November 30 - December 01, 2005

Presentation to:
Embrace Democracy

By:
C. Gwendolyn Landolt
National Vice President
REAL Women of Canada
Box 8813, Station "T"
Ottawa, Ontario K1G 3J1
(613) 236-4001

WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THE FAMILY?

What is a Family?
A family is much more than a mere legal, social or economic unit. It is a community of love and solidarity, uniquely suited to teach and transmit cultural, ethical, social, spiritual and religious values which are essential for the development and well-being of its own members and society. The family is also a binding, permanent commitment to past, present and future generations and, as such, it is the cement that holds society together.

American sociologist, Christopher Lasch, described the family as "a haven in a heartless world", since it is the only institution ever invented to provide children with a love that is centred on them. All other institutions, including schools and day care, are intentionally designed to be impartial. But in order for children's personalities to develop in a healthy manner, it is necessary that someone care intensely for them; so intensely as to give them priority over all other children. It is within the family unit that this kind of intense caring usually takes place.

It is no accident, however, that every totalitarian movement has tried to destroy this family unit. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wanted the family destroyed, as did Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. They believed this to be necessary because the family was seen as a dangerous threat to the power of the State, which was to assume the rights, responsibilities and authority of the family. The family alone, however, teaches the hard truths of moral values. In other words, it is the family which is the enemy of the State because it provides the formation of character which gives the young the ability to grow up to become independent, stable, functioning, and
compassionate individuals. Such people are more difficult to control and are therefore, a threat to the State.

As stated by Solidarity leader and former President of Poland, Lech Walesa:

… It's no coincidence that the family was among the first institutions undermined by the Communists. Children were dumped into day care centers, nursery schools, or after-hours centers. Families disintegrated, traditions disappeared, and because of financial hard times, the large family became a thing of the past.

… You can see why the Communists pushed for small families, because it's hard to brainwash parents of a large family with doctrinal absurdities: they are too grounded in the everyday. Children protected lots of Polish families from Communist indoctrination, and as it has in the past, the family became the last refuge for the old principles of the Ten Commandments.

Unfortunately, it is not only totalitarian governments, but democratic ones as well, that contribute, although perhaps unintentionally, to the weakening of the traditional family. This is done not so much to control citizens, but, supposedly, to help them.

The traditional family, however, is the best health, educational, and welfare unit ever devised, that actually works. Yet, the government intrudes into the family, claiming to help. This so-called "help for families", in fact, has led the government to take over many family decisions and to eliminate family choices, which results in the subversion of the family.

There are many examples of the government's intrusion into family life in Canada. These include:

1. Day Care

The most recent example of the government's attempt to interfere in family life is the decision by the Liberal government to establish a national, government operated day-care system. The Liberal government has given $5 billion dollars over the next 5 years to provide for this with no recognition or support to those parents who prefer another way of raising their children. Every family is different and every child is different. The parents, not the state, should make the decision with regard to the raising of children.

Minister of Social Development, Ken Dryden, however. has signed agreements with all ten provinces in connection with his child care plan, which he euphemistically refers to as "early childhood education." The expression "early childhood education" is used instead of "day care" or "child care" only because the latter has acquired, often justifiably, a pejorative meaning which the government wishes to avoid. To many, day care or child care implies the warehousing of children for the parents' convenience, whereas "early childhood education" implies that necessary child care is for the benefit of the children - which it often is not.

Mr.Dryden stated publicly that those who refuse to send their children to government operated day care were similar to parents who refuse to send their children for medical treatment when required - i.e. abusive parents! Yet, this is the same man whose own four children were cared for by their mother in the home when young. Politics and ambition does strange things to individuals.

There are differences in children who are raised at home during the early years and those raised in a child care system for over 20 hours a week. Children learn values and the importance of relationships from their parents, as they develop emotionally, spiritually and physically. Children however, raised in day care do not spend the same amount of time to learn from the family and therefore do not have the same opportunity to acquire these values.

In the child care system, because there is a turnover of staff and usually a large number of children with only a few caretakers, the passing on of values is not possible. Moreover, what values would such paid caretakers pass on to the children? Not necessarily those of the family. It is especially worrisome that children who spend over twenty hours per week in day care do acquire values: however, the values are not those of their parents, but those of the children's peers. This can make adolescence very troublesome, when these children look, not to their parents for recognition and approval, but rather to their peers.

It is significant, according to a study of 2,093 Canadians by the Vanier Institute of the Family released in February 2005 on the attitudes towards child care, that only 13.1% of children are actually in formal day care, compared to 47.5% of young children who are cared for by a parent in the home while one or both of them work or study. The remaining approximately 40% are looked after by relatives, friends or in other private arrangements.

Significantly, this Vanier Institute of the Family Study released other stunning information on child care which tosses all the federal government's arguments out the window. These include the following:

• 90% of Canadians believe that, in two-parent families, one parent should, ideally, stay at home and raise the children.
• Day care centres rank a distant fifth when Canadians are asked whom they would prefer to care for pre-school children. Having a parent provide the care came first, a grandparent second, another relative third, and home daycare fourth.
  · Even in Quebec - which has a daycare program of the kind the Liberals plan to introduce - most people would prefer to have children cared for by a relative.
• Canadians are almost evenly split on how they care for young children. While 53% of children, as discussed above, are in some type of child care - either family, private or public - not necessarily formal daycare - 47% are cared for by a parent at home.
• A growing number of parents are opting for care by a family member. Between 1995 and 2001, the proportion of children cared for by a relative rose from 22% to 32%. Daycare centre enrolment also rose, but less dramatically, from 20% to 25%.
• Canadians place as high a priority on having the state provide financial help to parents who stay at home to look after children (32%) as they do on having the state assist parents who work outside the house and put their children in daycare (33%).

When Prime Minister Martin first proposed the national day care plan during the federal 2004 election, he stated that the day care system in Quebec would serve as his government's model. Yet the Quebec "universal" child care system, which costs that province $1.4 billion annually provides space to only half of Quebec's children under 5 years of age. If all children in Quebec under five years were in the programme, this would cost the Quebec government approximately $3 billion annually. This is a large part of the provincial government's entire budget and to implement it would prevent the government from having any flexibility in regard to other programmes.

Moreover, according to the Montreal based Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), a non-partisan think tank, the Quebec $7-a-day program, regardless of family income, favours upper income families, with the latter over-represented among those in this subsidized day care system. It is disturbing, therefore, that children most at risk in Quebec are also those who are more likely to be either left out or have poorer services.

According to the IRPP, what is often forgotten in the current public policy discussion about early childhood education is that data regarding the benefits of high-quality programs were collected from low-income and significantly disadvantaged children. Far less, however, is known about the impact of similar child care for non- or less disadvantaged children. In short, the propaganda disseminated on child care, to the effect that it benefits children in formal care, more than home care is without foundation.

Pressure for National Day Care Programme

Much of the pressure for a national plan comes not from parents, but from child care lobbyists, such as the Canadian Child Care Federation, or Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. These organizations were formed in 1982 to lobby for a national child care plan. They have received millions of dollars since that time from the federal government's agency, the Status of Women, to carry out their lobbying and advocacy research, all of which is directed to the establishment of a national child care plan.

The child care lobby groups have the most to gain from a national plan, which guarantees them financial security for life, by placing them on the government's payroll with secure income and benefits.

Canadian unions are also playing a major part in advocacy for a national child care plan. The Unions have experienced a decline in membership over the past few years, with only approximately 30% of workers now unionized. This decline would cease if an entirely new class of public-sector jobs - namely, child care workers - could be obtained. It is significant, that during the years since the government day care plan was inaugurated in Quebec, wages for unionized child care workers in that province increased by 40% due to union-led pressure, such as sit-ins, walkouts and the threat of a general strike that would have paralyzed the child care system used by working parents. In short, the rising costs of child care are partly caused by union dues and higher wages, not by children's needs.

Mikhail Gorbachev, in his book Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (1988) stated that, the dysfunction in Soviet society, as evidenced by alcoholism, high divorce and abortion rates, low birth rate etc. may well have been caused by the separation of children from their mothers in their early years.

Placing women in the paid workforce has consistently been a priority in Communist countries. This also appears to be an integral part of Canada's current policy. The more women in the paid workforce, the higher the GNP (Gross National Product) and the broader and stronger the tax base for the federal government.

The policy of encouraging women to enter the workforce, instead of remaining at home to raise their children, was evidenced most recently by the Canadian government's report to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva on October 17th and 18th 2005, in connection with the UN Covenant on Civil Rights and Politics ratified by Canada in 1976. In its report, the government praised the increased participation of women in the labour force as an economic improvement for Canada. This position however, ignores the working family's balancing act that so many mothers, fathers and children find so stressful and it also ignores the genuine wishes of Canadian families who wish more family time.

2. Education

The Ottawa based homosexual lobby group EGALE held a retreat in March, 2005 to determine the next issues it would push once the same-sex marriage issue is settled. One of the issues selected was to seek changes in the school environment on the homosexual issue. The homosexual activists believe that by targeting the next generation they will be able to change the cultural acceptance of homosexuality. Despite the media's biased coverage and the apparent cultural changes in support of homosexuality that have transpired, not all the adult generation, according to polls, seem to accept these challenges. Therefore, the activists are looking to mold the values of the more placid younger generation so as to adapt them to the acceptance of the homosexual agenda.

It appears that the school boards are only too willing to assist homosexual activists in this undertaking.

(i) Hiding the Homosexual Curriculum from Parents

The key to successfully promoting the homosexual agenda in schools is to prevent parents from finding out what is being taught to their children.

For example, the Toronto District School Board has decided that it will not let parents know what or when their children will be taught about gays or lesbians. In short, the board has decided that the parents should have no say over their children's education on the homosexual issue.

The pro-active homosexual position by the Toronto District School Board does not appear to be an exception. For example, the Thames Valley School Board in London, Ontario, voted to implement a Sexual Diversity Action Plan in April, 2005, giving special recognition to homosexual activities, and the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board is currently developing an "Equity Policy" on sexual orientation.

There is no question that other school boards across Canada are also jumping on the pro-homosexual bandwagon - using the Same-sex Marriage Bill C-38, passed in July, 2005, as their reason for doing so.

Sympathetic indoctrination is carried out in the schools by way of:

• establishing gay student clubs in the schools;
• publishing pro-homosexual school newspapers,
• teaching about homosexual acts in health and physical education classes, the same as is now done with heterosexual acts;
• providing homosexual literature, including the promotion of same-sex marriage in school libraries,
• permitting same-sex couples to attend high school proms.

Heterosexuality is no longer assumed in Canada's schools, and the words "husband" and "wife," "father" and "mother" are no longer permitted. Since all marriages are to be treated equally, any preference to normal male/female marriage is to be interpreted as unconstitutional, discriminatory and a "violation of human rights." This will render those who support traditional marriage the legal equivalent of racists. Of course, such school "equity" policies - which aren't "equity" at all -are a powerful way of silencing traditionalist teachers, whose jobs are on the line.

In addition, school officials are required to educate themselves and all teachers on the harmful effects of "homophobia" and then acquire skills to address it. The focus of the programs is for teachers and administrators to supposedly create a "safe environment" for everyone, but especially young people who are lesbian, gay or transgendered, those who are questioning their sexual identity or perceive themselves homosexuals, or those who have homosexual family members.

(ii) Judicial Support for Teaching Homosexuality in Schools

Again, the political decision by the school board is being ably supported by the courts. An example of this is the Supreme Court of Canada in the Surrey BC School Board case that was commenced by a homosexual kindergarten teacher, James Chamberlain, bringing a legal action against the School Board for refusing the use of three pro-homosexual books in kindergarten and Grade 1. The Supreme Court of Canada, in its decision handed down in December 2002, read the words "tolerance" and "diversity" into the BC Schools Act, even though these words were not mentioned in the Act at all. The court held that "tolerance" (meaning support for homosexual education) is always age appropriate. The court further held that although the board must consider the religious views of parents, books cannot be banned on religious grounds.

Since this was a decision by the highest court in the country, the Supreme Court of Canada, it applies to all of Canada, with the result that all School Acts must be interpreted to include "tolerance" toward homosexuality.

(iii) Human Rights Tribunal

There is also another case now pending before the BC Human Rights Tribunal in which a homosexual couple argued that the BC school curriculum did not adequately address sexual orientation. They claimed that this failure was systemic discrimination through omission and suppression. The claimants admitted, however, that the curriculum was not in any way anti-homosexual. An especially disturbing aspect of this complaint was that it included the demand that the homosexual issue be made a mandatory subject for all students. That is, homosexual activists demanded that the opting-out provisions of the current curriculum, which provides that teachers are obliged to give advance notice to parents of any "sensitive" issues raised in the classroom, must be removed when dealing with the homosexual issue. This activist complaint was subsequently amended in order that it be applied to the curricula of private schools as well, since BC provides some funding for private Christian schools. The BC Human Rights Tribunal recently adjourned a hearing, pending its decision regarding whether the complaint be extended to private school curricula.

3. Birth Control and Abortion Procedures

The State is also interfering in family life and, in fact, contributing to its destruction, by permitting adolescents to make their own decisions with regard to birth control and abortion without their parents' knowledge or consent. The Ontario Health Care Consent Act S.O. 1996, Chapter 2, Part I, section 4, states that a person is capable with regard to medical treatment:

… if the person is able to understand the information that is relevant to making a decision about the treatment, admission or personal assistance service, as the case may be, and able to appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a decision or lack of decision.

The problem is that, frequently, adolescents seek physicians who do not know them personally. All too often, as well, the adolescents themselves do not know their own medical history. Therefore, a physician under these circumstances, is determining the legal capacity of the adolescent to give a valid consent, upon wholly inadequate information.

This is a deep concern, especially with regard to the abortion procedure, since it is now known that abortion has long range health ramifications, both physically and psychologically. A young person may not be aware of such ramifications, and, even if she is aware, may not fully grasp all the implications.

4. Divorce

In 1986, the federal government amended the Divorce Act to permit no-fault divorce, following only a year's separation by the couple. That is, the law no longer assigned blame on the breakup of marriage, but allowed for a supposedly "civilized" divorce which would involve only child care arrangements and an objective division of assets. Unfortunately, however, no-fault divorce did not simplify the matter at all. It did not stop the terrible pain of divorce or the disruption in the lives of the children who must carry the burden of rejection and other deep and irreversible effects throughout the rest of their lives. The lawyers and accountants have been the happy beneficiaries of the no-fault divorce law - not the parties, and certainly not their children.

It is the business of society to protect vulnerable children from harm. Divorce, which is readily available, permits marriage partners to walk away from marriage during the rough patches, which are inevitable in every marriage. Society should stress not so much Perfect Love, but Perfect Determination to stick to the marriage and make it work. In this regard, the state cannot persuade husbands and wives to accept the high obligation of marital chastity and commitment. However, it can exact a price from those who break the marriage contract by failing to meet lawful marital obligations. It can, not from malice, but rather to protect children, enforce restraint on the partners by making the marriage contract more difficult to break by enforcing existing legal controls and adopting stricter divorce laws.

Effect of Divorce on Children

In the turbulent 1960s it was perceived that adults had a personal "right" to happiness and fulfillment, regardless of its impact on others. This was an important cultural shift which ignored the fact that family disruptions were a severe and troubling national problem which conflicted with a child's developmental needs for stability, constancy, harmony and permanence in his/her family life. Evidence is now overwhelming that on just about every measurable criterion, children who are brought up by one parent fare relatively worse than those brought up by two parents.

For example, a study by Judith Wallerstein, which commenced in 1971 and continued for nearly 15 years, remains the most enduring study of long-term effects on children of marital dissolution, where severe forms of economic or emotional deprivation were not a factor. More than a third of the children experienced moderate to severe depression. Young adults from disrupted families were nearly twice as likely as those from intact families to receive psychological help. Family disruption also affected school achievement. This has led to one of the great tragedies of our times, which is children failing in school, not because of a lack of intellectual capacity, but rather, a lack of emotional capacity.

Much of the increased crime rate can be attributed today to the rise in the number of disrupted families. This fact prompted an editorial in the Globe and Mail (November 26, 2005) published during the wave of reckless public violence that has struck Toronto over the past few months. According to the editorial, the violence has been caused by boys and young men with no fathers in their homes and therefore, no strong male direction or modeling. In this editorial, the Globe agreed with an article published in the Wall Street Journal in October, 2005, which stated:

Without strong, self-sacrificing, frugal and industrious fathers as role models, our boys go astray, never learn how to be parents (or men), and perpetuate the dismal situation of single-parent homes run by tired and overworked women.

Boys from fatherless homes are significantly more likely to wind up in the juvenile justice system because of their destructive behaviour. Also another long-term effect of the dissolution of marriage, or its absence altogether from the act of child bearing, apparently emerges years later when young adults are trying to make their own decisions about marriage. According to the Wallerstein study, divorce makes it more difficult for young adults to make and commit themselves to new relationships.

5. Tax Relief

Taxes are the largest expenditure in the family budget. The tax bill for the average family is up to 46% of its yearly income. The government exploits families by taxing them so heavily that there is little discretionary income, thereby forcing both parents into the paid workforce, leading to a severe deficit in family time.

Over the years, successive Liberal government budgets have increased surpluses and have increased spending (up 15% last year) in the billions, with little or no meaningful reduction in family taxation. Excessive government surpluses clearly indicate over-taxation. However, the government's recent pre-election budget proposals are altogether inadequate in promoting genuine tax reductions for families.

Moreover, government policies should remain neutral on the issue of career choice for women, including the option of remaining at home as full-time homemakers. Public policy should treat women at home and women in the workplace equally. An encouraging sign: the Conservative party recently proposed to give parents $1,200.00 annually for each child under 6 years of age to enable parents to choose for themselves the kind of child care they want.
Current federal tax policy also discriminates against the career choice made by women who choose the career of full-time homemaker. This injustice is evident in tax policies which discriminate against the single-income family. For example, in 2003 an average single-income family earning $80,000 paid $2,743 more in federal income tax than a double-income family earning the same amount of income.

This inequity between single and dual income families can be eliminated by allowing the single income family to split the family income in order to file separate income tax returns or by allowing joint tax filing. It would give the single income family the same tax advantages as the dual income family.

The government already recognizes the family unit when paying out benefits, such as the GST credit, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), and Old Age Security. This is not a new concept and should be applied to personal income taxes. Recognizing the family unit rather than the individual for tax purposes is the fairest way to achieve equality for families.

Canada's Declining Birth Rate

Canada's birth rate is one of the lowest in the world at 1.53 children born to women in their child-bearing years. Government taxation policies which provide families with little discretionary income only exacerbate the problem of our alarmingly low birth rate.

Who can afford large families, under the heavy taxation which pushes women into the paid workforce in order to make ends meet and which, in turn, then discourages the birth of more children? The strength and solidarity of the family is clearly undermined by the intrusions of government in the personal decision making of the family.

The contribution of family life (as well as political freedom) depends upon maintaining the family as legally defined and as a structurally significant entity. In other words, if the government and its agents do not defer to the family and continue to undermine it and take over its responsibilities, then the family will cease to fulfill its vital function in society. This will result in a dying nation - legally, demographically and spiritually.