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To get to the point, the subject of this letter is women’s rights and equality. My book and life are based on this subject. I am the subject in question as are all women and/or Canadian women.
My qualifications are not based on PHDs or graduate degrees, my spelling, punctuation and grammar will not be perfect upon writing this post. I am a single mother so I cannot afford to have someone edit my blog. Like most single mothers I am very busy; as I write this my three children are settling in bed.. let’s hope they stay that way so I don’t loose my train of thought.
I want to share my personal experience as a woman living in Canada, under Canada’s flawed and sexist justice system.
I found out how unfair the justice system is going through my divorce. I learned through the judges and lawyers that my work wasn’t as important as my ex husbands work. I learned through them that he was actually the leader in the marriage and the one that was truly responsible for the family landscaping business. It didn’t matter that I had to work for a Government Grant to fund the start up of the business. A grant were I was taught how to write a business plan; were I had to pitch the plan to a board, and that I had to compete for the 3 grants up on the table against 30 other competitors. But I learned the 51% of the business that he had signed over to me to fully qualify for the grant didn’t really mean anything in court. I told them that the business didn’t actually need him for me to run it on my own. I told them that everything he did I could hire out to be done and I could still turn a profit. But that didn’t matter to the judges, the lawyers or the mediators. You see men’s work is more important than women’s work because they told me he was the business and so it should be his. And I wasn’t named on the mortgage, because of student loan dept at the time; it turned out that when the house sold he could take 1/3 more of what was not his. Of course I could of kept lawyers after him, but with no money and legal aid a complete joke ( basically you have to sell your car and almost be on the street to get legal aid ) my ex got away with an extra $22,000.00 and the business. I got $600 a month in alimony.
So Mr. Trudeau how will you change the system so that this doesn’t happen to other women? Are you going to change legal aid? Can you somehow teach lawyers and judges that women’s work is just as important as a man’s work? I want to know if you are going to implement equal pay? I don’t think it is fair that just because a woman can give birth she should be put behind in the pay grade.. do you?
Later on I found it impossible to get my ex to pay for his share of daycare. I tried to go back to school using a big lump sum of Family Allowance back pay. You see my ex wouldn’t sign the papers for the Government stating that we were legally separated; he still wanted to do income splitting with me to help himself ( he thinks he is more important than me and the children, and I wonder why that is? ) I had to get lawyers to get him to sign..so I was given a nice fat sum of $7,000.00 I went to college to get upgraded on my Executive Secretary. But my ex refused to pay his half of the childcare. I couldn’t afford keep hiring lawyers so with no help from legal aid my abusive ex caused me to have to drop out. I had to pay the childcare owning by him, myself. But wait it gets even better. A year or so later my ex took me to court because my car has an electrical problem and I can’t drive it long distances to drop the kids off to him; and so he comes to get them and drive them home. The judge wouldn’t even look at the papers my mechanic gave me as proof in court. The judge refused to make my ex pay for childcare as I didn’t provide proof that I was working or looking for work..( I didn’t know I had to provide proof I wasn’t applying for welfare ) but then they told me I had to find a full time job not a part time job and they wanted my preteen daughters to take the bus home from school across the city while I was going to be working at said full time job. The judge threatened me by saying ” If I wanted to I could make you pay for the last year of your ex husband’s gas.” The judge refused to listen to me when I told him that I was entrepreneuring a book, a concept and movement towards freeing women from sexual repression. He refused to look at the book; and in the minutes later mailed to me.. he refuse to acknowledge that I had even wrote a book.. he said ” Wants to write a book.”
Mr. Trudeau I was invisible in that court room. What are you going to do about this? Why is hearsay ( rumor or gossip ) sound like her-story..and history is recorded fact? Why are male voices heard and female voices passed up as non-important? It was like I was a ghost.. was I even really there to them? Why are judges able to financially abuse women with threats of back pay on what isn’t owed?
Mr. Trudeau when our house sold I wanted to use the money to move to Vancouver from Kelowna to launch my book. Kelowna and the Okanagan is a very Christian/Conservative community. Writing a book about women’s sexual repression to sexually liberate all women wasn’t going to be received will here. It wasn’t. My ex took me to court to order the court to stop me from moving. It would of only been a 4hr drive for him and he has family in the area. My future career and my right to the freedom to live were I choose were taken from me using the children as an excuse. I wasn’t moving them out of province or across the country. I was told by the judge that I had to remarry or be making more money than my ex husband to have that right.
Mr. Trudeau why do I have to be a man’s wife to have more rights and freedoms? Why do I have to have money to have more rights and freedoms? If I was a man I know the same wouldn’t of applied.
Mr. Trudeau I want to know why they system wants to make it so hard for me to be an independent and successful woman in my own right? I want to know why women have to work around this crap when men don’t. I want to know why many men get away with working under the table, thereby not paying the full amount of child support that they should? I want to know why the Government doesn’t audit these fathers? I want to know why the Government doesn’t make men parent? I want to know why these double standards still exist in a first world country? How can we set an example for the rest of the world if we don’t treat women with equality in a first world country?
Mr. Trudeau we are just at the tip of the iceberg here. My girlfriend was murdered by her husband in her house with her children in her house with her. He shot her. He hid her body in the house with the children in the house for over 12 hrs. This happened in Abbotsford BC. She is gone, her children are without a mother. He got out on bail 2 years after the fact. Don’t women’s lives matter in Canada? I want to know what you are going to do about that? Don’t you think this just sends a message to men that they can abuse and murder women with just a slap on the wrist? This says ” Women don’t matter”
I want to know why a Canadian judge can say to a rape victim in court ” You should of just kept your legs together” and then he is just up for review? How the hell did he become a judge in the first place? Why wasn’t he fired instantly for being a sexist pig? I want to know what you are going to do about this Mr. Trudeau?
I want to know why when I was treated with prejudice by Kelowna’s business community, by not being allowed to network within groups and organizations the Human Rights Tribunal didn’t have a clause to protect me from sexual discrimination; yet it has clauses protecting homosexual and transgender people from sexual discrimination. Why am I and not other women protected with the same rights? Why is it that if I was of East Indian decent and I wasn’t allowed into an organization the Human Rights Tribunal would of protected my rights; but as a woman writing about women’s sexuality I can be discriminated against? You have some explaining to do Mr. Trudeau.
As a woman I want to know why abortion is up for debate in Parliament? I want to know why the female body is owned and regimented by the Government and Churches? I want to know why the bible is allowed in the court room as it clearly creates a prejudice. People should just swear to tell the truth. Not everyone believes in the same God, and religion represses women. Religion states women as being under men..I think that is clearly what is wrong with the justice system. It is tainted by prejudice to create inequalities. What are you going do about this Mr. Trudeau?
Mr Trudeau I know that you have created a base of equality within your cabinet by hiring equal amounts women to men; but are the women being paid the same as the men? You have done some amazing things in the last couple of months for Canada. I think it is very compassionate of you to let in Syrian refugees. But as you can see there is so much more to do. And we both know you need to do it, we need to do it because it is the year 2016..and it’s about damn time..
Mr Trudeau I am sure your wife would agree with me that it is time for The Divine Feminine to rise. It is time that we do away with the double standards placed on women so that the entire world can become a better place for everyone. To find out more about me and my book google Gracie Ackerman.
I hope this letter was enlightening to you; I hope I have helped create positive change and evolution.
There needs to be a peaceful revolution..humanity needs to grow and evolve.