Talk:Anne-France Goldwater

[Untitled]
Hi, Bearcat Thanks for taking the time to write to me at length as you did. Your effort is appreciated. I am willing to work out these differences, but you must recognize there are at least two completely anonymous posters - probably the same person - who are (is) responsible for the scurrilous material. And I tried to rectify this before by simply putting some balance (e.g. referring to the French language Combat des Livres), but all those changes and corrections were deleted by the same unscrupulous fellow. So I was left with simple commentary. So if it is possible to rectify what is wrong, then fine. I am an arbitrator, like Judge Judy (who is not actually sitting as a Judge on her show). A "jurist" is simply too general a word that does not describe my function on the show. Moreover, there is not a SINGLE newspaper article that refers to the "Eric vs. Lola" case as a "divorce" case. That is simply not true. The provincial government has NOT been obliged to revise its alimony laws. The matter is still before the Supreme Court. I sought to have ALL rights associated with marriage available to unmarried partners. The Court of Appeal unanimously agreed with me, in what was a historic judgment in Quebec, because we are the ONLY province in Canada that fails to grant marital rights to unmarried spouses. As for Hendricks and Leboeuf, that is one of THREE cases (the two others were from Ontario and B.C.) that legitimized same-sex marriage throughout Canada. I also think it important to credit my partner, Me Marie-Hélène Dubé in that regard. As for Canada Reads 2012, why is Canada Reads 2011 omitted? I am the ONLY Canadian in history to have participated in both the English language and French language debates (in French, it is known as the Combat des Livres). Moreover, in French culture, vigorous social debate is simply normal. Clearly not the same on the English side. At that, there were numerous articles that were ignored, such as: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/canada-reads-panelist-defends-her-gloves-off-comments/article2330089/ AND http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/canada-reads-caught-in-fact-fiction-divide/article2330084/ and my favourite article: http://www.goldwaterdube.com/en/media/something-fierce-makes-canada-reads-interesting-once.html (It would be helpful to note that I challenged Aguirre to DENY she was a terrorist, an invitation she politely and decorously declined; as for Nemat, at least you have one of the articles that actually mentions how her story has been challenged in the past.)

Of course, the outrageousness of this entire exercise is that I am a FRENCH-speaking personality, in a FRENCH language culture. So all the interesting material, published in FRENCH, either gets ignored or misquoted. As in, the Combat des Livres 2011: Devant Geneviève Guérard, gentille et réservée, qui a cherché le consensus toute la semaine, la redoutable plaideuse Anne-France Goldwater semble favorite. From: http://www.radio-canada.ca/radio/christiane/combat2011/jour5.shtml

Or, in a profile piece written by Nathalie Petrowski, a Québecoise journalist for La Presse who, believe me, does not write "fluff" pieces, there is this extract: Elle tient d'une main, un sac bling bling, dont les zircons turquoise sont aveuglants, et porte un tailleur court en lamé, gold comme dans goldfighter, le sobriquet dont elle a hérité pendant le Combat des livres de Christiane Charette. From: http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/television/201109/03/01-4431344-anne-france-goldwater-attention-a-larbitre.php

Another profile: http://www.cyberpresse.ca/vivre/societe/201203/06/01-4502849-anne-france-goldwater-la-marieuse.php

Then, there is the Barreau paragraph: this is ONE incident, reported as if there were TWO. That last sentence does not exist; it is a second reporting of the first one. Moreover, as I tried to explain, "mange la marde" does not translate into "eat shit" in English. It is an expression of disgust. Why this reporting is so important in the first place, I don't know. There is a ton of media coverage of many cases I have won, many conferences I have given, interviews, public appearances, etc. So, I don't get the NPOV rules. For instance, I won the Canadian Bar Associations SOGIC Ally award for my contribution to gay and lesbian rights. Why would that be omitted? NPOV is obviously in the eye of some beholder I have yet to meet...

Last of all: I am NOT MARRIED. I live with my common law partner, Leonel. He is Catholic, I am Jewish. Marrying is not that simple for religious reasons that should be obvious, even if neither of us practices our respective religions. In fact, why is it not mentioned that I am a very vocal anti-theist, just like my adorable late idol, the Hitch?

And yes, my website has plenty of valid third party material, organized for easy perusal.

Closing thought: I don't agree that any anonymous contributor should be granted the same respect of being an "editor" if the person fails to identify himself and to contribute anything but negative material about one person. The desire to do harm should be obvious. And I still want those two anonymous fellows to be identified.


 * Thanks for commenting here. I'll review and address your points one at a time as I have time to look over the links in question, so that I don't miss anything by trying to cram it all into one giant post — so I'll add individual points here as I look at each matter.
 * Regarding Canada Reads, your appearance on Le Combat des livres probably just got overlooked; in fact, until I did so just a few minutes ago our article on the show had never even been updated to list the 2011 competition in the first place. That's easy enough to fix, however. (For the record, though, you actually aren't the first person ever to participate in both the English and French editions; Maureen McTeer was on both shows in 2006.)
 * Regarding your partner Leonel, I can see that indeed the source suggests nothing about you and he being married rather than living common law; that appears to have been an unsupported assumption on the part of the editor who added it. However, since your personal life is your own business and your partner and kids are not public figures, I'm simply going to remove the reference to them in accordance with our privacy policy. If you were married to another person who had a Wikipedia article of their own, that would be different — but nobody needs to know the names of your family members otherwise.
 * On the Barreau incident, from what I've read about it at this point it sounds like a remarkably frivolous complaint — frankly, if losing your cool and saying something kinda rude at work were any sort of crime, far more than half the world would already be in jail. I can certainly understand why a professional licensing body would want to investigate the complaint, but unless something significant happens as a result of the process, I really don't see that "said a rude word to a colleague once" is the kind of thing that's particularly worth noting in an encyclopedia. Because, again, who on earth hasn't?
 * On Lola vs. Eric, it's not entirely true that there are no sources out there which describe it as a "divorce" case; in fact, there are several, although I've also read enough other sources to understand that it's not an accurate description. So I've reworded that.
 * On Hendricks/Leboeuf, just to be clear, the article doesn't claim that the case singlehandedly legalized same-sex marriage across Canada, but only that it was the precedent-setting case in Quebec. Since you weren't involved in the other cases, they're not particularly relevant to an article about you, so there's little need to mention them — but what's said in the article doesn't actually contradict the fact that there were other cases in other provinces.
 * I have added one other sample case, Bruker v. Marcovitz. However, I don't think it would be particularly useful for this article to provide as extensive a list of cases as your own webpage does; it would be better to just single out a few especially high profile ones and then link to your webpage in the external links section.
 * I've also mentioned Marie-Hélène Dubé, and accordingly credited the cases to the firm rather than solely to you as an individual, and I've added the SOGIC Ally Award citation. For what it's worth, the issue here is that the article was relying mainly on one article about your selection for L'Arbitre, which did credit you as an individual without mentioning Me Dubé at all. So thank you for the clarification.
 * Finally, regarding the Canada Reads comments, it's not really the place of this article (or the role of Wikipedia) to get into whether Aguirre is a terrorist or not, or whether Nemat was lying or not — however, I have added some content which hopefully places the comments in a fairer and more neutral context without taking a position either way.
 * I hope that resolves the concerns you've expressed so far. Of course, we can still make further edits to the article if there are problems remaining. Bearcat (talk) 22:17, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Annefrance (talk) 04:42, 22 March 2012 (UTC) Bearcat: I think your comments and changes are just perfect. I have no problem with being challenged with my "controversial" comments, as long as there is a bit of balance, and I am satisfied that the balance is there. Also, I am particularly delighted that you chose to put my partner, Me Dubé, way up on top (so to speak!!) in terms of acknowledgement and credit. I have long felt uncomfortable that I, as the "noisy" partner, get so much attention, and she gets so little, because she is so reserved as a person and hates the spotlight. Last of all, humble apologies re: Maureen McTeer!! I had both ASKED at CBC if I was the only AC/DC contestant, and they had said yes, AND I had checked the CBC historical entries at the time - somehow this escaped me! My bad, indeed, especially because she was a noteworthy contestant, and a clever woman.

On a completely personal note (and hence not with regard to the wiki entry), I am comforted by your sweet comments about the Barreau "investigation," because despite my entirely public - and abject - apology to my colleague for losing my cool on that particular occasion, it remains a point that as you can see has been held against me gleefully, as if my entire professional life and contribution to society should be reduced to one "mange la marde" (which, to be frank, was quite soul-cleansing at the time). So, thanks again!

Cordially, Anne-France Annefrance (talk) 04:42, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 8 February 2013
The spousal support case described in the article as "still under appeal" was actually decided on 25 January 2013 - Goldwater lost. Can someone update the page? Here's a ref: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Eric+Lola+Common+couples+Quebec+have+same+protection+court+rules/7872741/story.html

&rarr; mrs smartygirl &larr; | Talk 05:26, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ Yunshui 雲 &zwj; 水  10:22, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Merci!&rarr; mrs smartygirl &larr; | Talk 19:04, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Edits required
This article needs some editing. For example, the Sue Montgomery link is a dead link. It's been over a year. Time to unprotect.—Anomalocaris (talk) 12:27, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

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