Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association news

Poly Love may be Criminalized in Canada. The Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association is asking for both funds and community support to resist this attack on our community.

Please fundraise or donate! Consider holding a poly community pub night or event for the CPAA. We have been operating a very tight, totally volunteer driven campaign on a very limited budget and we’re now starting to have expenses in excess of our $1,100 of seed money. (see below for more info on what we’ve managed to do on those funds! Holy cow!) For continued effective and more fulsome representation on this issue, a donation of any amount would be very helpful. Please send a Paypal payment to donate@polyadvocacy.ca or send email to support@polyadvocacy.ca for instructions on how to send a cheque.

Trial begins November 22! Consider organizing a community event that day or the weekend before to celebrate polyamory and show your support. Send us pictures or a blurb. Talk with your MLA or your MP about polyamory and tell them that loving families should not be criminalized just because they involve more than 2 adults in a marriage-like relationship. Our governments need to know that ordinary Canadians do not want poly to be criminal.



Background: As many of you will recall, the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association (CPAA) was formed by well known people in the polyamory community to advocate for polyamory in the Canadian court case on Canada's criminal law against multiple, conjugal living arrangements and polygamy (s. 293 Criminal Code). The court is going to be giving its opinion on whether the law breaches the Charter of Rights and is unconstitutional.



The CPAA’s view is that the law absolutely affects the fundamental freedoms and rights of polyamorists and should be struck down. Loving, families should not be criminalized just because they involve more than 2 adults in a marriage-like relationship.



While the law has seldom been enforced (and was recently aimed at fundamentalist Mormons in BC), scarily it promises 5 year jail sentences to participants, and those assisting/attending celebrations. Visit the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association facebook page or our website at polyadvocacy.ca for more information.



Litigation activities and updates: A small group of us got together and formed the CPAA. We got:

-donated seed funds of $1100, now spent on activities (see below)

-a volunteer pro bono lawyer (for a limited amount of time)

-obtained "interested person" status in court

-did a survey of the Canadian poly community which we put into court as evidence

--found 5 witness families from across Canada to swear affidavits about their family stories into court (more volunteered too, thank you!)

--made a pre-trial application to ask the governments to clarify whether they believe polyamorous families’ are criminals under the law (application refused BUT the good news is that the application helped us clarify to media and others that polyamory is very different culturally and in practice than in religious, patriarchal polygamy).

-put into court a 500 page brief of expert and social science evidence as well as 4 books



We are now preparing for the court dates beginning November 22. This includes identifying the witnesses we propose to call and to cross-examine and preparing 2 statements of submission.



Government position: The governments of BC and Canada have so far refused to say that polyamorous conjugal households are not criminal under s. 293. Canada has said nothing about its position on the law but is expected to argue that it applies to polyamorous relationships and is constitutional. BC says s. 293 does criminalize polyamorous households. However, if necessary (if the court thinks 293 breaches the Charter of Rights), then BC might take the position that the law should not be applied to polyamorous relationships. That doesn’t make us feel very safe. Even worse, BC has since put forward evidence and made statements at the pre-trial hearing indicating it might argue that polyamory should be included in the criminal law, particularly polyamorous households in which there is one man and more than one woman (polygnous arrangements).



Please feel free to email us if you have any questions or concerns (support@polyadvocacy.ca). We also have forums open on our website

Seattle Bound for Loving More's conference!

Hey VP101ers,

I wanted to send out a GINORMOUS group hug to all of you who contributed to the generous gift of my registration fee for the Loving More Poly Living conference in Seattle this month! I had pretty much given up on going due to my abysmal financial circumstances and I am overwhelmed and touched by your gesture (along with the wondrous stealthiness of my amazing girlfriend for masterminding the whole plot behind my back). *melts*

My brain is already working overtime on everything I need to do to bring VP101 to the North American poly stage in style and I'm going to make sure I take lots of pics and video during the conference for our blog. Let's put Victoria on the poly map!!!

Your excited and still utterly stunned facilitator,

Kiki 

A Synopsis from last night's Poly 201 discussion on: Metamours (by Zoe Duff of VanIsle Poly)

Meta- (from Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond", "with", "adjacent", "self"), is a prefix used inEnglish (and other Greek-owing languages) to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.

 

Amour is the French word for love, an intense feeling of affection. It may also refer to: Amour(musical), a stage musical written by Michel Legrand ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amour

 

So...."metamour" is "after the musical"?   oh....like applause?  woohoo!!!   I"m the applause???  oh yeah bbbbaby    (chuckle)

 

Well....maybe but no... a metamour is

 

In a polyamorous relationship, where your lover has more than one lover, a metamour is the name given to your partner's other lover(s).
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?...metamour

 

 

Interesting discussion at the Poly 201 group meeting last night.  This is a smaller group than the Poly 101 and more devoted to the fine tuning of practical poly than basic information and concepts.

 

Discussion revolved around the necessity of some relationship between ourselves and the other partners in our lovers' lives.  The relationship between same sex persons in any poly configuration being a key factor in the success of said configuration according to Deborah Anapole in her various books on the subject.  Key factors in the development of  relationships between members of the poly family around you were identified as:

 

1. Time to develop any kind of a relationship

2. Accessibility of the metamours to each other (less likely in a long distance scenario etc)

2. Inclination or compatibility considerations of the individuals and their relationship styles.

3. Responsibility of the linch pin (the lover who is shared) to introduce, facilitate and perhaps referree the relationship developing

4. Investment required of the metamours - (ie if the girl friend is going to be a long term hanging around the house situation then the live in partner would have greater investment in developing a friendship with her and vice versa)

5. The impact of the level of honesty in the lovers' other relationships on you as metamour and the comfort level of being everything from possibly intrusive, kind of involved to completely detached from the particulars of other relationships. (ie knowing that your partner's partner doesn't know about your relationship with her)  ( ie poking at him to call her etc and vicariously participating in the courtship)

6. The poly configuration involved.  A big poly inter-loving household requires much more relationship development than a network of lovers who might not ever come into social contact with each other.

7. Whether you are a primary partner or trying to relate to the primary partner or another non-living in the house partner.

 

Very interesting discussion. 

 

Zoe

“One determined person can make a significant difference; a small group of determined people can change the course of history.”    Sonia Johnson -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~Van Isle Polyamory  http://www.vanisle-polyamory.com  inclusivelyalternative.tribe.net

October Poly 101 discussion (please note a change in date for this month only)

Time	Thursday, October 21 · 6:30pm - 9:30pm
Location	Camas Books corner of Kings and Quadra streets Victoria, BC
More Info	Tonight's topic will start out with a discussion on creating intimacy in poly relationships. We will also talk about poly terms, poly community, family and any other poly issues you want to discuss. Due to a scheduling conflict with another group this month, Poly 101 will be held at a different date for OCTOBER ONLY. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.