Ottawa, June 19, 2019—After decades of advocacy by women’s rights groups pressing for much needed changes to the Divorce Act, including by a coalition led by the National Association for Women and the Law (NAWL) and Luke’s Place, and the efforts of many feminists who engaged on Bill C-78;
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Bill C-78, which passed Third Reading in the Senate on Wednesday, contains significant changes to the Divorce Act and may soon become law.
The full name of C-78 is An Act to amend the Divorce Act, the Family Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act and the Garnishment, Attachment and Pension Diversion Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act.
On May 22, 2019, our Legal Director, Pamela Cross, was presented with the Laura Legge Award by the Law Society of Ontario. The following is her award speech, in print and audio.
I am deeply honoured to be receiving this award tonight. Many, many thanks to the people who put together my nomination package and to those who wrote the wonderful letters supporting my nomination.
The Ministry of the Attorney General has announced eight new Unified Family Court (UFC) locations that went into operation on May 13, 2019.
These locations are:
Belleville
Cayuga
Kitchener
Pembroke
Picton
Simcoe
St. Thomas
Twelve judges have been onboarded to sit in these eight locations.
In a Unified Family Court, the court hears all family law matters,
The King Edward Hotel in downtown Toronto is not a usual hangout for violence against women types. Nonetheless, on April 17th, Luke’s Place Executive Director, Carol Barkwell and I, along with four of the founding sisters of Luke’s Place got ourselves dressed up and headed to the Crystal Ballroom, where the Ontario Bar Association awarded Luke’s Place its Foundation Award for its “exceptional contributions to the improvement of the justice system through public legal education,
Luke’s Place Legal Director, Pamela Cross, is featured in two articles this week.
The murder of Dr. Elana Fric-Shamji by her husband two days after she filed for divorce “is a text-book case of what we already know. This is when women are most likely to be killed,” Pamela tells The Toronto Star.
As of April 1st, 2019, the Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG) has implemented increases to some of the fees payable in a family court case. Most, but not all, of these fees are related to divorce applications.
MAG has also increased the financial eligibility ceiling for someone wishing to seek a waiver of family court fees.
Woman abuse is a common issue in family court cases, yet few legal professionals screen for it. As The Globe and Mail reports:
About 67 per cent of domestic homicides in Ontario involved couples who had separated or were about to separate, according to data from the province’s chief coroner spanning from 2003 to 2016….
Workers in Ontario’s shelters for women and children fleeing abuse have been providing support to women involved with family court for decades. Occasionally funded through short-term grants, sometimes with resources provided by community fund-raising and often just tacked on to an already-lengthy list of responsibilities, this support has made an enormous difference for women who access shelter services.
On November 22, 2018, Luke’s Place testified as a witness before the Standing Committee on Bill C-78, An Act to amend the Divorce Act.
In collaboration with the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL), Luke’s Place prepared a Joint Brief and Discussion Paper.
