Quebec's provincial license plate carries the motto, "Je Me Souviens", "I remember..." Well, today Justice Suzanne Tessier of the Superior Court of Quebec has given Canadians from coast to coast something useful to remember:Don't try raising children in Quebec.
Justice Tessier decided that a father had no right to ground his 12-year old daughter for having disobeyed him:
The girl had taken her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on websites he tried to block, and then posting "inappropriate" pictures of herself online using a friend's computer.
...
According to court documents, the girl's Internet transgression was just the latest in a string of broken house rules. Even so, Justice Suzanne Tessier found her punishment too severe.
...
The National Post reports the backstory that led up to the case:
The dispute between father and daughter began when he cut off her Internet access over her misuse. When she continued to find a way to use the Internet, he told his daughter she couldn't go on the three-day school trip.
The girl's mother allowed her to go on the trip, but because the school wouldn't allow the girl to go unless both parents consented, the girl, with the mother's support took legal action against her father.
According to [the father's lawyer Kim Beaudoin], the judge ruled that denying the trip was unduly severe punishment.
Has this judge thought about what happens to the family when the little girl gets back from her field trip? What if the budding teenager starts dating a boy much older than herself, and the father objects to that, as well? What can he do about it? What if the girl doesn't feel like going to school, and starts skipping class? What recourse does the father have to teach her right from wrong, as he values it...
...should he take her to court?
One place that he is not going to take her, thanks to the court ruling, is... back home:
The father, who is appealing the decision, was "devastated" by the ruling, and is refusing to take his daughter back "because he has no authority over her."
