Virtual Library of Newspaper Articles - 2006
Myriam Bedard arrested in Maryland
Canadian Press, various news media throughout Canada, December 23, 2006
JESSUP , Md. Canadian Olympic champion Myriam Bedard is facing Christmas in a stark detention centre after U.S. marshals tracked down the missing mother and her 12-year-old daughter at an upscale hotel in Maryland. More ..
Canada, U.S. teen suicide rates similar
Canadian Press, Dec. 13, 2006
While young Canadian women tend to experience depression and thoughts of suicide more than men, the men are more likely to act on their suicidal thoughts, says a new study on depression and suicide among teens. More..
'Superheroes'fight for father rights
Courts overwhelmingly side with women in custody cases, group says
The Newmarket-Aurora Era Banner, Front Page, Dec 7, 2006, by Patrick Mangion, Staff Writer
(York Region) - Superheroes and Santas protesting outside Newmarket's courthouse were battling the elements and inequality yesterday. A steady stream of people, seeking shelter from the driving snow, craned their necks to shoot curious looks at a small gathering of the newly formed local branch of Fathers 4 Justice.
Donning Superman fatigues, Mark Litman approached men heading into the Eagle Street courthouse.
A drawn-out divorce of his own provided the inspiration to pull up his bright red pants and strap on a set of black boots in yesterday's frigid temperatures.
The 44-year-old Aurora resident, who normally favours a Mr. Incredible persona, simply wanted to see more of his 10-year-old daughter. More ..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Mother and son plunge to deaths on 401
Police probe reports boy tossed from overpass
The Toronto Star, ( Canada's largest daily newspaper ) Dec. 4, 2006. by HENRY STANCU, STAFF REPORTER
Toronto police are investigating reports that a mother threw her young son from an overpass over busy Highway 401 near the Toronto Zoo last night and then jumped after him, killing them both.
Shocked police officers found the bodies of the boy, about 3, and his mother in the westbound collector lanes under the Morningside Ave. bridge at about 7:15 p.m. More ..
Boy can't sue for being barred from girls'team
Associated Press, USA., November 30., 2006
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A boy who wanted to compete on his high school's girls'gymnastics team cannot sue for gender discrimination, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.
The District 4 Court of Appeals upheld a judge's dismissal of Keith Michael Bukowski's lawsuit against the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, which has a rule prohibiting boys from competing in girls'sports.
Bukowski filed the lawsuit as a junior at Stevens Point Area High School in 2004. He argued the WIAA rule preventing him from trying out for and competing on the girl's gymnastics team discriminated against him because his school did not have a boys'team.
Bukowski argued that the rule violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution as well as a federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funds. More ..
Woman who cut off her newborn son's private parts handed 5-year prison term
Mainichi Daily News, Sakai, Osaka, Japan, November 26, 2006
SAKAI, Osaka -- A woman accused of cutting off her newborn son's private parts in 2004 was ordered Monday to spend five years behind bars.
The Sakai branch of the Osaka District Court convicted Shizue Tamura, 27, a resident of Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, of inflicting bodily injury.
"The way she committed the crime was unprecedented, inhumane and cruel," Presiding Judge Masahiro Hosoi said as he handed down the ruling. Prosecutors had demanded an eight-year prison term. More..
CAMPAIGN 2000
Canada's Child Poverty Levels Not Budging - New report shows child poverty 'entrenched'in Canada over 25 Years
Press release - CNW Group on : November 24, 2006
TORONTO, Nov. 24 /CNW/ - The rate of child and family poverty in Canada has been stalled at 17-18% over the past 5 years despite strong economic growth and low unemployment, according to a new report by Campaign 2000. In fact, data from Statistics Canada shows that over the past 25 years Canada's child poverty rate has never dropped below the 15% level of 1989 when the House of Commons resolved to end child poverty.
Titled 'Oh Canada! Too Many Children in Poverty For Too Long,'the 2006 National Report Card on Child & Family Poverty shows that 1,196,000 children - almost 1 in every 6 children - live in poverty in Canada. In First Nations communities the child poverty rate is higher: 1 in every 4 children.
CAMPAIGN 2000 Media Advisory
Transmitted by CNW Group on: November 22, 2006 More ..
2006 Report Card on Child Poverty in Canada to be released Friday, Nov 24
TORONTO, Nov. 22 /CNW/ - National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, will join Laurel Rothman, Campaign 2000 National Coordinator, to release the report 'Oh Canada! Too Many Children in Poverty for Too Long.'
Campaign 2000's annual Report Card on Child Poverty presents the latest statistics on child and family poverty, including disturbing information on poverty among First Nations children.
Oh Canada! Too Many Children in Poverty for Too Long will be released Friday, November 24, at 10:00 a.m. at the Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre, 439 Dundas St. East (southwest corner of Dundas East and Parliament - very limited local parking). More ..
Children changing the world
These young people are making a difference
The Hamilton Spectator, By Lesley Simpson, November 20, 2006
Maddison Babineau, 15, helped build a school in Kenya; and now she's selling jewellery from eBay to build a well there, while battling cancer.
Sabrina Pursley, 11, with sister Faith, raises money for McMaster Children's Hospital.
William Pearson, 17, is refurbishing old computers to give to schools in Zambia.
Kellie Guzzo, 23, started Out of the Heat to feed Hamiltonians in summer.
It's likely not on your calendar, but today is National Child Day. In its
honour, we introduce four people who aren't waiting for grown-ups to change the
world -- they're doing it themselves.
Meet Maddison Babineau, 15, who is coping with her cancer by selling jewellery
from eBay to build a well in Kenya.
Her first wish is already becoming reality -- a school for Kenyan kids is being built on her behalf. More..
Revisiting Canada's infanticide law
A safeguard for women? An insult to women? Canada's infanticide law, like the crime itself, ignites strong emotions on both sides. Just how did the legislation evolve and why do some legal experts want it scrapped?
The Edmonton Journal, David Staples, Sunday, November 12, 2006
"You heartless bastards!"
The words rang out in a Wetaskiwin courtroom, Ryan Effert's verbal attack on the eight-woman, four-man jury that had just found his 20-year-old sister, Katrina, guilty of murdering her newborn baby.
Ryan Effert was the first to lash out at the jury, but his angry words have been echoed by many others. Defence lawyers, legal experts, pundits and members of the public have all expressed upset and bewilderment at the decision on Sept. 26. More..
Man must travel to Prince Albert to visit infant son
Court 'empathetic'that infant not travel for visits: lawyer
The StarPhoenix, by Lana Haight, Friday, November 10, 2006
A Saskatoon man will have to travel to Prince Albert if he wants to continue seeing his infant son.
"We weren't opposed to having (the visits) occur in Prince Albert. The problem was getting them started," said Mark Vanstone, the man's lawyer.
"Now that that's been addressed, he's delighted to see his son." The man, who cannot be named because of a publication ban, learned last spring his former girlfriend was pregnant with his child. His paternity has been proven by a DNA test. Not wanting to keep the child, the mother gave a Prince Albert couple custody of the baby after he was born in April. The Saskatoon man has been fighting for custody of the baby ever since. More ..
Paternity fraud 'dad'loses appeal
The Age, Australia, November 9, 2006
A man who sued his former wife after paying child support for two children fathered by his wife's lover today lost his appeal to the High Court.
The judges unanimously ruled that the case for paternity fraud brought by Liam Neale Magill failed.
Three judges held that no action for deceit could lie in representations about paternity made between spouses.
Three other judges held that there could be circumstances in which such an action might succeed but they were exceptional and did not cover Mr Magill's situation.
However, the court also rejected an argument put by Mr Magill's former wife Meredith that the Family Law Act ruled out any action for deceit. More ..
Husband loses 'duped'child support claim
The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, by Tim Dick, November 9, 2006
Liam Magill ... lost his claim.
A man who claimed he was duped into supporting his wife's two children has lost his claim for damages against his wife for supporting them.
The High Court in Melbourne today rejected a suit by Liam Magill, who married Meredith Magill in 1988, and with whom he thought he had fathered three children.
But the youngest two were not his; fathered instead by another man, his wife's lover.
He paid child support for all three children until 1999 and, in 2000, DNA testing proved he was not the father of the two youngest children.
Mr Magill won $70,000 in the Victorian County Court for economic loss and a psychiatric condition because, the court found, his wife intended him to sign the birth forms as the father, knowing he was not the father.
That decision was overturned, with the Court of Appeal finding he had not relied on the birth forms to do anything except give the children his surname. More ..
Eggs for sale: The booming business of sharing your fertility
It is illegal in this country [UK]. But that does not stop growing numbers of British women contacting websites to generate thousands of pounds with their ovaries.
The Independent, UK, November 7, 2006
Victoria describes herself as "fun loving, generous and considerate". The 29-year-old blonde is "naturally slim with good bone structure", and an accomplished ballet dancer. Danielle, 26, has wavy chestnut-coloured hair and blue eyes. A teacher by profession, she is "tall, athletic and outgoing", and also a part-time model. These are not adverts on internet dating sites. Victoria and Danielle are just two of a rapidly growing number of young British women rushing to cash in on the latest way to make money: the egg donation business. More ..
Dropout legislation softened
Teens won't need to prove they're in school to acquire driver's licence
Toronto Sun, By ANTONELLA ARTUSO, QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEF, November 4, 2006
The Dalton McGuinty government has backed away from a controversial provision in its anti-dropout legislation that would have required teens to prove they're still in school to get a driver's licence.
As originally written, Bill 52 forced teenagers under the age of 18 to show proof of attendance at school or an approved training/co-op program when applying for a G1, G2 or full driver's licence. More ..
Top-ranked bosses know how to 'walk the talk'
From defending staff to child care help, top employers earn accolades, VIRGINIA
GALT writes
The Globe and Mail, WORKPLACE REPORTER, VIRGINIA GALT
Finding quality child care for her daughter was not a problem when first-time mother Anuradha Ray was ready to return to her job as senior compliance analyst at KPMG LLP -- the Toronto-based accounting firm had reserved a spot for baby Kavya in a nearby child care centre.
Better still, Ms. Ray's manager indulged her compulsion to peek at Kavya every now and then through the webcam mounted on her computer at work that was connected with the child care centre. More ..
Teens face trial for taxi murder
The Age, (Australia), by Geesche Jacobsen, October 23, 2006
Two teenage girls will stand trial for the murder of Sydney taxi driver who died of a heart attack after they allegedly assaulted him.
Youbert Hormozi, 53, was allegedly beaten and dragged from his taxi by the girls, now aged 14 and 15, at Canley Heights in Sydney's south-west on January 31. More ..
Toronto mother charged over baby death
Canadian Press (various newspapers across Canada), Oct. 17, 2006.
A Toronto mother has been charged with concealing the death of her baby more than three years ago.
Police allege the woman gave birth to a child sometime in 2002 or 2003.
Its believed the child died after failing to receive any assistance. More ..
Father stunned by child support demands in custody battle
The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, SK, By Lori Coolican, Saturday, October 14, 2006
A Saskatoon father who is battling with a Prince Albert couple for custody of his five-month-old son got a shock this week in the form of a letter demanding that he pay them child support.
"Shame on them," Rick Fredrickson said in an interview, after learning the couple who left a Saskatoon hospital with his newborn son this spring -- while he desperately sought help asserting his paternity and right to custody -- now wants access to his financial records in order to calculate how much he should pay them for the child's care. More..
Boy locked in room for three years by dad
Associated Press, many U.S. and Canadian newspapers, Friday, October 13, 2006
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. U.S.A. (AP) -- A man has been charged with torturing his nine-year-old son by keeping him locked in a bedroom for much of the last three years, a surveillance camera tracking his every move, authorities said Thursday.
The home of Randall Warren Piercy, 41, was like a prison that had cameras in almost every room, with the father monitoring the boy on television and computer screens, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Lt. Annie Smith said. More ..
Role of CAS questioned after Barrie slayings
The Globe and Mail (Canada's largest national newspaper), ANTHONY REINHART AND CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD, October 12, 2006
The mother accused of first-degree murder in the deaths of her two little girls last week was admitted to a psychiatric ward of a local hospital as a suicidal patient just five months earlier.
Frances Elaine Campione, The Globe and Mail has confirmed, was admitted to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, Ont., for an emergency assessment.
The 31-year-old's history in an active file at the Children's Aid Society of Simcoe County raises alarming questions about why the agency returned her two vulnerable youngsters Serena, 3, and Sophia, who was just a year old to her care and what workers and supervisors were doing to monitor her.
Ms. Campione was admitted to hospital early last June after taking an overdose of medication and leaving a suicide note. She was discharged June 30, and within a week or so, The Globe has learned, had managed to regain custody of the little girls and had them back living with her.
Ms. Campione was discharged the same day that another mother who was on the ward at the same time walked out of the Royal Vic but with a battery of support services in place. More ..
Woman who lied about rape gets prison
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Thursday, October 12, 2006
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A woman who lied about getting pregnant through date rape and abandoned her newborn in a trash bin was sentenced to prison for the statutory rape of the baby's father, her 12-year-old cousin.
Twyana Davis, 30, claimed in 1995 that she had been raped at a party, and told her story in a book and on television.
Davis was sentenced Tuesday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to 10 to 25 years in prison. She had confessed to having a sexual relationship with the cousin, leading to her pregnancy.
Judge Michael J. Holbrook labeled her a sexual predator and fined her $10,000. More ..
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics at UNICEF
Editorial -
www.ifeminists.com, U.S.A., by Carey Roberts, October 11, 2006
At first I assumed UNICEF director Ann Veneman had been terribly misquoted.
This was the statement the media attributed to her: "We know that women do about 66% of the work in the world, they produce 50% of the food, but earn 5% of the income and own 1% of the property." But then I checked, and that's what she had said. It was right on the UNICEF website.
The implication of Veneman's comment was clear: Around the world, men are lazy dolts who lord over down-trodden women.
But I was a skeptical. So I called the UNICEF press office and asked for the source of those damning statistics. Press aide Kate Donovan cheerfully reassured me that Veneman is "very picky about her facts" and promised she'd get back to me. She never did. More ..
Sins of the mother
National Post ( one of Canada's 2 national newspapers), by Barbara Kay, Wednesday, October 11, 2006
We have heard the story before. The names change, the province changes, the
particulars of the custody case change, the age of the dead child changes, but
some things stay the same when a mother kills her own children: Any objective
observer can see the tragedy coming a mile away,
the children are not removed from her toxic embrace before it happens, and the
mother is not only insufficiently punished (if at all) for the crime, but
receives public sympathy on the assumption she was driven to it by forces beyond
her control.
Last week, Frances Elaine Campione, 31, locked in a year-long custody battle
with her estranged husband Leonardo, was charged with the murder of their two
baby daughters, one-year-old Sophia, and three-year-old Serena. Whatever the
truth turns out to be in this case, warning signs
had abounded: The Children's Aid Society of Simcoe County, Ont. had kept an open
file on this family for some time; former neighbours portrayed the mother as
unstable and possibly suicidal; some described bizarre and frightening public
behaviour; she had been hospitalized for treatment on several occasions.
In the past five years, there have been several comparable tragedies. In 2003, 13-month-old Zachary Turner was drugged and drowned in Newfoundland by his mother, Shirley, while she was out on bail for the third time on charges of murdering Zachary's father. Then there was Toronto baby Jordan Heikamp, who in 2001 starved to death in his mother's care under the eyes of the Catholic Children's Aid Society (no jail time), and Toronto baby Sara Cao, abused to death in 2001 by her mother Elizabeth (again no jail time -- has any murdering mom ever done jail time in Canada?). According to Christie Blatchford, who followed the case, Sara's mother was "treated by the system, and in the main by the media, as a pitiful [woman], worthy of sympathy." More ..
Dad will get to hold infant son
Trial will decide final custody in case
The StarPhoenix, By Lori Coolican, Page A3, October 5, 2006
A family court judge has cleared the way for a Saskatoon man to hold his infant son in his arms for the very first time, five months after the child was born in a local hospital and handed over to a childless Prince Albert couple.
Rick Fredrickson and his fiance can spend one hour a week with the baby under close supervision at a Prince Albert facility while waiting for a trial to decide who will get custody, Justice Sean Smith ruled Wednesday.
The fact that Fredrickson is the biological father is no guarantee he'll win the right to raise his son, Smith noted. More ..
North Country Gazette
Woman Seeking Child Support Jailed On Rape Charge
North Country Gazette, New York, U.S.A., October 5, 2006, WARRENSBURG, NY, U.S.A. --A woman who went to Warren County Family Court in an effort to make the father of her child pay child support is in jail, charged with second degree rape and faces up to seven years in prison.
Kimberly A. Baker, 22, of Evergreen Lane, was criminally charged with statutory rape after it was learned that father of her 2-year-old child was only 13 years old when he had sex with her. The child was born on June 14, 2004. More ..
Gender Disconnect
Edmonton Sun, By MINDELLE JACOBS, October 9, 2006
As hard as we try to break down the gender divide, it constantly rears its controversial head especially when a woman is accused of a terrible crime.
When a man is arrested for killing his children, the community immediately labels him a monster and is ready to lynch him before he even gets to trial.
But when a woman kills her own flesh and blood, we typically wonder what kind of difficult circumstances or mental anguish she must have endured before snapping.
Some men commit crimes because that's what men do, the thinking goes. More ..
Some mothers have had enough hugs
The Globe and Mail (Canada's largest national newspaper) , By CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD, Friday, October 6, 2006 Page A1
Toronto - As a female friend of Frances Elaine Campione put it, this after Ms. Campione was charged on Wednesday with murder in the death of her two young children, "That mother needs a hug."
In that line, widely repeated in Toronto and national media outlets, is a telling clue to what is so wrong with much of what happens both in the nation's family courts and in its child-protection system -- the pervasive view of the female of the species as constantly nurturing (except, you know, when she allegedly kills) and as in need of constant nurture (hugs all 'round, no matter what).
For the record, Ms. Campione was arrested two days ago after she phoned 911 to report that there were two dead children inside her Barrie, Ont., apartment, and shortly after, didn't police arrive to find the bodies of her own little girls, one-year-old Sophia and three-year-old Serena.
She and her estranged husband Leo were reportedly in the throes of a nasty custody battle, with Mr. Campione accused of assaulting his wife and the older child, and Ms. Campione allegedly alarmed, and/or depressed, at the prospect of losing that fight.
And The Globe has confirmed that involved with the family was the Children's Aid Society of Simcoe County. At the moment, the nature of that involvement is unknown -- except as it has been reported by neighbours who saw social workers at the apartment and say that, for a time recently, the girls lived with their paternal grandparents.More..
Fraud Nets 16 Month Sentence
The Albuquerque Journal, U.S.A., by Carolyn Carlson, Journal Staff Writer, Friday, October 6, 2006
A woman who orchestrated an elaborate ruse using fake DNA and forged Social Security, birth and baptismal records to create an imaginary child received 16 months in federal prison Thursday for filing a false tax return.
Viola Trevino, 53, murmured to U.S. District Judge M. Christina Armijo that she would rather have five years'probation so she can be employed in order to begin restitution payments to the Internal Revenue Service and to her ex-husband Steve Barreras. She owes more than $2,000 to the IRS and more than $26,000 to Barreras."I do have to pay this money back ... That is the most important thing," Trevino said to Armijo. "I am really sorry for everything that has happened." More..
'Sweet little angels'slain in Barrie
The Globe and Mail (Canada's largest national newspaper), ARMINA LIGAYA and TIMOTHY APPLEBY, October 5, 2006
BARRIE, TORONTO -- They were sisters, one and three years old. Neighbours say they always seemed happy, well cared for and well dressed. And early yesterday morning they were killed, and their mother is charged with murder.
A Barrie woman, said to be embroiled in a bitter custody battle, appears in court this morning after a double slaying that a seasoned investigator described as "traumatic for the whole community."
The shock waves were being felt last night south of Barrie in Woodbridge, at the family home of her estranged husband, Leonardo Campione, father of the dead girls.
No family member would comment, but Maria Frangic, a neighbour who went inside the Woodbridge home last night, said: "They are all sad. They can't even talk. More..
'Sweet little angels'slain in Barrie
The Globe and Mail, ARMINA LIGAYA and TIMOTHY APPLEBY, October 5, 2006
BARRIE, TORONTO -- They were sisters, one and three years old. Neighbours say they always seemed happy, well cared for and well dressed. And early yesterday morning they were killed, and their mother is charged with murder.
A Barrie woman, said to be embroiled in a bitter custody battle, appears in court this morning after a double slaying that a seasoned investigator described as "traumatic for the whole community."
The shock waves were being felt last night south of Barrie in Woodbridge, at the family home of her estranged husband, Leonardo Campione, father of the dead girls.
No family member would comment, but Maria Frangic, a neighbour who went inside the Woodbridge home last night, said: "They are all sad. They can't even talk. More..
Mothers kill as often as fathers do
The Globe and Mail, by TIMOTHY APPLEBY, October 5, 2006
Mother-on-child homicides are rare in Canada but far from unknown.
Twenty-seven of the 37 children slain countrywide in 2004 -- 73 per cent -- were killed by their parents, and mothers were responsible for as many of the deaths as were fathers.
Among those 27 victims, 13 were killed by their biological mothers, eight by their biological fathers.. More..
Barrie mom faced custody hearing
Girls, 1 and 3, found dead at home
Family court appearance set for today
JIM WILKES AND JESSICA LEEDER, STAFF REPORTERS, Oct. 5, 2006
BARRIE Friends say a woman charged with killing her two young daughters feared she was about to lose them in a bitter custody battle with her estranged husband.
The latest chapter in the custody dispute was to have played out in family court today, but yesterday's slayings of Sophia Campione, 3, and her year-old sister Serena have brought that hearing to a tragic end. More..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Girl burned in lighter fluid attack
The Toronto Star (Canada's largest daily newspaper), by JOANNA SMITH, STAFF REPORTER, Oct. 4, 2006
A 13-year-old girl suffered second-degree burns to her chest after two boys sprayed her with lighter fluid and set her shirt on fire in York, police say.
Two teenage boys were recording themselves with a digital camera as they played with lighter fluid and set their clothing on fire in the Eglinton Ave. W. and Black Creek Dr. area around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, police said. More ..
No need for Zachary Turner to die: death review
CBC News, Wednesday, October 4, 2006
The social services system in Newfoundland and Labrador failed a 13-month-old boy, who drowned along with his mother in a 2003 murder-suicide, a review has found.
Zachary Turner died when Shirley Turner, 42, clutched him to her body and jumped into Conception Bay, several kilometres outside of St. John's.
"Nowhere did I find any ongoing assessment of the safety needs of the children," coroner Peter Markesteyn, referring both to Zachary and Turner's daughter from another relationship, wrote in a three-volume report released Wednesday.
Turner, a general practitioner, fled to Newfoundland after her estranged lover Andrew Bagby, 28, was shot to death in a Pennsylvania parking lot on Nov. 5, 2001. More ..
Mother arrested in death of her 2 children
CBC News, Wednesday, October 4, 2006
A 31-year-old mother has been arrested after her two children were found dead in an apartment in Barrie, Ont., early Wednesday morning.
The two girls, aged one and three, were found in a high rise apartment on Coulter Street located between Sunnidale Park and Bayfield Mall in the west end of the city. Barrie is about 80 kilometres north of Toronto. More ..
When is a law not a law?
When do-gooder politicians fail to proclaim it
TORONTO SUN, By LINDA WILLIAMSON, October 1, 2006
Sometimes the good guys win, and it's great news.
The bad news is, sometimes just winning isn't enough.
Let's start with the good news first. After a last-ditch effort by a grieving mother and her legion of supporters, the Ontario legislature last week passed a private member's bill that we can all hope will help save young lives.
Bill 89, known as "Kevin and Jared's Law" and spearheaded by Conservative MPP Cam Jackson, was passed -- against all odds -- after Julie Craven, mother of 8-year-old murder victim Jared Osidacz, essentially shamed our legislators into it. More ..
Lawyers appeal in infanticide case
Edmonton Journal, CanWest News Service; Friday, September 29, 2006
Wetaskiwin AB-Katrina Effert, 19, in disguise, quickly enters the Wetaskiwin Court House for her trial, she's charged with second-degree murder in the death of her newborn son in Wetaskiwin in 2005.
EDMONTON - Lawyers for an Alberta woman are appealing her second-degree murder conviction for killing her newborn baby.
In the meantime, they hope Katrina Effert, 20, of Wetaskiwin, Alta., will be able to get bail during what could be a lengthy process.
''We did that this morning,''lawyer Sheila Schumacher said Thursday after launching their appeal. More..
Alberta baby-killing verdict discussions echo national infanticide debate
Canadian Press, By: LISA ARROWSMITH, September 27, 2006
WETASKIWIN, Alta. (CP) - It's a small farming community whose high number of auto dealerships has given it a reputation as a good place for a deal on a car.
But the morning after a young local woman was convicted of murdering her newborn baby, debate on the leafy streets of Wetaskiwin, Alta., was over much higher stakes than Ford Vs. Chevy.
"Ten years is not sufficient," said an adamant Gail Doolittle, referring to the sentence handed out to Katrina Effert, 20.
"That's the justice system. We need to give them a chance," she sneered as she loaded her two-year-old daughter Heather into a car seat at a local grocery store. More ..
Verdict shocks experts
Murder convictions rare when moms kill newborns
The Edmonton Journal, Jim Farrell, Thursday, September 28, 2006
EDMONTON -- Legal experts, stunned by Tuesday's second-degree murder conviction of a 20-year-old woman who killed her newborn baby, declared an appeal on the grounds of "unreasonable verdict" a virtual certainty.
Expect Katrina Effert of Wetaskiwin to win that appeal and get a new trial says a University of Winnipeg criminologist.
"I think her chances are pretty good," Kirsten Kramar said. "Effert's second-degree murder conviction is completely out of step with jurisprudence in other provinces. It wasn't a just outcome."
The jury at Effert's trial had the option of finding her guilty of second- degree murder, of infanticide or of manslaughter. Convicted of infanticide or manslaughter, Effert might have gone to jail for a short period of time or she might have received only a conditional sentence and done no time at all. More ..
Losing the right to a mommy and daddy
National Post, (one of Canada's 2 national newspapers), by Barbara Kay, Wednesday, September 27, 2006
"I believe children have the right to a mother and a father, and preferably their biological parents."
These words -- I agree with them, and so do the UN Conventions of the Child -- were once the equivalent of saying you believed in peace on Earth and goodwill toward men.
But in postmodern societies obsessed with gender equity, as ours has been for the past quarter-century, "mother and father" and "biological parents" have become politically incorrect locutions when joined to "children's rights." Just ask the author of my opening statement, the McGill University bioethicist Margaret Somerville, whose honorary doctorate at Ryerson College last June was jeopardized on its account. More ..
Teacher Sentenced For Sex With Student
Woman Had Faced 66 Months In Prison
NBC Sandiego, U.S.A., September 26, 2006
 |
|
Danielle Walls |
Danielle Walls, 27, a former Clairemont High School history teacher, was accused by prosecutors of having sex two years ago with a male student in her 10th-grade history class. Deputy District Attorney Dwayne Moring said Walls had sex with the boy 10 to 25 times at four or five hotels around the county.
On Tuesday, Walls was sentenced to one year in jail and will also be on probation for five years. Walls had faced up to five years and six months in prison. She could have been sentenced to as much as 16 years in prison if she had been convicted of all the original charges. More ..
Autopsy: Slain woman's kids were drowned
Associated Press Writer, By JIM SUHR, Sun Sep 24, 2006
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. U.S.A. - A woman accused of killing a pregnant woman and her fetus told police she drowned the woman's three young children and stuffed them into a washer and dryer at their apartment, an official said Sunday.
Preliminary autopsies on the dead children Sunday appear to show they were drowned, Ace Hart, a deputy St. Clair County coroner, told The Associated Press.
As of Sunday, Tiffany Hall, 24, had not been charged in the children's deaths, but prosecutors on Saturday accused Hall of killing their mother, Jimella Tunstall, 23, and her fetus. The fetus had been cut from her womb, authorities said. More ..
Accused baby killer was revered by children, court told
CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal, Wednesday, September 20, 2006
EDMONTON - Three women who have known Katrina Effert for decades told the jury at her murder trial how she has been loved and revered by children all her life and how she returned that affection.
Effert, 20, is accused of strangling her baby last year with a pair of her thong underwear and dumping his body over a neighbour's fence within hours of secretly giving birth in the basement of her parents'Wetaskiwin, Alta., home.
Defence witness Cathy Doty testified she has known Effert all her life. She said children loved Effert.
"They loved her to pieces," said Doty, Effert's second cousin. "They didn't leave her alone. They surrounded her all the time. More ..
Youth crime down: Stats Can
National Post, (one of Canada's 2 national newspapers) Global TV network, various Canwest newspapers, CanWest News Service, Meagan Fitzpatrick, Wednesday, September 20, 2006
OTTAWA - For the second year in a row, the number of youths aged 12 to 17 behind bars or on probation has gone down, according to an analysis from Statistics Canada.
The report suggests that the implementation of the Youth Criminal Justice Act in 2003 is having an effect in driving the numbers down.
In 2004 to 2005, an average of 1,300 young people in sentenced custody on any given day, down about 16 per cent from 2003 to 2004 and down 50 per cent since the YCJA went into effect. About 700 of these individuals were in secure custody, down 14 per cent, while 600 were in open custody, a 20 per cent drop. More ..
Smoke-free apartments in Winnipeg
Canadian Press,("Canada's independent news agency"), September 20, 2006
WINNIPEG -- Smokers in search of an apartment in Winnipeg will soon have fewer buildings to choose from now that one of the city's largest landlords has opted to go smoke-free.
Globe General Agencies, which manages about 5,000 units across the city and thousands more across parts of Canada, will ban smoking for all new tenants moving into its 75 buildings as of Oct. 1.
Existing tenants who smoke will be allowed to continue, but the company sees the policy as a first step toward making all its buildings entirely smoke-free, said president Richard Morantz.
"Really this is just all part of providing a safe and healthy environment for our tenants," Morantz said Tuesday. More ..
Man fights for custody of son
Child now in care of Prince Albert couple
The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, by Lori Coolican, Saturday, September 16, 2006
Ever since an anonymous caller tipped him off about his impending fatherhood, a Saskatoon man has been fighting for custody of his baby son, who was mysteriously whisked out of a local hospital within days of birth and is now living with a well-to-do Prince Albert couple.
"At what point do you sit back and say, 'Laws have been broken here?'" Rick Fredrickson said in an interview Friday. "I just wish someone could crack this thing open and find out who was involved." It was mid-April and Fredrickson's ex-girlfriend Tricia -- not her real name -- was almost due to deliver their child when he found out she was pregnant.
The anonymous caller, who identified himself as a relative of Tricia's, warned Fredrickson that she was telling people he was the father and vowing he would never get to see the baby, though she didn't want to keep it herself. More ..
Husband Cooker Loses Appeal
Karen Knight stabbed her common-law husband, 44-year-old Mr Price, 37 times with a butcher's knife before skinning him and hanging his hide from a meat hook in their lounge room on February 29, 2000.
She then decapitated him and put his head in a pot on the stove, baked flesh from his buttocks and cooked vegetables and gravy as side dishes to serve to Mr Price's children. More ..
Global TV
Rich income, poor income gap widens
Global TV National, Monday, September 04, 2006
Members of the United Steel Workers union march in the Detroit Labor Day Parade September 4, 2006 in Detroit, Michigan. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
VANCOUVER -- Our neighbours to the south may have Canadians to thank when it comes to enjoying a day off in September.
Inspired by Toronto's Annual Worker's Parade in the late 1800s, the American Labour Movement also adopted the first Monday of September to rally for the rights of workers -- but a century later, the state of the workers may not be so rosy.
For nine straight years, the U.S. minimum wage rate has remained unchanged, according to the Ecomonic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington-based think tank, while the wages of the highest earners in America have continued to soar -- to the degree that the U.S. ranks dead last in worker equality among industrialized nations. More..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Welfare study shows need for guaranteed income
The Toronto Star, HUGH SEGAL, SPECIAL TO THE STAR, Sep. 2, 2006
Canada's on-again, off-again relationship with a guaranteed annual income (GAI) has made the rounds for many years. The most renowned recommendation for the GAI came out of the 1985 report of the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, chaired by Donald Macdonald, known as the Macdonald Commission.
The report stated unequivocally that a universal income security program is "the essential building block" for social security programs in the 21st century. A guaranteed annual income or basic income is the concept of a floor income provided on a continual basis varying on family size, age, and other sources of income. More..
Father gets custody of daughter; mother still in Canadian jail
CBC News, Fri, 01 Sep 2006
A girl allegedly taken to Canada by her mother three years ago in defiance of a custody order will now live with her father in New York, according to the father's lawyer.
A judge in Montgomery County, Pa., on Friday awarded sole custody of Rachel Marran, 7, to her father, Michael Marran, said his lawyer, Colleen Consolo.
Rachel and her mother, Claudia Librett, disappeared from their home in suburban Philadelphia in January 2003, a day after a judge had granted Marran joint custody of the child. Authorities found mother and daughter earlier this month living in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. More..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Where compassion hides its face
The Toronto Star, (Canada's largest daily newspaper) by CAROL GOAR, Sep. 1, 2006
He was a nice kid. He didn't deserve to run into a voter like me.
I live in Parkdale-High Park, the west-end riding where a by-election is being fought to replace Gerard Kennedy, who resigned his seat in the provincial Legislature in May to run for the federal Liberal leadership.
An earnest young canvasser for New Democratic Party candidate Cheri DiNovo knocked on my door the other day.
He asked if I was aware there was a by-election going on. I said I was.
He asked if I had read any of DiNovo's campaign brochures. I said I had.
He tried to gauge whether I was a NDP supporter. I was unhelpful.
Finally, he asked whether I had any questions. I thought about smiling and saying no but couldn't. "Well, yes, as a matter of fact," I said. "I don't see anything in Ms. DiNovo's literature about raising social assistance rates. I'm concerned that politicians at Queen's Park are ignoring the poorest people in the province." More ..
Help for 1st-generation college students
Canadian Press, ("Canada's independent news agency"), KEITH LESLIE, Aug. 30, 2006
Young people in Ontario will be encouraged to become the first in their family to attend university or college under a $5-million program for so-called first-generation students, Premier Dalton McGuinty announced Wednesday.
The money will go to the post-secondary institutions and to church groups, cultural centres and other community-based organizations to help identify people who could be helped to return to college or university, or to become an apprentice.
"It's all about funding programs designed to reach out into the community and to lend a hand to first-generation students, and to provide them with the necessary encouragement and the necessary supports so that they can pursue their studies," McGuinty told students and staff at Seneca College in Toronto.
"It's more than just the right thing to do, it's a powerful economic strategy at the beginning of the 21st century in our knowledge-based economy."
Another $1 million in first-generation student bursaries, which the government estimates will help some 450 people in obtaining a higher education, will be made available for the new academic year. More ..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Overdue support to disabled just first step
The Toronto Star, (Canada's largest daily newspaper ) by HELEN HENDERSON, Aug. 29, 2006.
Kudos to Sudbury community legal worker Marie Lalande for setting in motion the action that led to Ontario finally agreeing to pay $25 million in overdue support to some 19,000 people with disabilities.
As reported by the Star's Rob Ferguson, cabinet approved the payout last week in response to a blistering attack by Ontario Ombudsman Andr Marin. Marin called it "morally repugnant" that the province was taking an average of eight months to process disability support applications but would pay only four months of retroactive benefits to those whose applications were accepted.
The four-month cut-off was cancelled May 31, the day Marin released his report, but the system was so backlogged, there was no immediate relief.
The province is to be commended for acknowledging its responsibility and moving quickly to correct an inequity that has created so much unnecessary hardship. But as Lalande and other advocates point out, this is by no means the only flaw in the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).
With a surplus in its coffers, Queen's Park should move to help people with disabilities rise above subsistence levels. It would pay off big time and long term, improving general health and helping them reach their full potential. More ..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Editorial / Opinion
Welfare programs fail the neediest
The Toronto Star, (Canada's largest daily newspaper) Aug. 28, 2006
Do you belong to a typical middle-income family of four in Ontario? Then you took in about $80,000 last year. And you no doubt had to make some difficult lifestyle choices. Maybe between investing in a new car or splurging on a vacation. Or buying a plasma TV or braces for one of the kids.
Now try to imagine what your life would have been like trying to make ends meet on less than a quarter of your income. How would you have housed, fed and clothed your family and provided all the other necessities of life on just $19,302? That's just half the poverty line.
If it sounds next to impossible, it is.
Yet that is what an Ontario couple with two children living on welfare receives in benefits. Social assistance in this province has never been adequate. And it has declined for 13 years, eroded by inflation. More..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Overdue support to disabled just first step
The Toronto Star, (Canada's largest daily newspaper ) by HELEN HENDERSON, Aug. 29, 2006.
Kudos to Sudbury community legal worker Marie Lalande for setting in motion the action that led to Ontario finally agreeing to pay $25 million in overdue support to some 19,000 people with disabilities.
As reported by the Star's Rob Ferguson, cabinet approved the payout last week in response to a blistering attack by Ontario Ombudsman Andr Marin. Marin called it "morally repugnant" that the province was taking an average of eight months to process disability support applications but would pay only four months of retroactive benefits to those whose applications were accepted.
The four-month cut-off was cancelled May 31, the day Marin released his report, but the system was so backlogged, there was no immediate relief.
The province is to be commended for acknowledging its responsibility and moving quickly to correct an inequity that has created so much unnecessary hardship. But as Lalande and other advocates point out, this is by no means the only flaw in the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).
With a surplus in its coffers, Queen's Park should move to help people with disabilities rise above subsistence levels. It would pay off big time and long term, improving general health and helping them reach their full potential. More ..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
In rich Canada, welfare worsens
Recipients get less than 20 years ago
Public is turning a blind eye to issue
The Toronto Star, ( Canada's largest daily newspaper) THOMAS WALKOM, NATIONAL AFFAIRS COLUMNIST, Aug. 25, 2006
Here in Canada, in one of the richest countries of the world, the very poorest are getting poorer. This is not the result of some external or unforeseen crisis. It is happening in the midst of a long-running economic boom and reflects the deliberate decisions of elected governments presumably supported by the Canadian public at large to purge the roughly 1.7 million people consigned to welfare from our collective consciousness.
It is shameful. It is pretty much criminal. And, as the National Council on Welfare, an advisory body to the federal government, warned in a report released yesterday, it is remarkably short-sighted. In particular, it is short-sighted for those of us in the broader middle classes who assume wrongly that we could never end up on the dole.
It's a cruel world out there now. Successive governments have gutted or eliminated much of Canada's vaunted social safety net. For most workers, employment insurance doesn't exist. Increasingly, employers prefer part-time or contract workers who can be fired at will and who are owed neither benefits nor pensions.
If the economy falters and unemployment spikes as it is almost sure to do again there is not much between a comfortable middle-class life and welfare.
So just hope it doesn't happen to you. As the council points out, for the vast majority of those on welfare, things are bad and getting worse.
The figures are depressing and distressing. In Ontario, for example, the incomes of most welfare recipients, after adjustment for inflation, are lower now than they were 20 years ago. More ..
PERCEPTION: 9% of parents think their children are fat REALITY: 26% of children are obese or overweight
The Globe and Mail, (Canada's largest national newspaper) by ANDR PICARD, PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTER
CHARLOTTETOWN -- Pollsters may have discovered another symptom of the childhood obesity epidemic: widespread delusion among parents.
A new poll shows that only 9 per cent of Canadian parents believe their children are overweight or obese. That is markedly less than the 26 per cent who are, in fact, overweight or obese, according to data collected by Statistics Canada.
"Parents seem to be looking at the health of their own children through rose-coloured glasses," said Ruth Collins-Nakai, president of the Canadian Medical Association, which commissioned the survey.
Over all, Canadian children rated poorly in the eyes of adults, with only 6 per cent garnering an "A" for overall health among respondents. More..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Unfair punishment for dropouts
The Toronto Star, (Canada's largest daily newspaper), by CAROL GOAR, Aug. 23, 2006
One of the threads Liberal leadership contender Gerard Kennedy left dangling when he stepped down as Ontario education minister was a bill depriving anyone who quits school before 18 of the right to hold a driver's licence.
It would have been best to let it drop. The measure is clumsy, coercive and unduly harsh on rural teens.
But Kennedy's replacement, Sandra Pupatello, is determined to tie up loose ends. After four days'debate this spring, she whisked the bill off to a legislative committee for line-by-line scrutiny. "We are hoping to see it approved as soon as possible," said a ministerial aide. "This is a priority for this government."
The committee, chaired by government backbencher Bob Delaney of Mississauga West, isn't likely to provide much resistance. Eight of its 11 members are Liberals. Only two (both Conservatives) represent rural ridings.
There is still one chance albeit a slim one to halt this rush to punish. More ..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Smokers - the new deviants
The Toronto Star, (Canada's largest daily newspaper) SPECIAL TO THE STAR, PATRICIA PEARSON, Aug. 20, 2006
Smokers need not apply," ran a classified ad for a job in Ireland this past May.
"Why not?" asked Catherine Stihler, a British Labour party MEP, who posed the question on behalf of one of her constituents. Should women not apply, either? Or homosexuals? Muslims? What about high-functioning alcoholics, or fat people?
The answer, from the European Commission that oversees anti-discrimination legislation in the EU, came back to Stihler this month: Smokers are fair game for discrimination. More ..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Wrong solution to real problem
Toronto Star, Aug. 19, 2006. 01:00 AM
Letter to the editor re: Courts not answer for kids, critics say, Aug. 16.
Justice Minister Vic Toews has identified a real problem but is offering the wrong solution. Hauling children as young as 10
before the criminal justice system is more likely to compound whatever mental
health problems they have.
More ..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Letter to the editor
Social inequality matter for us all
The Toronto Star, letter to the editor, by Marvin A. Zuker, Ontario Court of Justice, Toronto, Aug. 17, 2006.
re: Should 10-year-olds face a judge? Aug. 15.
With reference to Tracey Tyler's headline, I would suggest, with great respect to the minister of justice, that if the answer to crime in Canada is to lower the age of responsibility to 10 under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, then this is not the answer. Many young people today have no hope in their lives. Many think nothing about the consequences of their actions. It is as much about filling the gaps in community programs. It is as much about evening recreation events, summer jobs, and college tuition. We must begin by compensating for family disadvantage and look at the background and resources of families in need and children at risk. More ..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Boy, 8, found dead; mom faces charge
Canadian Press, (various newspapers across Canada, including the Toronto Star ) Aug. 16, 2006.
ISLE LA MOTTE, Vt. A Montreal mother recovering from alleged self-inflicted wounds will be charged in the coming days with murdering her 8-year-old son, whose body was found in Lake Champlain, a Vermont state attorney said today.
I am going to prepare a charge of first-degree murder, Grand Isle States Attorney David Miller said in a telephone interview. More ..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
Courts not answer for kids, critics say
Treating youths more 'chaotic,'advocate says
Ottawa wants to hold 10-year-olds liable for actions
The Toronto Star, (Canada's largest daily newspaper), by JESSICA LEEDER, STAFF REPORTER, Aug. 16, 2006
Slotting troubled 10-year-olds into the criminal justice system creates unnecessary hurdles for kids who need mental-health treatment to move off a criminal course, says Ontario's child advocate. More ..
Canada's largest daily newspaper
SHOULD 10-YEAR OLDS FACE A JUDGE?
(Front page - main headline)
Justice Minister Vic Toews thinks so. He wants the age at which courts intervene in a delinquent child's life lowered from 12
Minister: Goal is treatment, not jail
The Toronto Star, (Canada's largest daily newspaper in Canada's most populous city) LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER, TRACEY TYLER, Aug. 15, 2006.
ST. JOHN'S - Justice Minister Vic Toews says the Youth Criminal Justice Act may need to be changed so children as young as 10 and 11 who "run afoul of the law" can be brought to court.
Speaking to members of the Canadian Bar Association at their annual meeting here yesterday, Toews said he is considering amending the legislation to give judges authority over alleged young offenders at a much earlier stage than allowed currently. The act now applies to youths between 12 and 18. More..
Teen Sues Mother for ID of Father
By Tresa Baldas, The National Law Journal, U.S.A., August 11, 2006
In a case that family law experts fear could set a dangerous precedent, a Michigan teenager is suing his mother to learn the identity of his father.
Family law attorneys say the issue of compelling a mother to reveal the identity of the biological father is a new area of law. And depending on how the Michigan judge rules in the case, they say, courts nationally could see a new flood of lawsuits of children suing their parents. More..
Dead-beat arrears hit historical high
The Kingston Whig-Standard and other newspapers of the Osprey News Network James Wallace, Queens Park - Friday, August 11, 2006
Dead-beat parents owe an all-time historical high of $1.35 billion in support arrears, Ontario Ombudsman Andr Marin has found.
As a consequence, welfare bills in this province have been inflated by some $200 million, Marin concluded in a report released yesterday.
Dead beats in this province have been having a free ride on the backs the citizens of Ontario, he told a Queens Park press conference.
As revealed by Osprey Media earlier this week, Marins report blamed a decade-old, lackadaisical attitude at the provinces Family Responsibility Office (FRO) for having repeatedly frustrated both parents who pay and receive child support.
The office has consistently demonstrated a slavish and blind adherence to rules. The agency also suffers from both a profound attitudinal problem and conflict of identity which results in a failure to aggressively enforce support payments which is its fundamental reason for existing. More ..
FRO HURTS BOTH SIDES IN DIVORCE, LAWYER SAYS
The Ottawa Sun, August 10, 2006 Page: 4 BY DONNA CASEY
A scathing report from Ontario's watchdog slamming the office in charge of enforcing child-support orders has made public what divorcing couples have known for years, says one Ottawa lawyer.
The Family Responsibility Office is underfunded, its staff overworked and generally "rife with problems," says Russ Molot, who specializes in family law.
"It's kind of like your well-intentioned in-law you wish you'd never met," Molot says about the Family Responsibility Office.
Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin criticized the provincial agency, which was created more than a decade ago as a streamlined central registry, for taking a "lackadaisical attitude" to helping parents receive the money owed them to support their children. More ..
Deadbeat parents get 'free ride'
Ontario lax in collecting cash: Ombud
$1.3B in child, spousal support unpaid
August 10, 2006, KERRY GILLESPIE, QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU
More than $1.3 billion in child and spousal support remains unpaid because the provincial office responsible for collecting the money doesn't aggressively go after deadbeat parents, says ombudsman Andr Marin.
"Deadbeats in this province have been having a free ride," Marin said yesterday when he released the results of his investigation into the Family Responsibility Office (FRO).
"FRO is lackadaisical in its approach and too laid-back," Marin said.
Taxpayers have also been left on the hook for paying $200 million in social assistance to families left destitute by delinquent support payers, he said. More ..
Ombud blasts child-support collections
Cites example of mother who changed name to avoid making payments
Canadian Press, ("Canada's independent news agency"), (published in various newspapers across Canada including The Toronto Star, August 9, 2006
A name change that kept a dad from collecting child support is just the latest in routine carelessness at the office tasked with collecting from deadbeat parents, Ontarios ombudsman said today.
Andre Marin called on the province to take action after finding the Family Responsibility Office is inept and has a ``lackadaisical attitude when it comes to collecting outstanding child support.
He wants the provincial government to fix the system which was set up a decade ago to enforce court-awarded support orders because deadbeats have been having a free ride for too long. More ..
The Conservative Voice
Female Sexual Predators: Veiled Epidemic
The Conservative Voice , website, U.S.A., by Gordon Finley ( Professor of Psychology at Florida International University in Miami Florida, U.S.A. ) August 08, 2006
From the increasing frequency with which reports of female teachers having sex with their pupils are appearing in the print and electronic media to Lauren Books article My Nanny Molested Me in the February issue of Seventeen magazine, concerned citizens have every right to be asking themselves: What is going on here? And, perhaps most critically: Is this the tip of the iceberg?
Basically, the answer is yes, it is the tip of the iceberg. It also is fair to ask: How do we know? It is difficult to know with precision because female sexual predators have been a politically incorrect topic and thus hidden from public view. However, we do know that the few professionals who have worked in the area universally acknowledge massive underreporting by the boy and girl victims of female sexual predators and, even when reports of female sexual molestation emerge, they are met with disbelief by parents and police.
Critically, we now have sufficient preliminary research evidence and well documented case reports to know that we do have a serious social problem which requires immediate public, Congressional, and Judicial attention. Consider first the research. More ..
Letter to the Editor
Judgment reinforces court bias against dads
The Vancouver Province, Vancouver, British Columbia, Thursday, August 3, 2006
The Supreme Court of Canada has again unfairly declared open season on fathers by awarding a mother rather than her children more rights to dad's cash.
The court's ruling says parents are obliged to support their children in a way commensurate with their income.
If parents receive pay increases at work following a divorce but don't give more in child support, they can be walloped with retroactive charges.
Statistically, women are given custody of the children in 93 per cent of Canadian court cases. More ..
Ruling may add to family conflict
SCOC child support decision likely to increase animosity between divorced parents
Windsor Star, by Trevor Wilhelm, Tuesday, August 01, 2006
A Supreme Court ruling that people should boost child support cheques when their income increases could put many divorced and separated Windsor parents on the hook for hefty retroactive payments.
Maureen Geddes, a divorced mother of two and co-president of the Canadian Equal Parenting Council, said the ruling -- meant to benefit children -- could actually hurt them by increasing animosity between their parents.
"I'm always concerned about retroactive rulings opening up old wounds," said Geddes, a Chatham mother who shares custody with the fathers of her two children. "In the vast majority of cases, to go retroactively backward creates more problems than it may create in benefits."
Canada's top court ruled unanimously Monday that, as a general rule, people who don't increase child support payments to keep pace with rising incomes aren't fulfilling their legal obligations. More..
Court ruling means divorced dads could face hefty child-support payments
The National Post ( one of Canada's 2 national newspapers), Janice Tibbetts, CanWest News Service, Monday, July 31, 2006
OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada sent a warning to divorced parents on Monday that they better come clean when their income goes up or they could be forced to pay retroactive child support unless they can convince a judge that they had a good reason for non-disclosure. More ..
Supreme Court says divorced parents must report pay increases
CBC News TV and Radio (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Mon, July 31, 2006
Canada's top court ruled Monday that divorced and separated parents have a duty to report increases in their income when it comes to paying child support.
The decision could affect hundreds of thousands of parents across the country.
The 7-0 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada means that former spouses could face big retroactive support payments. The court left the door open for lower courts to decide on those payments on a case-by-case basis. More ..
Editorial
Ruling on the money
Ottawa Sun , Ottawa, Ontario, August 1, 2006
The Supreme Court of Canada rightly decided yesterday that divorced or separated dads who don't boost their child support to keep pace with their income could face hefty retroactive orders.
It seems like one of those rulings that shouldn't have to be made in the first place. After all, "child support" is just that -- money that goes toward paying the expenses associated with having a child.
It has nothing to do with the former spouse or partner and whatever may have gone wrong in the relationship.
However, experts say it's typically an argument over custody, or some other falling-out between parents, that triggers a battle over support money. More ..
Court hits dads hard.
Top court's ruling allows judges to order catch-up child support payments
By NATALIE PONA
Ottawa Sun, Ottawa, Ontario, August 1, 2006
TORONTO -- A child support ruling handed down yesterday by Canada's highest court will clog the justice system and make deadbeat dads of responsible fathers, said a man who runs a divorce support network.
In a 7-0 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled judges have the power to order catch-up payments when the parent paying support -- usually the father -- doesn't stick to the rules and has no good excuse for his penny-pinching.
Deidre Smith, the lawyer for four Alberta fathers who had challenged support awards imposed on them, estimated 700,000 families could be affected by the decision.
Stacy Robb, who runs DADS Canada, a Toronto-based divorce support network for fathers, said it will turn parents who believed they had been making their full child-support payments into deadbeats. More ..
Local6.com
A TV Station in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
Boy Mistakenly Threatened With Jail For Being Deadbeat Dad
Local6.com, Orlando, Florida, U.S.A., July 31, 2006
ORLANDO, Fla., U.S.A. -- A childless teenager in Orange County, Fla., was threatened with jail for not paying thousands of dollars in child support despite efforts by his mother to clear up the identity mistake.
The report featured Timothy Williams, who received letters asking that he pay child support for several children.
"At first I thought it was funny but it just kept coming and coming and coming," Williams said.
The first letter came in April.
"It was from the Department of Revenue stating that my son was past due in child support payment," mother Arnell Williams said. "I was like, 'Wow.'" More ..
Support payments must keep pace with pay
Canadian Press, ("Canada's independent news agency"), by JIM BROWN, July 31, 2006, Found in the Globe and Mail ( Canada's largest national newspaper and various other newspapers across Canada
OTTAWA Divorced or separated parents who do not increase their child support to keep pace with their rising income could face hefty retroactive orders to pay up under a new Supreme Court of Canada judgment.
In a 7-0 decision Monday, the court said that, as a rule, people who do not keep their support payments up to date as their incomes increase are not fulfilling their legal obligations to their children.
The nuanced ruling also left plenty of room, however, for future decisions in the lower courts to vary based on the specific facts of each case.
For example, a parent in most cases the father might face undue hardship in paying a retroactive award in some circumstances. More ..
OPINION
Steve Walters: Avoid the Canadian curse of universal day care
Steve Walters, The Examiner,
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. July 26, 2006
BALTIMORE, Maryland, U.S.A. - Having trouble finding good, cheap day care for
the kiddies? What if the government made licensed care available to all for $5 a
day. Wouldnt that be sweet?
Not so fast. Before you write to your congressional representative demanding such a program, you might want to consider how it has worked out for the Canadian province of Quebec.
Its dogma among feminists and other left-leaning intellectuals that an enlightened society would liberate young mothers from the shackles of child rearing by making day care cheap and available to all. So, back in the late 90s, Quebeckers did exactly that: Starting in 1997, the Quebec Family Policy law guaranteed government-regulated daycare slots to pre-kindergarteners for a parental contribution of $5 per child per day (since raised to $7), with the rest of the bill footed by taxpayers. More ..
Child support case goes to federal court
'Male Roe v. Wade'suit will be argued
ABC Channel 12, WJRT, U.S.A., Kevin Holmes
SAGINAW COUNTY (WJRT) - (06/28/06)--The case is being dubbed Roe v. Wade for
men. Now a Saginaw Township man will hear arguments from the defense as to why
he should be financially responsible for a child, he claims, he was tricked into
fathering. More..
13 suspects arrested for child support fraud
Fort Bend Herald and Texas Coaster, Fort Bend TX, USA, Thursday, June 22, 2006
Investigators with the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office have issued 13 warrants for the arrests of various individuals in the Fort Bend County area for their alleged involvement in organized criminal activity.
Terriann Carlson, spokesperson for the sheriff's office, said that in the early part of May 2006, authorities began investigating several people who committed fraud on the Office of the Attorney Generals'Child Support Division and stole a collective $39,000 in child support payments.
According to investigators, the key suspect, Tonya Jackson, 32, of the Rosenberg area, knowingly issued payment for court-ordered child support with checks that were forged with someone else's signature on an account which she was not authorized to issue checks. More ..
Ideology trumps equality
National Post, (one of Canada's two national newspapers), by Barbara Kay, Wednesday, June 21, 2006
'For Heaven's sake, a man is cheating on you, you do what every wife in this country does: You take him to the cleaners. Get his house, car, kids -- make him wish he was dead."
Those were the words of a female assistant district attorney explaining to a Texas jury in 2003 that there was no need for defendant Clara Harris to have resorted to murdering her philandering husband (she drove his new Cadillac back and forth over his body before horrified onlookers -- when family law already offered such excellent legal remedies for revenge.
"Make him wish he was dead"? Addressing 12 mainstream men and women it was utterly crucial not to offend, the prosecutor took for granted their complicity in winking at overt anti-male bias in the justice system. More ..
A study in First Nations 101
With as many as 10,000 native kids in Toronto, the public board is boosting heritage awareness
The push brings fresh insight into a group seen as the `invisible'visible minority, Louise Brown writes
The Toronto Star, by LOUISE BROWN, EDUCATION REPORTER, June 20, 2006 page A3
The Grade 2 children at Humewood Community School are thrilled to be smoking in class.
Not puffing on cigarettes, but breathing wafts of burning sage in an aboriginal ceremony the school is holding to help students better understand their native classmates.
As Humewood mother Joanne Vautour, who is part Ojibwa and part French, circles the room with the small dish of sage for this traditional "smudge" ceremony designed to clear away negative thoughts, child after child reaches into the smoke and waves it over their face and body. More ..
Judicial passivism turning fathers into deadbeats
Judges refuse to enforce Divorce Act section that embraces equal access to child
The Edmonton Journal, Grant A. Brown, Freelance, Saturday, June 17, 2006
When mothers lose in court, they are not made to pay court costs -- again on the premise that this would only take money away from the children. But payment of penalties and costs is merely a transfer between parents, and only prejudice supports the proposition that fathers would be less generous toward their children than mothers, given the time and financial ability to do so.
Contrast the endless lame excuses judges use not to impose remedies for access denial with their attitude toward making and enforcing child-support orders. More ..
Fathers'bill of rights makes excellent gift
The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, SK, by Bruce Wood, Special to The StarPhoenix, Friday, June 16, 2006
Following is the viewpoint of the writer, chair of Men's Resource Centre of Saskatoon, an organization committed to supporting men in becoming even better fathers, partners and members of society.
For North Americans, Father's Day means many things; for some it means ties, brunches, barbecues and golf, while for others it may signal an occasion for reflection.
Reflection on how "fathering" has been changing and continues to change, and on how well we men are doing at keeping up with the changing expectations of fathers by society, our partners and our children.
As a society we have a complicated relationship with fathers. We celebrate the ideal of the hard working dad who is more committed to family than he is to career advancement, yet many workplaces are not supportive of fathers who practice this ideal. We expect men not to repeat mistakes made by some of their fathers, but mock men who ask for help in changing direction. We admire the courage of men who become "stay at home fathers," yet label them as Mr. Mom. More ..
Female Sex Offenders: Double Standard?
Many Say They Don't Get Treated As Harshly As Men
CBS NEWS USA, The Early Show, HAMMONTON, N.J., June 15, 2006
(CBS) Are all sex offenders treated the same? Does the public take the cases as seriously when the offender or alleged offender is a woman? Many people are asking those questions after several highly-publicized scandals involving female teachers and male students.
As Susan Koeppen observed on The Early Show Thursday, the majority of sex offenders are men, but it's the women who get a lot of the attention.
When a beautiful teacher seduces a student, some people think, "What's the harm?"
But Koeppen spoke with one student who says his "affair" with a teacher left him devastated. More..
Domestic violence isn't one-sided
National Post, (one of Canada's two national newspapers), by Don Dutton, Wednesday, June 14, 2006
A few years ago, a woman arrived home from work in Saskatoon to find her husband, who had obviously spent the day drinking, complaining of irritation with their fractious child. She insisted she needed to rest before making dinner. She awoke to find him in a rage straddling her and brandishing a kitchen knife, which he used to cut her abdomen. Bleeding, terrified, she managed to call 911. The police arrived within minutes. They observed her plight, spoke to her husband and then, responding to the unspoken but powerful institutional guidelines routinely applied in such cases, arrested ... her. In spite of her wound, she spent the night in a jail cell, and was released the next morning.
As it stands, this story makes no sense -- and indeed would have aroused national indignation if it were completely true. But I deliberately misled the reader on one particular. In the real story, by no means a unique one in police archives, the genders were reversed: The man arrived home after a 12-hour shift; the child's mother was drunk; the man lay down; the woman stabbed him in a rage; the police didn't take his injuries seriously; they accepted the woman's explanation -- probably self-defence -- and arrested the man. More ..
Welcome to the matriarchy
National Post, (one of Canada's two national newspapers), by Barbara