Regulation of Cohabitation and Marriage in Canada

Marriage in Canada had lost much of its legal significance because of the extension of many of the incidents of marriage to unmarried cohabitants of the same or opposite sex. This process has resulted in large part from decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or marital status is constitutionally impermissible. In a decision that seemed to many a surprising reversal of this trend, the Supreme Court of Canada in 2002 ruled that legislators could constitutionally exclude unmarried couples from family property laws. The effect of this decision has been to revive the legal significance of marriage. At the same time, courts have resurrected the social significance of marriage by accepting the argument of same-sex marriage advocates that a "separate but equal" civil union institution would not respect the constitutional guarantee of equality and by endorsing the constitutional right of same-sex couples to the symbolic value of marriage as a public and legal celebration of a relationship. Same-sex marriages may now be legally celebrated in three Canadian provinces, and the federal government has made a commitment to open up civil marriage to same-sex couples across the country. While some same-sex couples and unmarried cohabitants have fought for spousal or marital status, others have sought to avoid the burdens associated with spousal status. After the same-sex marriage debate is concluded, Canada will be ready to move on to consider whether all of the legal privileges and burdens now assigned to those in conjugal relationships, whether married, unmarried, same-sex or opposite-sex, can be justified.     

The Canadian charter and the protection of international human rights

B.A., University of Alberta 1960; LL.B., University of Alberta 1961; LL.M., University of California at Berkeley 1963.     

THE BOOK SHELF

Books reviewed in this article: 1. Block, Dr. William A. What Your Child Really Wants to Know About Sex – And Why . 2. Bingham, Sallie. The Way It Is Now . 3. Charny, Dr. Israel. Marital Love and Hate . 4. Cooper, Boyd, M.D. Sex Without Tears . 5. Cuse, Arthur R. Financial Guideline: Divorce . 6. Evslin, Dorothy. The Fortunate Sex . 7. Gorney, Roderil, M.D. The Human Agenda . 8. Halsell, Grace. Black/White Sex . 9. Hart, Harold (Ed.). Marriage: For and Against . 10. Kavanaugh, James. Faces In the City . 11. Satir, Virginia. Peoplemaking . 12. Steincrohn, Peter J., M.D. Antidotes for Anxiety . 13. Stuart, Irving R., Ph.D. and Lawrence Edwin Abt, Ph.D. Children of Separation and Divorce .     

ACCESS TO SERVICES: ETHNICITY IN AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION

Abstract: This paper starts from an argument, developed by Jean Martin in 1978, which links recent ethnic differentiation of the activities and structures of our major institutions with an underlying social redefinition of migrants. It then extends Martin's analysis in the particular context of the service activities of one of the major line departments of Australian government — the Department of Social Security. It is argued that the accommodation of ethnic considerations within the daily activities of administration has occurred largely through the concept of "access to services". Using this concept, administrators have been able acceptably to define the problem of ethnic disadvantage and to develop programs which approach its solution. The formula has been applied to Aboriginal as well as migrant disadvantage and reasons for the similarity of approach are considered briefly. A range of recent initiatives which make reference to the migrant and Aboriginal clienteles of government are considered — in particular, DSS services, namely language services, migrant and Aboriginal public contact staffing, information services and advocacy/agency programs. All of these are seen within administration, as approaches to the "access" problem. The final section comments on the general characteristics of this "access" formula and on its success in both accommodating ethnic claims of disadvantage and reinforcing administrative commitments to universalism.     

The new stock in trade — technology or stewards of technology transfer — Dr. Dvorkovitz & Associates

A brief account of the growth of the “market” concept, as related to technology transfer, leads into the establishment of Dr. Dvorkovitz & Associates by its founder and owner, Vladimir Dvorkovitz, Ph.D., where the company has been, where it is at present, and plans for the immediate future, as related to the world wide dissemination of data on technology available for license from industry, government organizations, university and private research centers, and individual inventors. Company activities cover the computerized data bank, InstanTechEx; TechEx, the annual World Fair for Technology Exchange; the publication on licensing and technology transfer, UNIT.     

THE BOOK SHELF

Books reviewed in this articles: 1. Berne, Eric, M.D. What Do You Say After You Say Hello? 2. Brothers, Joyce, Ph.D. The Brothers System for Liberated Love and Marriage. 3. Dominguez, J., M.D. Felicidad Sexual, Matrimonial y Prematrimonial. 4. Gagnon, John H., and William Simon. Sexual Conduct. 5. Goldstein, Joseph; Anna Freud, and Albert J. Soinit. Beyond the Best Interests of the Child. 6. James, Muriel, and Dorothy Jongeward. Born to Win. 7. Klein, Carole. The Single Parent Experience. 8. Kuhn, Jerold R., Ph.D. Marriage Counseling: Fact or Fallacy? 9. Le Shan, Eda. The Wonderful Crisis of Middle Age. 10. Lieberman, E. James, M.D., and Ellen Peck. Sex and Birth Control. 11. Maliver, Bruce L., Ph.D. The Encounter Game. 12. Mann, John. Encounter. 13. Tanner, Ira J. Loneliness: The Fear of Love.     

Why Weren’t We Taught? Exploring Frontier Conflict Through the Lens of Anzac

This article examines public understandings of two key strands of Australian history that sit at opposite ends of a spectrum of remembrance: frontier conflict and Anzac. The former, W. E. H. Stanner argued in 1968, was subsumed in a vacuum of silence, lost to popular consciousness in a wilful act of forgetting. Despite a wealth of subsequent scholarship documenting the violence and dispossession that characterised European colonisation, considerable gaps in public awareness about these foundational events remain. Anzac, in contrast, has become a defining narrative of Australian history for large segments of the general population and the political class. Recent scholarship suggests that this prominence has served to mask other, important histories of the continent, including frontier conflict. In this article, we argue that this is neither a necessary nor essential binary, and further, that one can inform the other. The written reflections of 320 tertiary students enrolled in a course about Australian military history provide insights into the ways that frontier conflict is popularly understood and how the fascination with Anzac can be leveraged to raise awareness of the violent historical dimensions of colonisation.