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Polyamorous relationships are on the rise in Canada. The law is still catching up – CBC.ca

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You can have more than one friend at a time. You can love multiple family members equally.

So what’s the difference if you’re in a meaningful, consensual romantic relationship with more than one person at once? That’s the general philosophy behind polyamorous relationships, and a new report says they’re on the rise.

Steph Davidson, 41, a publicist in Toronto, said not only is she seeing more polyamorous people in her circles and on dating apps, but there’s a wider social acceptance and understanding.

“My friends, when I first started dating someone who was non-monogamous, their immediate instinct was ‘you deserve all of someone,'” Davidson told CBC News. “And now they’re, like, ‘I’m really happy for you, and this really seems to be a great fit for who you are and the way that you live.'”

Polyamory is a deliberate relationship structure where everyone can have as many romantic partners as they want, according to Egale Canada, a 2SLGBTQ+ advocacy organization. There is knowledge and consent with everyone involved, and people may live with one partner, multiple partners or no partners, explains the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association.

It’s a form of consensual non-monogamy and one of the growing types of diverse families in Canada, notes a report from the Vanier Institute of the Family released last week.

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The national independent think-tank, which is dedicated to understanding families and family life in Canada, cites a 2019 study from the Journal of Sex Research that says about one in five people in this country have practised consensual non-monogamy.

The Vanier Institute also notes that people who identify as 2SLGBTQ+ are more likely to have practised consensual non-monogamy than people who identify as heterosexual. That’s echoed by Egale Canada, which explains that people in polyamorous relationships “are free to express their sexuality regardless of gender.”

Davidson, who is polyamorous, has had an anchor partner for just under two years. (She prefers the term anchor to primary, which implies a hierarchy). They don’t live together. In addition, she has several other relationships of various styles and depths.

Steph Davidson, 41, a publicist in Toronto, is currently in relationships with four people. She says polyamory is an honest and open relationship style, and communication is key. (Submitted by Steph Davidson)

Davidson identifies as queer, and while her anchor relationship is with a man, some of her other partners are women or non-binary. She said she currently has four partners, which includes her anchor, who also has multiple partners.

“There are different styles of polyamory. My partner and I tend to get to know each other’s partners, we establish relationships with the other folks in their lives and spend time together, but that’s not mandatory,” she said.

“It’s just what works for everybody involved and what’s comfortable for everybody.”

The ‘data gap’

Despite the growing popularity, there’s a “data gap” on polyamorous relationships since they’re not included in the census, the Vanier Institute notes, and research is sparse. It says further research is needed for “strengthening understanding of polyamorous families and ensuring they are included in laws and policies.”

While polyamory differs from open marriage — another type of consensual non-monogamy that generally involves one couple primarily committed to each other, with sex allowed outside that relationship — open marriage research gives insight into attitudes about relationships outside of a traditional partnership.

In 2023, the Pew Research Center in the United States found that 33 per cent of the adults surveyed said open marriages were “acceptable.” That proportion skyrocketed to 75 per cent among the 2SLGBTQ+ respondents (versus 29 per cent among those who identified as straight).

The findings are based on a sample of 5,073 U.S. respondents, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7 percentage points


The Vanier Institute explains that polyamorous relationships are diverse, with some centred around “long-term, committed relationships with two or more people, while others may have a mix of short-term and long-term relationships with varying degrees of intimacy and commitment.”

It’s an honest and open relationship style, and communication is key, Davidson said.

“No one is trying to pull one over on their partners. True polyamory is not about hiding things and not about cheating.”

Polyamory is also different from polygamy, where someone is married to multiple people, which is illegal in Canada and sometimes associated with religion

Law assumes 2 people in a relationship

But while polyamory may be on the rise, Canadian law doesn’t recognize intimate relationships between more than two people, the Vanier Institute explains, and this leaves people to “navigate and interact with systems and institutions that were not designed to support them.”

The laws are responsive to social trends and changes, such as adapting to the rise of common-law marriages, but there’s still a significant lag, said John-Paul Boyd, a Calgary-based family lawyer and the former executive director of the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family, which published its own research on polyamory in 2017.

“If there’s anything in society that reflects the presumption of the dyadic relationship, it is the law,” he said. “There is this sort of built-in, explicit and implicit assumption that relationships come in only pairs.”

That’s true for every aspect of the law, whether you’re looking at the Canada Pension Plan, how employment insurance benefits are calculated or who you can name as your beneficiary for health and dental benefits, Boyd said.

And only people who meet the legal definition of spouse or common-law partner are entitled to property rights or to ask for spousal support, he said. (Some provinces, like British Columbia, have amended their laws to give common-law partners the same property rights as married couples.)

Then there’s the issue of how many guardians a child of people in a polyamorous relationship can have, which also varies by province, Boyd said. But a few recent cases have helped broaden the law.

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In 2018, three unmarried adults in Newfoundland and Labrador were declared the legal parents of a child born within their polyamorous family — a legal first in Canada, CBC News reported. Then in 2021, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered that all three members of a polyamorous triad should be registered as parents of the boy they were raising together as a family.

“Put bluntly, the legislature did not contemplate polyamorous families,” Justice Sandra Wilkinson said in the decision.

Alejandro Rodriguez, left, Victor Hugo Prada and Manuel Bermudez talk at their home in Medellín, Colombia, on June 17, 2017. The three men gained legal recognition as the first polyamorous family in the country. (Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP/Getty Images)

There have also been a few recent legal gains in Latin America, where polyamory has been reported to be on the rise. In 2017, three men in Medellín, Colombia, became the country’s first legally recognized polyamorous family. In 2022, a judge in Buenos Aires, Argentina, issued a ruling legally allowing a child born in a polyamorous relationship to have two dads and one mom.

That same year, a judge in Mexico said he could “find no constitutional reason why marriage should only be between two partners,” according to a report in Mexico News Daily.

Planning and consent

Boyd said he’s also seeing an increase in polyamorous relationships, and the fact that there are sometimes legal complications for those involved is important but usually not enough to prevent a relationship from moving forward.

That’s because most people involved in long-term polyamorous relationships have already talked about how their relationship will work, he said, including the expectations, arrangements and legal outcomes.

Honesty and informed consent are critical to these relationships, where there aren’t the same kinds of social assumptions found with a traditional couple, Boyd said.

“I would frankly wish that more people entering into dyadic relationships would have that similar kind of discussion,” he said.

Steph Davidson said open communication is central to making her relationships work.

“We’re all just trying to create a relationship style that works for us and not harm other people.”

May Ferreira, Deb Barreiro and Gabriel Lopez walk in Pueyrredon park in Buenos Aires, in February 2020. There have been a few recent legal gains in Latin America, where polyamory has reportedly been on the rise. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images)

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Australia plans a social media ban for children under 16

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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The Australian government announced on Thursday what it described as world-leading legislation that would institute an age limit of 16 years for children to start using social media, and hold platforms responsible for ensuring compliance.

“Social media is doing harm to our kids and I’m calling time on it,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

The legislation will be introduced in Parliament during its final two weeks in session this year, which begin on Nov. 18. The age limit would take effect 12 months after the law is passed, Albanese told reporters.

The platforms including X, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook would need to use that year to work out how to exclude Australian children younger than 16.

“I’ve spoken to thousands of parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles. They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online,” Albanese said.

The proposal comes as governments around the world are wrestling with how to supervise young people’s use of technologies like smartphones and social media.

Social media platforms would be penalized for breaching the age limit, but under-age children and their parents would not.

“The onus will be on social media platforms to demonstrate they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access. The onus won’t be on parents or young people,” Albanese said.

Antigone Davis, head of safety at Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said the company would respect any age limitations the government wants to introduce.

“However, what’s missing is a deeper discussion on how we implement protections, otherwise we risk making ourselves feel better, like we have taken action, but teens and parents will not find themselves in a better place,” Davis said in a statement.

She added that stronger tools in app stores and operating systems for parents to control what apps their children can use would be a “simple and effective solution.”

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. TikTok declined to comment.

The Digital Industry Group Inc., an advocate for the digital industry in Australia, described the age limit as a “20th Century response to 21st Century challenges.”

“Rather than blocking access through bans, we need to take a balanced approach to create age-appropriate spaces, build digital literacy and protect young people from online harm,” DIGI managing director Sunita Bose said in a statement.

More than 140 Australian and international academics with expertise in fields related to technology and child welfare signed an open letter to Albanese last month opposing a social media age limit as “too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.”

Jackie Hallan, a director at the youth mental health service ReachOut, opposed the ban. She said 73% of young people across Australia accessing mental health support did so through social media.

“We’re uncomfortable with the ban. We think young people are likely to circumvent a ban and our concern is that it really drives the behavior underground and then if things go wrong, young people are less likely to get support from parents and carers because they’re worried about getting in trouble,” Hallan said.

Child psychologist Philip Tam said a minimum age of 12 or 13 would have been more enforceable.

“My real fear honestly is that the problem of social media will simply be driven underground,” Tam said.

Australian National University lawyer Associate Prof. Faith Gordon feared separating children from there platforms could create pressures within families.

Albanese said there would be exclusions and exemptions in circumstances such as a need to continue access to educational services.

But parental consent would not entitle a child under 16 to access social media.

Earlier this year, the government began a trial of age-restriciton technologies. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, the online watchdog that will police compliance, will use the results of that trial to provide platforms with guidance on what reasonable steps they can take.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the year-long lead-in would ensure the age limit could be implemented in a “very practical way.”

“There does need to be enhanced penalties to ensure compliance,” Rowland said.

“Every company that operates in Australia, whether domiciled here or otherwise, is expected and must comply with Australian law or face the consequences,” she added.

The main opposition party has given in-principle support for an age limit at 16.

Opposition lawmaker Paul Fletcher said the platforms already had the technology to enforce such an age ban.

“It’s not really a technical viability question, it’s a question of their readiness to do it and will they incur the cost to do it,” Fletcher told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“The platforms say: ’It’s all too hard, we can’t do it, Australia will become a backwater, it won’t possibly work.’ But if you have well-drafted legislation and you stick to your guns, you can get the outcomes,” Fletcher added.

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A tiny grain of nuclear fuel is pulled from ruined Japanese nuclear plant, in a step toward cleanup

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TOKYO (AP) — A robot that has spent months inside the ruins of a nuclear reactor at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant delivered a tiny sample of melted nuclear fuel on Thursday, in what plant officials said was a step toward beginning the cleanup of hundreds of tons of melted fuel debris.

The sample, the size of a grain of rice, was placed into a secure container, marking the end of the mission, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which manages the plant. It is being transported to a glove box for size and weight measurements before being sent to outside laboratories for detailed analyses over the coming months.

Plant chief Akira Ono has said it will provide key data to plan a decommissioning strategy, develop necessary technology and robots and learn how the accident had developed.

The first sample alone is not enough and additional small-scale sampling missions will be necessary in order to obtain more data, TEPCO spokesperson Kenichi Takahara told reporters Thursday. “It may take time, but we will steadily tackle decommissioning,” Takahara said.

Despite multiple probes in the years since the 2011 disaster that wrecked the. plant and forced thousands of nearby residents to leave their homes, much about the site’s highly radioactive interior remains a mystery.

The sample, the first to be retrieved from inside a reactor, was significantly less radioactive than expected. Officials had been concerned that it might be too radioactive to be safely tested even with heavy protective gear, and set an upper limit for removal out of the reactor. The sample came in well under the limit.

That’s led some to question whether the robot extracted the nuclear fuel it was looking for from an area in which previous probes have detected much higher levels of radioactive contamination, but TEPCO officials insist they believe the sample is melted fuel.

The extendable robot, nicknamed Telesco, first began its mission August with a plan for a two-week round trip, after previous missions had been delayed since 2021. But progress was suspended twice due to mishaps — the first involving an assembly error that took nearly three weeks to fix, and the second a camera failure.

On Oct. 30, it clipped a sample weighting less than 3 grams (.01 ounces) from the surface of a mound of melted fuel debris sitting on the bottom of the primary containment vessel of the Unit 2 reactor, TEPCO said.

Three days later, the robot returned to an enclosed container, as workers in full hazmat gear slowly pulled it out.

On Thursday, the gravel, whose radioactivity earlier this week recorded far below the upper limit set for its environmental and health safety, was placed into a safe container for removal out of the compartment.

The sample return marks the first time the melted fuel is retrieved out of the containment vessel.

Fukushima Daiichi lost its key cooling systems during a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, causing meltdowns in its three reactors. An estimated 880 tons of fatally radioactive melted fuel remains in them.

The government and TEPCO have set a 30-to-40-year target to finish the cleanup by 2051, which experts say is overly optimistic and should be updated. Some say it would take for a century or longer.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said there have been some delays but “there will be no impact on the entire decommissioning process.”

No specific plans for the full removal of the fuel debris or its final disposal have been decided.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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PWHL unveils game jerseys with new team names, logos

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TORONTO – The Professional Women’s Hockey League has revealed the jersey designs for its six newly named teams.

Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.

The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.

Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.

“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.

“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”

Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.

Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.

Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.

Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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