Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
“A Quebec father who was taken to court by his 12-year-old daughter after he grounded her in June 2008 has lost his appeal.” [CBC] For some reason the litigation has not done wonders for family harmony:
The girl — who now lives with her mother — doesn’t have much of a relationship with her dad now, [attorney Kim] Beaudoin said.
“We went from a child who wanted to live with her father, and after all this has been done, they’re not speaking anymore.”
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Having 3 young children of my own, I was driven to shake my head and wonder what the future bodes for parents like me. Grounding may have been an extreme response, but the point is that the Canadian gov’t through its court system has intervened dramatically in a domestic situation. There was no physical abuse (which should have triggered gov’t intervention), rather “I don’t like my dad’s discipline so I sue”. Perhaps the Gov. of Texas is right, the gov’t is too intrusive in our lives.
Does it appear that the mother orchestrated this?
Re Doug’s comments: This wasn’t the Canadian government’s court system, it was the courts of the province of Quebec making a ruling based on Quebec law. The Canadian federal government has no role to play in this at all, unless this gets appealed to Canada’s supreme court and they agree to hear it.
Is the next step going to be retroactive damage awards to anyone who feels they were “unfairly” punished by their parents in the past? It would seem a wholly logical extension of the court’s current reasoning. In the interests of justice, of course.
Faced by a situation like this the best thing a parent could would to be declare themselves unfit as a parent then turn the child over to the province’s children’s services. Works out to be a win-win as the child ends up punished by the state and the parent frees themselves of a problem child.
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