Thank you.
I would like to start by expressing my sincerest heartfelt gratitude for inviting me here to testify before you on a subject that is plaguing many children and women: coercive control.
I'm here to ask that Canada steps up and abides by the report written by Ms. Reem Alsalem, a United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, which states:
[T]he discredited and unscientific pseudo-concept of parental alienation is used in family law proceedings by abusers as a tool to continue their abuse and coercion and to undermine and discredit allegations of domestic violence made by mothers who are trying to keep their children safe.
It goes on:
[T]he standard of the best interest of the child is violated by imposing contact [with a father] even when there is evidence of domestic violence.
It has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of training for judges and everything to do with their intentional and wilful blindness. For judges, it is contact with abusive fathers at all and any costs.
I am here to ask that our children be immediately returned to their mothers and that the pseudo-science of parental alienation and its like terms be banned and prohibited from being used—