In June of this year, Men’s Rights Edmonton, GirlWritesWhat, A Voice for Men Radio and Tom Matty reached out to the public and the men’s rights community to help fund an appeal which, if successful, would get the high court of Canada to consider gender bias in the lower court. This was to be the first step in a sequence of actions aimed at correcting our broken family courts.
The elements of the original case were simple. Essentially, Matty and his former life partner, a citizen of Thailand, had previously started a relationship and had three children. Upon their breakup he was awarded visitation and ordered to pay child support. She returned to Thailand with children against his wishes and he tried to get them back to Canada.
The Canadian Court said, ‘Screw you, Tom.’
Like many exploited fathers. Matty ended up with financial problems. He returned to the courts, saying, essentially, “Look, it’s cheap to live in Thailand. With what you are awarding her she is living like a queen over there while I’m barely scraping by. Can you lower the payments?”
The Canadian Court said, ‘Screw you, Tom.’
So, the mother absconds with Matty’s children, moves to another country, robbing them of a relationship with their father, to live a much better life on the exchange rate between Canadian and Thai currency. All at Matty’s expense, while he is relegated to life in poverty.
He appealed the courts decision, citing the systematic gender based bias in favor of the mother.
‘Screw you, Tom,’ came the reply.[1]
That appeal, on which we pinned so much hope, was killed on Tuesday with one swift blow from a Canadian court. Actually, it would be more accurate to say this appeal was dead prior to arrival. The opposition (a cabal of about 6 feminists representing Tom’s abusive ex-) didn’t even have to make their case. What looked like an open and shut decision was chivalrously waved away with the magic wand of “judicial discretion.”
The judges presiding over this appeal gave a couple ridiculous token “arguments” to justify why these rulings were made, and then took ten minutes to unanimously agreed that they would read from a pre-written decision to strike down the claim of bias in the lower courts. They actually demonstrated more gender bias in this court room than anything Matty had seen before.
Possibly the strongest argument we had going into this, was the clear evidence of bias, not just against Tom, but against all men in similar circumstances. Canadian courts repeatedly favor women’s interests over the interests of children as well as men, and rule against what is obviously fair and just. In this case it was the destruction of the children’s relationship with their father, something known to be highly deleterious to the well-being of children.
The appeal argued that even though one biased decision is not evidence of malpractice, a series of clearly slanted rulings, in spite of evidence a “reasonable person” would consider to be valid, is clearly demonstrable bias. The court dismissed this argument on the grounds that over a period of a few days, as a judge is hearing both sides of a case, it is only natural that they would start to lean towards one side over the other and rule in their favor.
This does absolutely nothing to address the fact that these judges chronically and systematically lean to one sex over the other. What the court said, in essence, is that reasonable judges listen to the evidence and consistently conclude the man is wrong, the woman is right, that the man must be sheared and that children do not need their fathers. It’s “only natural.”
Judges are supposed to rule based on evidence, according to the law, and in the best interests of children. On that note, the court failed at every opportunity, and did so because of a gender bias against men. They repeatedly blocked evidence from Matty’s side which proved: 1) his ex was actually the perpetrator of abuse and therefore should not be granted sole guardianship of underage children, 2) these kids were better off staying in Canada as opposed to being forcefully moved to Thailand, and 3) that Tom’s ex (who is not even a citizen of Canada) is not entitled to the taxpayer funded legal aid that was funding her side of this dispute.
There were many other infuriating and despicable aspects of this appeal, but Matty will tell you about them himself via some footage taken yesterday evening, which will be available after processing.
To the MRM community:
As frustrating as this is, we refuse to throw in the towel. If anything, we’re more motivated than ever to fight this insanity. We thank you all for chipping in to help and we hope we can count on your support again in the future. We wanted very much to report good news to you all, that together we had effected real substantive changes and struck a serious blow to feminist governance. But I’m afraid we just aren’t able to do that. Not this time around anyway. But, let us not forget that we managed to rally together and produce an amazing amount of money in a very short period of time We showed up and give this thing a shot, and we learned a great deal from the experience.
If we can continue to cooperate together in these ways, this movement will see major victories. It is inescapable.
To the feminists who might be reading:
You might think your side has “won” here, but in truth, you haven’t won anything. In fact nobody has; there are only losers in this result. Most notably, the children. All that establishment feminism has managed to accomplish here is to keep children out of the arms of a loving father. They have been placed in the custody of an abusive, negligent, and violent woman. Even if you do not accept that assessment of the mother, there is no dispute that the absence of their father places them at higher risk for a multitude of life problems, ranging from drug abuse, to suicide, school failure, teen pregnancy, truancy, delinquency, depression and criminality.
That is what we call a feminist victory.
If you think we’re going to take this thing in stride and disappear quietly you can think again. We’re just getting warmed up. We are part of a growing army of activists who are fed up with your ideas of victory and we are coming to Fuck Your Shit Up™. The feminist stranglehold on our society, on our families and our children will not stand.
~Raz
Mens Rights Edmonton
Editor’s note: feature image by jason ilagan. –PW
