Antigonish, NS – Local resident Andy Gillis is demanding a thorough investigation of the area’s transition houses and the Naomi Society for Victims of Family Violence.
He charges that their effect, possibly their main purpose, is to destroy families. Furthermore, he says, they resort to brainwashing, mental abuse, and possibly even physical abuse.
He is demanding a moratorium on their funding until they are given a clean bill of health by an outside investigator.
“These houses are only for women and children. Husbands and fathers are not allowed anywhere near them. There is absolutely no counselling for the couple,” he says.
“I don’t know of a single case where they tried to bring the family together. I’m convinced their main purpose is to drive the feminist wedge into the husband-wife relationship and destroy the family,” he adds.
Mr. Gillis speaks from recent painfully-aquired knowledge.
In early June, 1992, a minor dispute between him and his wife led to each pushing the other. Their relationship had been strained for some months, and, on this occasion, Mrs. Gillis fled to the Naomi Society.
Within days, she and their four children (two teens, two younger) were ensconced in a “safe house” in nearby Port Hawkesbury (Cape Breton).
In short order Andy Gillis was accused of beating his wife and throwing her out of the family home. Returning from a business trip, he discovered that he was no longer permitted unsupervised time with his children.
“From June to the end of November, I was not allowed to see and talk with my children,” he says. “I couldn’t see them in school. I couldn’t even give them their birthday gifts in person.”
A peace bond was eventually obtained, but he claims he still is maligned, harassed and humiliated.
He finds it particularly ironic that he has run afoul of feminists. He says, “All my life, I worked for the advancement and the rights of women in the workplace and in society both the union, and on my own time and money.”
Eventually, arrangements were made for the Gillis family to be assessed by a child psychologist. A legal separation obtained, visitation rights granted and Mr. Gillis returned to the family home he built. His son chose to live with him.
Then one day his daughter blurted out a question.
She said, “Everyday (at the transition house) they took me into a room and told me stuff I didn’t want to know about you. The lady counselling me told me to stay away from you because you are a bad daddy, she said if you got me you’d take me away and I’d never see Mommy again. Daddy, why do you want to take me away from Mom?”
Gillis was shocked. “It’s bad enough for a family to endure such upheaval, without outsiders trying to drive a permanent wedge between husband and wife, father and children, especially when they’re upset and venerable,” he says.
Andy Gillis had a new reason to fight back, in public.
Since the Naomi Society receives funding from the Town and from the county of Antigonish, he brought his concerns to both Councils. He urged that funding be frozen pending a thorough investigation of Naomi and the transition houses by an outside assessor. The Naomi Society was very upset about his “unsubstantiated allegations.”
Resulting publicity led to threatening phone calls. “But I have also been contacted by some 200-300 people, ages 17-75, urging me to continue the battle,” he says.
Some 40 individuals have recounted further troubling experiences connected with the Society and the transition houses.
“They tell them that women are being counseled to take advantage of their husband’s absence to empty the bank accounts and strip the house of furniture before leaving. One woman sold all the household furniture while her husband was away.”
Some question whether men in the community get justice through the courts. “Innocent until proven guilty seems to be forgotten when a man is accused, and they tell me people in law enforcement seem to be closely linked with the Naomi Society,” he says.
Some callers also raised concerns that their children are being subjected to various kinds of abuse in these “safe” houses.
“They told me about a child who covered her ears so she wouldn’t have to listen to the things the counsellors were saying, and the staff pulled her hands away and forced her to listen.”
Another father told Andy Gillis that counsellors tried to convince his 11-year-old daughter that he has been in sexual contact with her. “If I had ever been charged with such a thing, I know I’d have committed suicide. I couldn’t handle that kind of thing coming from my own child,” he said. Fortunately, no such charges were laid.
Gillis also heard reports covered up of sexual assault covered up during one child’s stay in a transition house.
Recognizing that all marriages go through rocky times, even more so in times of economic distress, Mr. Gillis is calling for the establishment of a Family Crisis Centre, staffed by “proper counsellors” focused on rehabilitation, reconciliation, and strengthening the family unit.
There is, he says, no real support in the community of Antigonish for the Naomi Society’s kind of programme. But there would be a proper Family Crisis Centre.
