Initial Response to Marion Boyd’s Report on the Arbitration Act

The Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) expresses disappointment in Marion Boyd’s report on Ontario’s 1991Arbitration Act – which the former NDP Government, with Ms. Boyd as a Cabinet minister made law. CCMW intends to hold elected Ontario MPPs and their officials accountable for the damage that will be done if Ms. Boyd’s recommendations are not seriously questioned. CCMW will continue to press for the removal of family matters from private arbitration, as is the case in Quebec, in order to protect women’s and children’s equality rights – as guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other Canadian laws.

Alia Hogben, executive director of CCMW, says “CCMW is compelled to reiterate our position in light of the inadequate understanding exhibited in Marion Boyd’s report on the Arbitration Act. Sadly, for many Muslim women and their children, Marion Boyd seems to have failed to grasp the implications of promising so-called ‘protections’ that this financially constrained Ontario government shows little capacity to deliver” Appointed by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty who promised to “get it right” when concerned Muslims and non-Muslims raised urgent questions about the impending negative impact on vulnerable women and children of government-sanctioned establishment of “Sharia” tribunals in Ontario, permissible under the Arbitration Act, Ms. Boyd seems to have overlooked the depth of the problems being created by her approach. Ms. Hogben notes, “CCMW spent hours with Ms. Boyd, and delivered our study entitled Family Arbitration Using Sharia Law: Examining Ontario’s Arbitration Act and Its Impact on Women, http://www.ccmw.com/ commissioned jointly by the CCMW, the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) and the National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women (NOIVMW) when we explained why family matters must be excluded from the Arbitration Act as they are adequately governed by Ontario family law.

“CCMW believes that the ‘amendments/safeguards’ being proposed by Ms Boyd, while well intentioned, are naïve; they will not guarantee equal treatment of vulnerable individuals, including Muslim women and children.” CCMW chooses to trust that the Ontario government will now accept its direct responsibility for conducting a more thorough and comprehensive examination of family law and the equitable use of arbitration so that Muslim women’s equality rights are included and protected within the existing family law provincial system.

CCMW asks, “If use of less expensive alternative dispute resolution mechanisms was meant to alleviate the pressures on the justice system, why create more injustice? Why not redirect the resources that will be required to implement the so-called Boyd ‘safeguards’ to improve the existing family law system? Muslim women deserve to benefit from the same rights as those accorded to all Canadian women.”