Marion Boyd - Career After Politics

Career After Politics

Boyd currently works as an environmental business consultant and mediator. In December 2004, she released a controversial study that recommended that the Ontario government leave the 1991 Arbitration Act in place, which allows for the use of religious law in civil law arbitrations. While any arbitration would have to be consensual and would have to follow the Charter of Rights and Canadian Law, the founding of the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice (IIJC) in 2004, aimed solely at creating sharia tribunals, in accordance with this act, for Muslims who wished to have family arbitration in this manner. She came under severe criticism for this but was defended by law professor and lawyer Faisal Kutty who wrote an Oped defending her findings in Lawyers Weekly. He wrote: "Sharia is not coming to Canada and there will be no Sharia courts. Muslims simply wish to use Islamic principles to resolve their disputes within the Canadian legal system. Boyd’s considered verdict, released in December 2004, came after meeting with more than two hundred people and receiving almost forty submissions. Boyd makes forty-six reasoned recommendations, including:

• Amendments to the Family Law Act and the Arbitration Act should be made to ensure that the mediation and arbitration agreements are legally treated in the same manner as marriage contracts and separation agreements;
• calling for regulations to ensure proper record-keeping, mandating written decisions, and training of arbitrators;
• imposing a duty on arbitrators to ensure that parties understand their rights and are participating voluntarily;
• providing for greater oversight and accountability, including empowering courts to set aside arbitral awards for various reasons including unconscionability, inadequate financial disclosure or if a party did not understand the nature or consequences of the arbitration agreement;
• public education and community development;
• expanded appeal possibilities; and
• further policy analysis to determine whether additional safeguards are required.

Critics have come out guns blazing, calling the report a “betrayal” of women and “racist.” Nonsense. Boyd, with impeccable feminist credentials, has balanced the rights of Muslims who wish to voluntarily resolve their private disputes using religious principles with the basic rights of vulnerable segments within the community. In other words, the recommendations ensure that there is substance to religious rights while simultaneously protecting a vulnerable minority group member’s basic rights as set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms."