current time there: 09:41. ✆ | | to | Kevin Libin
| | bcc | Jeremy Swanson
| | date | 23 June 2009 09:30 | | subject | http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/06/19/kevin-libin-in-divorce-disputes-only-men-are-deadbeats.aspx? | | mailed-by | gmail.com |
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Kevin:
I follow the NP closely and two recent columns of yours dealing with family and family law issues, CAS was the other, are both courageous and on the money. Male columnists covering these things tend to get more hate mail.
Family Law or FLAW as some of us like to term it is a dysfunctional and highly biased (9-1 ratio in giving females custody) system that requires changing to a presumption of equal shared parenting with co-residency of children. Where this has been enacted divorce rates drop. In Belgium they have given the collection agency for support a new role as under shared/equal parenting neither party pays it.
Thanks for the coverage. I do comment on most issues surrounding family law but was out of the picture for a few days and missed the timeline on the dead beat dads.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/06/19/kevin-libin-in-divorce-disputes-only-men-are-deadbeats.aspx?
Mike Murphy
The war on men
National Post Published: Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Re: Debter Dads Displayed On Alberta Site, June 19.
As an Albertan, I was brought up to believe in equality of men and women. So I was appalled to learn that the government of my home province has created a website that publicizes the pictures of dads who have missed spousal payments for six months or more. They are made to look like criminals.
They are not. Family courts across Canada, instead of helping families stay together, are openly biased against men. They act on perjured evidence, refuse to allow cross-examination, make orders against men who are not present or order unrealistic payments that violate the principles of justice and equality.
The courts don't care about whether the woman is responsible for the breakup or whether she is a wife or a live-in or whether she cleaned out the bank account before demanding support.
The result is destruction of families. Some men resort to suicide. Some disappear or are in and out of the legal system constantly. Many men lose their children and many children lose their fathers forever.
We can do better. Governments should use these funds for qualified advisors to identify the problems and help work out better solutions. The family courts have failed completely.
Marguerite E. Ritchie, president, Human Rights Institute of Canada, Ottawa.
Iris Evans may have created a bigger controversy this week when the Alberta minister suggested dual-career couples were shortchanging their kids. But when it comes to setting a tone for how the provincial government treats parents, the more significant move was a revamping of a website run by Alberta’s justice department used to hunt down what journalists breezily refer to as “deadbeat dads.”
If there was ever a class of individuals denied an iota of public sympathy, it’s these guys. Calgary Sun writer Michael Platt had fun perusing the photos and mocking the parade of good-for-nothings: “Creepy”; “Crusty”; “Snarly”; some guy “you'd swear had crawled from a cave.” Naturally we presume we know what these guys are all about. The jerks obviously walked out on some poor, kindhearted wife who probably stayed home, sacrificing her own career, to raise the kids. All she wants now are a few dollars to help feed and clothe the little ones. But dad, the bastard, couldn’t care less. These kinds of websites are essential justice, the public shaming of these cads, more than richly deserved.
And probably that’s true in a good number of cases. But anyone who’s seen first-hand the real face of divorce in Canada knows that most family disputes, over custody, or support, aren’t so cut-and-dried. Men can be careless, irresponsible, even vindictive. So can women. Yet, it seems, ridicule and humiliation is something reserved for the male of the species.
