Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 19
October 1, 2007
Best interests of children under attack
EFC worries about ramifications of Three Parent Case on Canadian families
OTTAWA
The Supreme Court of Canada decided last month not to hear the appeal of the Three Parent Case (AA v BB) from Ontario. The announcement leaves intact the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal to recognize that a child may have more than two legal parents.
The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) participated as an intervener in the case along with the Christian Legal Fellowship, Catholic Civil Rights League, Focus on the Family and REAL Women Canada, as a member of the Alliance for Marriage and the Family. The alliance felt compelled to pursue the unusual step of appealing as an intervener when the Attorney-General for Ontario declined to participate in this case which challenged the foundation of Ontario’s family law legislation.
In light of the decision, the EFC again expresses the urgent need for full study of the impact on future generations as longstanding social policies are being changed through litigation to suit adult desires.
EFC general legal counsel Don Hutchinson stated, “This decision is extremely regrettable, as it leaves the judgment of the Court of Appeal to establish social policy for Ontario, where the elected government should be taking responsibility.”
Hutchinson also noted that, in its decision, the Supreme Court of Canada was simply dealing with the unusual situation where an intervener had applied to appeal the decision of a lower court, and was not deciding whether or not the case presented “issues worthy of consideration by this court or whether the Court of Appeal’s judgment is well founded.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision does leave the door open for the government of Ontario to firm up Ontario’s family law standards before the courts become backlogged with the litigation this situation will engender,” stated Hutchinson.
The case raises a number of questions in attempting to provide an answer to an otherwise isolated situation. Still left unanswered are the following:
• How many legal parents may each child now have?
• What will determine the number of parents a child will legally have: sexual orientation of the parents; divorce and remarriage; or the breakdown of a long-term relationship?
• Will the number of parents allowed per child now impact the number of spouses permitted in a marriage?
“The process that governments in Canada are now using to redefine social policy is seriously flawed,” said Douglas Cryer, EFC director of public policy. “Rather than coming up with a substantive social policy relating to the family, governments have been addressing the issue in a piecemeal fashion, leaving the hard choices to the courts. The government needs to study the potential impact on children generally and accept responsibility to set the social policy that is in the best interests of Canadians.”
Canadian chosen as next MCC executive director
AKRON, PA.
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Arli Klassen of Ontario has been chosen as the next executive director of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), taking leadership of the organization’s relief, development and peacebuilding work in more than 50 countries.
Klassen comes to the position after serving for the past eight years as executive director of MCC Ontario. She will be the first woman to serve as executive director of MCC in the organization’s 87-year history. Klassen is expected to replace Bert Lobe, MCC’s interim executive director, by next spring.
As a candidate for executive director, Klassen emphasized the importance of MCC’s relationship to its constituency of Mennonite and Brethren in Christ (BIC) churches.
“My vision for MCC is that we remain focused on our identity as a Mennonite/BIC ministry, while inviting others in to support and partner with us in whatever work the churches are asking us to do,” Klassen wrote in a letter to the search committee.
After accepting the executive director position, Klassen said, “MCC is a strong ministry facing new changes and challenges, and I am eagerly anticipating walking with the whole of MCC—all the churches locally and globally, partners, donors, volunteers and staff—in moving into the future.”
“I’m very excited for MCC with the hiring of Arli,” said Ron Dueck, MCC’s board chair, who announced Klassen’s selection to MCC staff members in the United States and Canada on Sept. 14. “Her work in Ontario has shown her to be an excellent administrator, forging strong links with the churches and developing leadership in visioning and guiding MCC in its mission.”
Klassen’s appointment follows 16 years of service with MCC in Africa, the United States and Canada. She first served with MCC in Lesotho and was the country representative there from 1991-94. She then worked in MCC’s Akron office as a connecting peoples resource person and an assistant director of Africa programs, before becoming executive director of MCC Ontario.
Klassen earned a master of social work degree from the University of Toronto and a BA in sociology and religious studies from Mennonite Brethren Bible College and the University of Winnipeg. Klassen and her husband Keith Regehr are members of Breslau (Ont.) Mennonite Church.
Hope and understanding for Pauingassi
PAUINGASSI, MAN.
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Since the tragic death of six-year-old Adam Keeper in August, Pauingassi First Nation has been under intense media scrutiny. Although a troubled image of the isolated community has emerged, Mennonite Church Canada workers believe there is reason for hope and that understanding cultural issues will lead to greater compassion for the people there.
Located 280 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, Pauingassi’s people remained undisturbed for decades after white settlers began to influence more accessible First Nations communities. When the outside world finally found Pauingassi, though, the community was unable to rationalize the jarring contrasts.
Henry and Elna Neufeld have been connected with Pauingassi through Mennonite Church Canada since 1955, when community elders invited them to build a school so that children could learn how to cope with the encroaching outside world. Over the next 15 years the Neufelds became a part of the community, teaching and building a solid church core while respecting traditional ways.
Recent media coverage has hurt them deeply. “We love the people,” Elna says. “They are our best friends.” Although they agree that alcoholism is the largest problem in the community, they point out that not everyone there has a problem with alcohol.
Luke and Angie Enns joined the Neufelds in Pauingassi this summer for a five-day Vacation Bible School. Luke shared his experience in Intotemak, a quarterly newsletter about aboriginal ministry published by MC Canada. “Anyone who thinks they know something about Pauingassi will tell you that this place is like hell,” he wrote. “But it’s not. It’s a community. And anyone prepared to let their guard down with these people will see this.”
MC Canada Native Ministry co-director Neill von Gunten is keenly aware of the impact white culture can have on traditional roles. As fishing and trapping became less viable sources of income, people were left searching for meaning and purpose. When alcoholism appeared, traditional community-shared responsibility for parenting failed. Discipline became an issue as well. In the past, if a child chose to go out in the evening after his parents had told him not to, the parents would remove his shoes from the door and the child would stay home. Today, however, the child would simply find another pair of shoes and go.
“So, what the parents are attempting to do traditionally is no longer working for youths because they’re watching TV and movies, and seeing other forms of behaviour,” Neill concludes.
Eric Kennedy, the supervisor of Child and Family Services at Pauingassi, is convinced it is the women who will spur change. Since Adam’s death, several Pauingassi women have created a community response team. They began patrolling the area in the evenings, gathering up children and taking them home. Kennedy and his wife, who is also a social worker, will train the women to respond to various crises they may encounter.
Kennedy has recently seen a number of positive changes in Pauingassi that he laments have not been covered by the media that came to cover Adam’s death. Since he arrived three years ago, solvent abuse has disappeared and the number of youths seeking a high school education has risen from two or three to 36. He attributes these dramatic shifts to the process of building strong relationships with children and youths.
Kennedy suggests that the most important assistance any outsider can give to Pauingassi is their time and presence.
Come walk with us
When women of Pauingassi First Nation with sewing and beadwork skills expressed an interest in making leather moccasins, Morden (Man.) Mennonite Church responded by giving them a commercial leather sewing machine. The machine allows women to engage in moccasin-making and beadwork for personal use and for sale, while providing an opportunity to teach these traditional crafts to younger generations.
Norm Voth, director of Evangelism and Service Ministries of Mennonite Church Manitoba, encourages churches to consider partnerships with aboriginal communities not only on the basis of what they have to give out of their relative abundance, but because of how they can be transformed by cross-cultural relationships.
Churches interested in partnering with a First Nation community should contact Voth at nvoth@mennochurch.mb.ca or call him at 204-896-1616.
A political red herring?
Mennonite educators weigh in on the touchy subject of funding levels for faith-based schools as the Ontario provincial election approaches
KITCHENER AND LEAMINGTON, ONT.
John Tory, leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, reopened the debate on government funding of faith-based schools with his announcement that, if elected, his government would provide $400 million in funding to schools that now receive little or no money from government coffers. In Ontario, the Catholic school system receives full funding for its programming.
Of the current situation, Victor Winter, principal at United Mennonite Educational Institute in Leamington and president of the Canadian Association of Mennonite Schools, writes, “At the moment, independent schools receive no funding at all. In fact, we are subject to various fees, which means we are, in fact, paying for the right to teach our students.”
Winter says that Tory’s position that funding will force faith-based schools to teach the Ontario curriculum and have accredited teachers “is a red herring. We already adhere to curriculum standards in order to be accredited,” he says.
The issues for opponents to funding faith-based schools include the belief that this will take much-needed funding away from the public system, and that it will wreak havoc in society by supporting separatist religious groups. On the other side, some faith-based groups worry about needing to teach evolution in science class and have issues with the human sexuality teachings throughout the public curriculum.
But Rockway Mennonite Collegiate principal Terry Schellenberg objects to what he calls “the Ontario government’s designation of Rockway as a private school serving private interests.” Instead, he sees Rockway’s inclusion of “students of many faith and cultural traditions—Mennonite, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh students, those representing a wide array of Christian denominations, students with no religious affiliation, along with international students from many parts of the world,” as encouraging the development of “people who have learned to build relationships and share differing and deeply held religious beliefs with conviction and with compassion….” And, according to him, “this serves both a private and a public good.”
Fred Martin, who has children attending Rockway in Kitchener, wrote in an Aug. 11 letter to the local paper, “I am aware of…Mennonite schools in four other provinces that receive partial public funding. I don’t think anyone would characterize the western provinces as having weak public school systems nor do these communities experience an ‘exaggeration of cultural differences….’”
Schellenberg concurs. “Four western provinces have modelled an alternative path by choosing to both financially support and hold accountable faith-based schools for their teaching of provincially approved curriculum by certified teachers,” he writes. “At the same time, these provinces choose not to fund the faith instruction in those schools. I believe that this approach ensures accountability and supports schooling choice for all families.”
According to a comparative study of school funding across the country by Dave Bergen, executive secretary of Mennonite Church Canada’s Christian Formation Council, “partial funding” for faith-based schools varies from 60 percent in Alberta to very small amounts to a select few schools in Saskatchewan, but never includes capital funding for building and other projects.
Tory’s plan is opposed by both Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty, whose children attend the Catholic school system and whose wife worked for the same system, and Howard Hampton, leader of the provincial New Democratic Party.
One of the key issues for many is that of fairness. Catholic Christians receive funding, while other religious groups receive none. To that end, the Green Party, led by Frank de Jong, would remove funding from the Catholic system for the sake of fairness.
Ontario residents go to the polls on Oct. 10.