In the final dash to get legislation passed before Parliament recessed for the summer, only to head straight into an election campaign in the fall, some important bills managed to make it to Royal Assent. Any bills that did not…
Category: Legal news & strategy
After decades of waiting, women’s rights groups celebrate changes to the Divorce Act
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…
C-78: Update on amendments to the Divorce Act
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…
Laura Legge Award Speech: Honouring women subjected to violence
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…
New unified family courts
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…
Empowerment over disempowerment: OBA Awards Gala
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…
Two articles about domestic violence
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…
Family court fee increases
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…
Violence screening tools for family law professionals
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…
Family Court Support Workers: Celebrating an effective response to violence against women
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…