Divorce Suicide – The Ultimate Desperation

Mr. Les White
484 Leslie Bay
Brandon, Manitoba
R7A 2C9 Canada

August 27, 2002.
The Right Hon. Jean Chretien, Prime Minister of Canada Room 309-S, Centre Block
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A OA6 Canada

Dear Prime Minister:

When is Canada going to stop abusing children and fathers with its utterly disgraceful family court system?

My name is Les White, the father of Darrin Bruce White. My son Darrin committed suicide in March of 2000 as a result of the bias in our courts against men and the injustices that are routinely perpetrated against innocent children and their fathers by Canada’s utterly disgraceful, morally corrupt and broken-down family court system.

Just prior to his death, Darrin was a railway engineer who worked for B.C. Rail in Prince George. As a result of the stresses put on him by the family court process, an ex-wife who cut off meaningful access to his children, and a family court system which is stacked against justice for fathers, he was on stress leave and earning only about $2200 per month. His cash flow was nil and his assets were frozen by the courts.

Yet with an income of only $2200 per month he was ordered by the court to pay $1071 in child support and another $1000 in spousal support to his wife for a total of $2071. He was given 48 hours to vacate his home and ordered to come up with the payments immediately. The fact that Darrin had another child from a previous marriage did not seem to matter to the court. In fact, his needs to survive and his other daughter’s needs were totally ignored in the calculation of payments to the mother. The family court system did not care whether my son had enough money to survive or provide for other children and it would seem that Federal Child Support Guidelines are unjustly stacked against non-custodial parents. The guidelines don’t even taken into account how much a non-custodial parent may need to maintain a bare minimal, yet dignified, living.

Even though my son’s wife was also a qualified railroad engineer and fully able to work, the court did not consider it necessary for her work or to contribute to the children. It was a simple case where a loving and caring father was made to pay no matter what the circumstances and where an uncooperative and controlling mother was allowed through support of the family court system to torment the father using the children as pawns and then keep everything.

Burdened by the court’s order for custody to the mother, support payments which were beyond his financial means, coupled with the fact that the mother was interfering with his relationship with his children and the fact that the courts did nothing to stop her, it was too much for Darrin to bare. In his state of despair he lost the ability to cope and seeing no way out, Darrin took his own life on March 13, 2000. It was a tragic loss for not only the children, but the whole family. Darin was a good, loving father, who deeply loved his children.

Any honest lawyer will tell men that they won’t get treated fairly in Canada’s family court system. In Canada there simply is no justice for children and fathers in our family court system. The average person on the street knows it as well and public perception is spreading that Canada’s family court system is nothing more than a horrible nightmare for most.

What I find utterly contemptuous to the citizens of this country is that two years after my son’s tragic and needless death, the Canadian Justice Department still seem to be thwarting efforts to bring relief to the many children and families suffering persecution and injustice in our family court system. When I spoke to then Justice Minister, Ann McLellan after my son’s death, she assured me that changes were coming. But changes never did come. The only thing to come was more empty promises and more flawed and unaccountable studies controlled by Justice Department bureaucrats intended to twist the truth to the politicians of what Canadians really want in our family courts. All McLellan did was to cleverly delay changes while she was in office. Now that she has moved from the Justice Department and dodged her promises, she has passed the buck on to the current Justice Minister. However, it now seems as if Justice Minister Cauchon is towing the same position being supported by the same Justice Ministry bureaucrats who want to keep the system the way it is now, likely the same bureaucrats who got McLellan to maintain the status quo.

These sorts of delays by those in our Justice Department are treasonous. How many more Canadian children and families are going to suffer before meaningful changes are made to restore justice in our courts? How much longer is our Department of Justice and its bureaucrats going to go against the wishes of the Canadian people? It time for the Justice Minister to stand up to the bureaucrats in his ministry and clean house and fire the lot of them. It’s time for some fresh faces in the Justice Ministry. It’s time for new ideas from people who have a true desire to improve justice for the benefit of all Canadians, not promote radical feminist ideology for the benefit of just one gender in society, as seems to be the case now.

Because of Canada’s Justice system, my son is dead and his children continue to be denied any kind of meaningful access to our family. For my wife and myself just to be able to see our grandchildren for a short day visit we had to threaten the mother with legal action. My other granddaughter, Ashlee White is still unable to communicate with her siblings because of the mother’s actions to block our grandchildren’s access and communication to family members on our side of the family. My grandchildren are being denied the right to have any kind of a relationship with their own sister and other extended family members. This is so terribly, terribly wrong. This is child abuse ! This is a crime! Yet, the Canadian Justice Department seems to encourage this form of child abuse.

If Canada had full and equal shared parenting legislation in place when my son separated from his wife, chances are that he would be alive today and our grandchildren would be benefiting from a father in their lives and from contact with their extended family members. As it now stands, the very fabric of our family has been torn apart and our belief in the Canadian Justice System totally shattered. My little grandson still cries for his father.

I was born and raised in this country and once stood tall and proud as a Canadian but I can no longer say that I am proud to be a part of this nation we call Canada as a result of what Canada’s Justice system has done to my family. It deeply saddens me as a Canadian to see how justice has withered away for fathers and their children in this country. While the government may try to fool the world into thinking that Canada is the land of the strong and free, many Canadians and their families know otherwise. It won’t take long for people in the rest of the world to see through the smoke and mirrors and to learn about Canada’s dark secret of its biased anti-father family courts. Canada is not the country where fathers should be bringing their families to settle.

When are the politicians in this country going to stand up and do something to restore justice in our family courts and to remove the feminist politics which seem to be in control of Canada’s Justice Department? As it stands now, our family courts are nothing but a joke and the judges and Department of Justice, not our elected representatives, seem to be making the laws in this country.

Children, parents and entire families are currently being destroyed by current Canadian policies related to family law. It’s time for the carnage of families to stop in this country. It’s time that full shared parenting legislation be implemented in our family court system so that equality and justice can once again be restored. It’s time that this country stop destroying its good, loving fathers.

Your comments at your earliest convenience would be appreciated.

Yours truly,
Mr. Les White

IN MEMORY OF DARRIN WHITE:

I am writing on behalf of Darrin Bruce White. I am the oldest of his four children. My name is Ashlee A D Barnett-White. I am angry at the justice system and my step mother. No one would listen to my father, no one would give him a chance to speak. In this century everyone hears the woman and not the man, this is a very sexist matter that needs to be dealt with.

My dad wasn’t an abused husband; he was abused by his wife, and the justice system. My dad was a very good father and wanted the best for all four of his children, his children at this time are 14, 10, 9, and 5. All of us children were his life. He wanted everything he could possibly give to his children and what he couldn’t. The most important thing he gave his children were his love, and being there for them. He loved all of his kids equally, and with all his heart. He was a kind man who fought a good fight but no matter what he did or said he could never win with this system. Things need to change for all fathers going through this same thing. We need to help, too many kids go without a father because of this, too many kids are hurt.
My dad would never hurt anyone he was strong, caring and tried to help as much as he could.

Sincerely with thought,

Ashlee A D Barnett-White

July 2, 2000
236 6th St. Weyburn, Sask. S4H 2N8
Prime Minister Jean Chretien House of Commons
Parliament Hill Ottawa, Ont.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

I am the 14-year-old daughter of Darrin White, the father who recently took his life in British Columbia as a result of the frustration and hopelessness caused in dealing with Canada’s family justice system. Although the justice system was not 100 percent the cause of his death, based on what I and members of my family have seen, it was the biggest factor. My father took his life mostly in part because of the injustices being perpetrated against him by what many Canadians say is a biased and morally corrupt Canadian family justice system. Our family justice system seems to allow good fathers to be destroyed while it allows vindictive and revengeful mothers to rule over the courts.

Prior to my father’s death, he told me of the anguish he was going through trying to see his children. He told me of the abuse that his wife subjected him to. She did not want him to have a relationship even with me, his own daughter, because she was jealous. He told me of the frustration in dealing with the courts and the lawyers. He told me how the court did nothing except put further barriers to him seeing his children.

Now, I too, am being blocked by my step mother from making contact with my own brothers and sisters who live with my father’s second wife. I am up against the same barrier that my father faced when he tried to contact his own children before his death. It is very upsetting to be denied access to members of your own family. Keeping children from seeing their parent and other family members is child abuse. It is criminal and it should not be tolerated. Yet, it seems our justice system seems all too tolerant of mothers who do this everyday. While parents are forced to go to courts just to see their children, the lawyers get rich of the misery of the children and families who lives they destroy in family court. Maybe if our courts showed some backbone and stood up against these mothers who are abusing their children that maybe the problem would begin to correct itself. As a young Canadian I can only say that I am utterly ashamed to see how the country I call Canada treats fathers in its courts. It is a disgrace! I know my father was a good man and a good father. He did not deserve to be pushed over the edge as he was. He did not deserve to be kept from seeing his children. He obviously reached a point where he could see that justice was beyond his reach and for reasons that only God will know, decided that taking his life was the only way to end his suffering.

From what I have learned about the family justice system in this country, Canada is not the home of the proud and the free. In my view, Canada has become a safe haven for corrupt lawyers and biased judges who think nothing about the lives of the children and parents they destroy every day in our family courts.

I have learned that Canada’s Justice Minister, Anne McLellan, has been stalling legislation about shared parenting which is intended to prevent the kind of tragedy that has been forced upon my family. I understand that a special committee recommended that the justice department should promote a concept called shared parenting. If shared parenting had been in place before my father took his life and if our system of justice guaranteed the rights of children to see their parents, I have no doubt in my mind that my loving father would be alive today. All he wanted was to see his children, but it seems that our justice system would not give him that.

For this, the Justice Minister should resign. Maybe someone with children and with some knowledge of the problems facing families in our courts today would make a better Minister. What kind of justice can families expect from a Ministry headed by a person without children and in addition, a lawyer? Without children, how can the Justice Minister even begin to understand what it is like to love children and to appreciate the importance that parents play in the lives of their children.

It’s time for this country to start waking up to what’s going on in our family courts and its time that something get done about it.

Although I am only 14 years of age, I too will join the ranks of those who are fighting this evil system of justice. This is not the kind of Canada I or other Canadians want to see. This country’s justice system has robbed me of one of the most precious gifts in my life, my father. I will not let his death be in vain.

Things need to change for it seems that all fathers in family courts are being put through this same thing. We need to change things now. Too many kids are going without a father because of the injustice in our family courts. Too many kids are being hurt. I may be 14, but I know what is right and wrong. There are good and bad mothers and fathers but it seems that most fathers are considered bad by our family court system and this is wrong. Please don’t let my Dad’s death be in vain. Children have the right to the love of BOTH of their parents, both moms and dads. The ONLY reason why a child should not be able to see a parent is when there is PROVEN abuse, not allegations.

I would very much like to hear what your perspective as a Member of Parliament is on this problem. I would like you to tell me what you intend to do to fix this problem. One thing you can do for me is to ask that the Minister of Justice resign. As the Minister of Justice, she should be held accountable for the dismal failure of our family justice system and its destruction of children and their families.

In memory of my loving father,

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Signed

Ashlee A.D. Barnett-White