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NAWL opposes faith-based arbitration in family law. When Marion Boyd’s Report came out in favour of faith-based arbitration, NAWL wrote to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and other politicians to voice our concern. February 24 2005 Honorable Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario Honorable ...

In many parts of the world, religious groups have been working to implement policies that would influence the manner in which society is run. It has been argued that this use of religion for political influence threatens to undermine hard won entitlements ...

A team of Pro Bono Students Canada from the Law Faculty at the University of Ottawa will be monitoring different provincial legal aid regimes as they relate to family law. After a decade of cuts and restrictions, there is definitely a legal ...

“It is a matter of justice! Legal Aid for women is not only a matter of equality as it is one of rights.” – Claire L’Heureux-Dubé, recently retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Many years ago, West Coast Legal Education ...

Equal marriage for same sex couples developed as the wedge social issue in the June 2004 federal election. We witnessed Liberal politicians proudly waving the rainbow flag, a sharp contrast to a year earlier when most of them had trouble saying “lesbian ...

Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler has recognized on more than one occasion that “women’s rights are human rights”. Yet he was ready to consider re-introducing Bill C-22 to amend the Divorce Act without any analysis whatsoever of the impact of proposed changes ...

Cet article est disponible uniquement en anglais. The process of responding to the proposed amendments to the once “live” Bill C-22 sparked a series of continued conversations across Canada among Aboriginal women, women of colour, and immigrant and refugee women as to ...

Cet article est disponible uniquement en anglais. My life as a single parent began shortly after a motor vehicle accident that left me a quadriplegic. My husband was not able or willing to make the commitment to having a wife with a ...

Cet article est disponible uniquement en anglais. Some Canadian Muslims are proposing the implementation of sections of Shariah (Muslim law) to settle family disputes outside the court system through arbitration committees or tribunals. Due to provisions of the Arbitration Act, the arbitrated ...

Cet article est disponible uniquement en anglais. Introduction Every family law lawyer is aware of the pervasive, but mistaken, belief that long term common law heterosexual partnerships are now treated in law in the same way as marital partnerships. They can all ...

Cet article est disponible uniquement en anglais. When Bill C-22, An Act to Amend the Divorce Act, died in November 2003, a long chapter in NAWL’s work on reforms to custody and access legislation came to a close. We now find ourselves ...

In 2003, the Ontario Islamic Institute of Civil Justice announced that it would be offering a “Sharia Court” to Ontario Muslims. The “Sharia Court” would conduct binding arbitrations according to Islamic law. Why People Are Talking About Faith-Based Arbitration In 2003, the ...

Women remain the primary caregivers of children. Women are more likely to abandon professional and economic benefits in order to facilitate that relationship. When they separate or divorce, women are far more likely to end up in poverty than their former male ...

On Indian reserves, provincial law that usually applies to matrimonial property in case of separation or divorce does not apply. When women separate or divorce, they are left without the protection of the law. NAWL’s working group on Aboriginal Women’s Rights has ...

Not allowing lesbians to marry sends the message that lesbian relationships are not valuable or worthy of support. Lesbians want the ability to marry to obtain the benefits of marriage and also to change that historical message of exclusion. They also want ...

Cet article est disponible uniquement en anglais. NAWL’s ongoing work in the area of custody and access has been focused on Bill C-22, An Act to Amend the Divorce Act, since Justice Minister Martin Cauchon introduced it into the House of Commons ...

Bill C-22 proposed amendments to the Divorce Act that could have a huge impact on women’s lives as well as on those of their families. NAWL wrote to Minister of Justice in French and to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human ...

On February 2003, Bill C-22, An Act Amending the Divorce Act was debated in the Second Reading in the House of Commons, and sent to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. In March, the Committee invited the Minister of Justice ...

At the hearings held in Sudbury on April 9, 2003, NAWL appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to present our views on the question of whether the federal government should recognize same-sex marriages. We urged the committee members ...

NAWL Brief on the Act to Amend the Divorce Act (Bill C-22) Mémoire de l’ANFD au sujet de la Loi modifiant la Loi sur le divorce (Projet de loi C-22) The current Divorce Act presents a number of challenges and barriers to ...