Quebec judge undermines parents’ rights in Canada

Last year, the Canadian Human Rights Council, a inappropriately named group, put commentator Mark  Steyn on trial for what it called Flagrant Islamophobia because of his book America Alone. It was a shocking attempt to police the thougths and speech through intimidation and persecution. Steyn ultimately won out and was acquitted, but the fog of political correctness gone wild still hangs in the air above Canada.

Now, we have a Quebec judge who undermined a father’s parental rights over his daughter. It’s amazing that this was even heard in court to begin with, but this judge overstepped his bounds by about a light year and told the father he could not discipline his daughter in the manner he saw appropriate:

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.

Quebec Superior Court rejected the Gatineau father’s appeal of a lower court ruling that said his punishment was too severe for the wrongs he said his daughter committed.

The father is “flabbergasted,” his lawyer Kim Beaudoin told CBC News.

In its ruling, issued Monday, the province’s court of appeal declared the girl was caught up in a “very rare” set of circumstances, and her father didn’t have sufficient grounds to contest the court’s earlier decision.

The family’s legal wrangling started with a dispute over the girl’s internet use.

She had been living with her father after her parents split up when he grounded her in 2008 for defying his order to stay off the internet. The father caught her chatting on websites he had blocked, and alleged his daughter was posting “inappropriate pictures” of herself online.

Her punishment: she was banned from her Grade 6 graduation trip to Quebec City in June 2008, for which her mother had already granted permission.

The father — who had custody — withheld his written permission for the trip, prompting the school to refuse to let the girl go with her classmates.

That’s when the girl asked for help from the lawyer who represented her in her parents’ separation, and petitioned the court to intervene in her case.

The judge sided with the daughter and said the father – the father – overstepped his boundaries by grounding her, so the judge allowed the girl to go on her trip.

Can you believe that?! A judge told this father he had no right to ground his own daughter. Of course, this father has absolutely no authority in this girl’s life anymore because no matter what he may try to do to discipline her, she can just sue him and have his punishment overturned.

“Either way, he doesn’t have authority over this child anymore. She sued him because she doesn’t respect his rules,” Beaudoin said. “It’s very hard to raise a child who is the boss.”

The girl — who now lives with her mother — doesn’t have much of a relationship with her dad now, 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.”

“We have a lot of work to re-establish a link between those two.”

Beaudoin believes the ruling reflects a loss of moral authority in Quebec’s court system.

In Quebec’s court system? No. This reflects a loss of moral authority in Canada’s parents, who no longer have any.

“Is this what we want in our society? Laws are supposed to reflect our values. And if the courts aren’t reflecting that, maybe the government will, to prevent children from going this way,” she said Tuesday, adding her client may take the case to Canada’s Supreme Court.

In its Monday ruling, the appeal court warned the case should not be seen as an open invitation for children to take legal action every time they’re grounded.

Good luck with that, buddy. This judge just opened a legal Pandora’s box that tells kids they can shirk their parents’ rules and take them to court. And there’s another issue here: where was the mother in all this? If she had any integrity at all, she should have sided with the father for two reasons: 1) out of principle, and 2) to protect her own parental rights because hers have been eroded right along with her ex-husband’s. One precedent has been set, so when the mom disciplines the daughter in a way that the daughter doesn’t like, she’ll be taken to court, too.  Since the report doesn’t say the mother stood with the father, I’m going assume she sided with the daughter.

This father had better appeal this to Canada’s Supreme Court and have it  – hopefully – overturned in order to protect all parents’ rights in Canada.