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No Religious Arbitration

Greetings,

Hope you are having a good winter.

As many of you know, following on the success of the No Religious Arbitration Coalition, the Government of Ontario invited a consortium of seven equality-seeking women’s agencies to embark on an ambitious public legal education and community outreach project worth $1.36 million. YWCA Toronto is lead organization in this consortium, which includes Action ontarienne contre la violence faite aux femmes, Community Legal Education Ontario (CLEO), Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW), Metropolitan Toronto Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children (METRAC), Springtide Resources and YWCA Canada – and is now called Family Legal Education for Women (FLEW). FLEW is working to develop materials to inform and enable women who are facing family law issues to make their own decisions with the benefit of accurate and relevant legal information. A province-wide public legal education and outreach project, FLEW’s goal is to support vulnerable and isolated women by educating them, allowing them to understand and exercise their family law rights under Canadian law.

As some of us, Anu Bose, Pam Cross, Bonnie Diamond, Amanda Dale and Alia Hogben have continued to work with the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Ontario Women’s Directorate, we think that you would be interested in hearing of the "final chapters" of the changes to the various legislations so that no religious arbitration can be used in Ontario.

Previous Update: Jan 19/06.

We told you about the submissions on Bill 27, after the second reading. The Bill was passed and became the Act to amend the Arbitration Act, the Child and Family Services Act, the Family Law Act and the Children’s Law reform Act.

MAG Submission: May 31/06.

The Ministry of the Attorney General has been consulting on the new Regulations of the Arbitration Act, which is really the nub of the changes as it deals with specifics.

Please find attached the submission we made after our consultation with MAG.

Ontario Women’s Directorate:

As you may recall, some funds were provided to OWD, as part of the revisions to the Act, to be used for the development of materials for public education and outreach.

OWD convened a meeting and requested that a consortium of organizations work together to develop these materials to inform and educate women regarding the various legislations which affect family law.

The consortium consists of a number of organizations with background in developing such materials, and we know we will work well together to produce documents which will be useful to women and which will be distributed widely.

Ongoing public discussions on the issue of religious arbitration:

Even though the government has moved forward on this issue, we keep hearing of some academics who are speaking in public about the issue as one of “racializing, colonial attitudes and Islamophobia” as the reasons for the decision. Understandably we don’t agree as it was always about the equality rights of women, this time of believing women.

Future Steps: Review of the Family Law Act:

As you can see from the MAG submission, we are still asking for a review of the FLA as it is at least 15 years old and any legislation of such importance needs to be reviewed in light of changes.

We know that there were some amongst us who agreed about no religious arbitration, but also wanted no private arbitration in family matters at all. We will raise this as part of the review of the Act.

We are also asking for an ongoing evaluation of private arbitrations with collection of the documents at MAG, so that there can be an assessment of what exactly is taking place.

Thank you, please feel free to contact us if you would like more information.

Warm regards,

Anu Bose, Pam Cross, Bonnie Diamond, Amanda Dale and Alia Hogben.

Greetings,
The Steering Committee of the Coalition would like to provide you with an update on Bill 27. The title of the bill is:

"An Act to amend the Arbitration Act, 1991, the Child and Family Services Act and the Family Law Act in connection with family arbitration and related matters, and to amend the Children’s Law Reform Act in connection with the matters to be considered by the court in dealing with applications for custody and access.”

The effect of the Government Bill on the original Arbitration Act of 1991, is briefly the following:

Amendments:

Only Canadian law can be used for family arbitration.
Family arbitration agreements will be in writing.
Each party must receive independent legal advice prior to entering arbitration.
The right to appeal an arbitrator’s decision cannot be waived, and the award can be taken to court.
It will be prohibited that advance agreements to arbitrate family law matters can be made.
All family arbitration decisions will be made in the best interest of children.
Arbitrators must be members of a recognized professional ADR organization.
They must undergo training in screening parties for power imbalances and domestic violence.
They must keep proper records and submit to the Ministry of the Attorney General.

The current status of these amendments is that they went to Third reading and vote on Tuesday February 14th, 2006. Bill 27 was passed in the house, with additional amendments agreed to, and in some cases requested by, the No Religious Arbitration Committee during the Hearing process. The Bill will be proclaimed once the regulations have been worked out. The No Religious Arbitration Coalition will be involved in the development of the regulations, maintaining our vililence on this crucial issue for women’s rights.

The new amendment to the Children’s Reform Law Act is significant. [1] Section 24 of the Act is repealed and the amendments regarding the "best interest of the child" includes a number of considerations, such as violence and abuse in the family and that any acts of self defence will not be seen as acts of violence. This goes a long way to protecting women caught in the cycle of violence who may have defended themselves or their children at one tome, and been the subject of a counter or dual charge at the time of p0olice intervention in the abuse.

the hearing process

There were to be public hearings in mid December 05, but these were cancelled and the new dates were Jan 16 & 17, 2006, with the Standing Committee on General Government reviewing the Act clause by clause on January 18, 2006.

By the end of Wednesday, January 18, 2006, we had heard that all the government amendments were passed and the bill would go to third reading (now achieved).

Submissions presented by:

ADR Institute of Ontario and Ontario Ass’n for Family Mediation
Thomas Bastedo, Arbitrator
Torkin Manes Barristers
Nicole Tellier, Family Lawyer
Ontario Bar Association
Ontario Association of Interval and Transitional Houses
Janet Ritch, member at large of the No Religious Arbitration
Muslim Canadian Cogress
International Campaign against Sharia Courts in Canada
Canadian Jewish Congress: Ontario Region
Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children. METRAC
YWCA Toronto
Canadian Council of Muslim Women
Va’ad Harabonim of Toronto [Rabbinical Council of Toronto]
B’nai Brith of Canada
Canadian Islamic Congress

political parties positions:

Only the Gov’t amendments were passed.

The NDP did not suggest any changes to the Bill because they want no arbitration at all. Peter Kormos was the NDP Committee member and was very involved in the questioning of the presenters.

The Conservatives recommended changes, the one in particular weakened the definition of family arbitration as they wanted to delete the word "exclusively" in accordance with Ontario and Canadian law, and wanted to add "principles of the Charter". These changes would have created new loopholes we think.

None of the Conservative amendments were included.
The government [Liberals] did listen and did make changes, as suggested by a number of groups.

the amendments:

Members of the Steering Committee, Pam Cross, Amanda Dale and Alia Hogben stayed the 2 days and were consulted with by the gov’t lawyer regarding the changes in their amendments. Homa Arjomand, the other Steering Committee member was present for the first day.

We agreed with the amendments as they clarified and went some distance in addressing the issues made by the other presenters such as the Ontario Bar Association.

For example, that the screening for violence/power imbalance will not be assessed by the arbitrator but by another person, but will be considered as part of the arbitration process.

The main amendments are that the definition of family arbitration is not weakened, the right of appeal remains and the Regulations have been clarified.

The last amendment was recommended by Pam Cross of METRAC specifically, and it was exciting to have it included.

arbitration versus mediation:

Of interest is that some presenters, e.g the Canadian Islamic Congress, continued to be confused and used the terms interchangeably, making no differentiation between legally binding arbitration and mediation.

PDF downloads:

next steps:

We will be an active part of the development of the regulations dealing with the implementation of the Bill into law, and have been consulted on the public education campaign that will accompany the government’s implementation process.

Thank you for your continued interest and support.
Regards,