got2bkidding, I would be interested to know where you get the figure that 90% of mothers get physical custody in Canada.
AFAIK there is no such statistic. I don't think any father should read such a statistic and feel there is no hope, or little hope.
Going by
1996 statistcs, only 58% of single parents had gone through a divorce. The rest had never been married or were widowed. At this time, 83% were women. However 22% of all single parents were never married, and these would be almost entirely female. (The incidence of children born to a single parent, no marriage and ending up with one parent, the father as parent would be negligable. This is a social phenomena, not a legal one.)
More widowed parents are female, as most industial accidents are going to involve males. All this to say, gross statistics that show women as the predominant single parent don't apply to showing bias in the courtroom.
A 2007 article by the
Toronto Star shows that
Quote:
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In 1980, mothers got custody 78.2 per cent of the time. By 2003, the figure had dropped to 47.7 per cent, with joint custody awarded in 43.8 per cent of cases, according to the census report.
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I have no statistics for the granting of custody in divorce trials, I think someone posted a .pdf on the boards here a few weeks ago with some statistics on the decisions of two judges (this was a fairly opinionated political article as I recall.) I think we need to understand that over 90% of cases don't make it to trial, and that trial results don't show an accurate picture.
The argument may be, trial results might show the likelyhood of a result at trial. Which is like arguing that most murderers are convicted, so you may as well plead guilty, even if you didn't do it. Every case has to be decided on it's own merits, and if your case has merit then it is worth fighting.
The Star article doesn't necessarily show bias, it does show asymetry. Just under half of cases end up with woman having custody. Just under half have joint custody. A small percentage of men show full custody. However that is heavily weighted by more men working full time as breadwinners, more women as stay at home parents, and men tending to seek joint rather than full custody in the first place.
Women end up with disproportionate levels of custody because of social bias, not legal bias. If there is reason to seek full custody, a man has every chance to have his case heard.
I don't want to claim that there are no unbiased judges, and I would agree that if there is judge bias, it would be generational and fall on the woman's side. But no one should look at the 90% figure and base their actions on that.