Why are you so frightened of hearing an opinion different from your own?

Tonight, we tackle men's rights.

Men are obsolete. You might as well say "Men, justify your existence."

The men's rights movement is actually a response to anxiety about women doing better.

I don't think men should be treated any differently than women or any other group.

Men's issues and women's issues kind of go together.

They come from issues that are really prevalent for men but I think how they operate is to keep the status quo.

The criticism that we get, you know, I hate to say it but it's largely based on ignorance.

The rate of suicide is way up among men in their 50s.

Because men have no acceptable, socially acceptable way to defend themselves.

The foundation of what they're teaching isn't going to be women friendly. Why are you so frightened of hearing an opinion different from your own? Well, I think the issues that we take on are extremely important. Some of them are life and death issues. We have a number of programs that we offer throughout the week. The legal aid clinic, the peer support group and we're starting a fathering program. So they all take place in the main area here and then we do one-on-one counseling and therapy. You know, suicide, for example, is clearly a life and death issue. That is a major epidemic within men's health and so many of the issues we take on are important but they don't get a lot of attention. They don't get the kind of social service support that they really are due.

Justin Trottier started the Canadian Association for Equality in 2010. Five years later, they now work out of the Centre for Men and Families, 
Toronto's first men's centre. The corner of Carlton Street and Homewood Avenue has been home to the Centre for Men and Families for over a year now. There, they provide counseling and peer groups for men, boys and families. They also host panel discussions around the issues men face. Trottier is no stranger to activism. Since 2002, he's been the face in front of several movements, from promoting atheism to running for the Green Party in 2011. His latest cause: men's issues. 
CAFE and the centre run with the support of dedicated volunteers like Denise Fong.

She's the head of the Men's Issues Awareness Society at the University of Toronto. She also happens to be Trottier's wife.

I feel like when I grew up, this would be something that I would have welcomed

if I knew that it could exist and it didn't. I had a dad who was very, very

passive, I guess, when it came to standing up for his rights in his relationships and I always felt that he may not have been aware of his, I guess his rights to his feelings. He was very severely abused when he grew up. I could see how hard bringing up his own family it was while dealing with trauma issues it was for him. I just wish that he got help when he was younger when he needed it.

Peter Noble has been a client at the Centre for three months now. He's a member of their peer group and regularly receives therapy, since returning home from Afghanistan.

I've had family issues, they've been able to help me cope with them, make me learn, give me some ideas actually on how to solve problems without yelling and screaming.

CAFE and the Centre for Men and Families has received over $61,000 in donations, since gaining charitable status last year.

CAFE's most prominent campaign has been this billboard, that says that 50 per cent of all victims of domestic abuse are men,

according to a Stats Canada survey from 2009. However, CAFE has been accused of exaggerating these numbers. The same study also notes that women are twice as likely to be physically injured during spousal abuse as men and almost seven times as likely to fear for their lives.

Alexander Waddling is the co-founder of Ride for a Dream, a non-profit campaign to end violence against women.

He's a longtime critic of CAFE and believes they've manipulated the survey results on their billboard.

They put up this billboard that talked about how men are half the victims of domestic violence

and that's not entirely true. It's been cherry-picked in a big way.

It's hard to say that it's cherry-picking when you look at Statistics Canada's profile on family violence, where they ask very clearly "Have you been a victim of domestic violence or intimate partner violence in the last five years?" and you have almost the same numbers of men and women saying that they have. According to studies, women are two times as likely to be physically injured during spousal abuse and they're seven times more likely to fear for their lives. The statistics, we can debate, you know, we have presented multiple sources that mutually reinforce the fact that domestic violence is a serious issue for both men and women but at the end of the day the fact is that there is zero domestic violence shelters for men. There are zero places where a father can go with his child to get his child out of a violent home situation, if the violence is caused by a mother. That is unacceptable. We can quibble on the numbers whether it's 100,000men or only 10,000 men who have no place to go. The point is that there are thousands of men who have no place to go.

Further studies by the Canadian Centre for Justice Studies in 2013 found that the majority of police reported spousal and family violence was against women. When you look at, let's say homicide,
intimate partner violence, things like this, women are the ones ending up in the hospital, you know, considerably more often. The amount of women who die at the hands of partners or foreign partners is 1000 to one. You know, so saying that it's 50/50 is a really big misnomer. This is one of three billboard campaigns CAFE's put up to challenge alleged negative attitudes against men's issues. The other billboards focus on parental alienation and men's mental health. CAFE also runs initiatives across the country promoting men's issues on university campuses. The University of Guelph, the University of Toronto and York University have all ratified men's issues awareness societies. A group of students at Ryerson University had hopes to do the same thing. I saw it as a demand on campus. Men's issues are kind of put under the rug a lot. They're ignored or mocked in a lot of cases.

But not all students seem to be on board.

He doesn't, they're choosing not to acknowledge patriarchy, which is concerning because then the foundation of what they're teaching isn't going to be women friendly. It isn't going to allow women in those spaces to have that voice and share that voice and ask them like

What are you going to do when a woman's like "I don't think you experienced that like, I'm a woman and I know for a fact that patriarchy exists."

What are you gonna say to her? You're going to be like "Oh, we don't acknowledge that here" or like,  how are you going to combat those questions? and he didn't really have an answer so I think they don't really know what they're doing.

It's not going to help anyone. It's not going to help men on campus.

You know, men experience as a whole, things in unique ways and so we're just coming from, we're just trying to reach equality from one angle. I think that there's also a need for a group that sort of looks out for men's issues and the way that men are affected in society and just to kind of generate discussions about what

it really means to be a man.

Ryerson's group has since been rejected. Part of the reason was their association with CAFE. The student union met with Arriola to discuss their reasons for the decision. A lot of people have issues with CAFE because of some of the messages that they portray. A lot of the information that CAFE also has is not very accurate.

The student unions have been challenging to work with, you know, if I can say it diplomatically. This isn't the first time a men's issues group at Ryerson has faced this kind of controversy. Two years ago, another men's issues group tried to start up on campus. Much like Arriola, they were also denied because of an association with CAFE.

After the first rejection, executives at the student union were threatened with violence online.

Trottier says that CAFE denounces any and all forms of violent behavior.

We are an anti-violence organization through and through. Anybody who has explored what it is that we do, what it is that we stand for, has spent any time on our website, any time in this centre, which is a safe by the way, has worked with us in any way, knows it's not true, simply knows it's not true. These guys that I see, some of them I look at them and I think "Good grief, they should be locked away" but stating that, at least they get a place to come to and scream, rant and rave you know and get it off their chest. Otherwise, they probably go home and beat their wives, beat their kids. It's hard to say, it's hard to say what they do.

A feminist group on campus has also raised concerns about CAFE.

I think that would have created a very unsafe space for students. We have had students reach out to us, including sexual assault survivors, that have said "I've stopped coming to my classes because I'm scared."

The concern doesn't come from just students though. CAFE has also been banned from Pride Toronto for the past two years.

In a statement, Pride Toronto organizers said that the group was banned due to a high number of complaints filed by Pride participants.

Why did Pride Toronto ban CAFE from the parade two years in a row?

You know, you'll have to talk to Toronto Pride. I
don't understand, I really don't understand.

They said that CAFE, as an organization and through its affiliation with men's rights groups, contravenes Pride Toronto's vision to create a safe space and engage communities in the celebration of their sexuality.

Unfortunately, there are some people out there for whom it's more important to be pure to their ideological commitments

than it is to get help for people who badly need it.

Who are these people?

I'm not going to name names but you won't have trouble finding who some of these critics are that I'm referring to.

I think that they are inherently problematic for a good many reasons and what concerns me is I mean, among other things, how they appropriated a lot of equitable language or how they've used a lot of social movement language to try and look credible.

CAFE first received charitable status in March 2014 from the CRA, allowing them to run campaigns and issue tax receipts for donors. CAFE's approval rested on the listing of three prominent women's and gay rights groups as participants in panel discussions. Almost a month after receiving charitable status, a NOW Magazine investigation alleged that none of these groups were ever affiliated with CAFE to begin with. We had conversations with all the groups that were named in that application.

The conversations had just been beginning and the application was put out and those groups signaled
soon after that they didn't want to work with us. So we made relationships with other organizations.

Isn't it a bit strange though that there were three listed and all three say they do not want to associate with your group?

That's not that strange. We have had a number of groups that are

actually working with us on projects and then as soon as there are campaigns to embarrass them for doing that, they suddenly decide that they've never heard of us or they don't have anything to do with us.

I don't want to suggest that we were about to do an event with them, no, we weren't that far along, but they were certainly conversations in that direction.

So they agreed to be partners?

They agreed to continue the conversation, yeah. They were open to continue the conversation.

They were informed that they were going to be listed on the CRA application?

Honestly I don't remember if I told them that, no. That's not that unusual, guys. I've done this four times. When you talk about future programs that you want to do for your potential future charity, you're just proposing future programs.

You're not stating that these are things you're actually doing. The only reason this is at all controversial is because our organization's controversial. Anything we do is misinterpreted, is looked at in the worst possible light, we're never given the benefit of the doubt. So the idea that we kind of bamboozled the government like they didn't know what they were getting into, I find that offensive. I find that offensive because it comes from people who can't imagine that a men's health organization could meet the public interest test because to be a charity you have to show that you're in the public interest. So there are people who think there's no way that a group that talks about suicide or parental alienation or boys education could be in the public interest. Therefore they must have deceived the government to get charity status.

The Women's Legal Education Fund was one of those organizations.

I'm afraid nothing has changed at all but we are still not involved with them, we never were involved with them

and nothing has changed since NOW did that article last year.

Had they ever contacted you before they put your name on that application?

No.

So they had never contacted you at all?

Not to my knowledge. We have no record of him ever having called here. It's not to say that he never did but

in the time that Diane and I have been here, he hasn't been in touch with either of us and that's three years.

But CAFE calls themselves 'The center for Equality.' Why would organizations like LEAF not want to partner with them? Trottier doesn't have a definitive answer.

I will work with anybody regardless of their their personal ideology, if they put people ahead of ideology. Yeah, we're for equality, generally speaking.

I mean and I find that that's really ironic coming from someone who has endorsed A Voice for Men.

The truth: men are as likely to be beaten by their wives and girlfriends as the other way around.  A Voice for Men is a vitriolic men's rights group in the United States, that has been known to promote anti-feminist rhetoric. A quick browse through their website leads to articles like "Studies reveal female rape victims enjoyed the experience" and "Slavery 101: Dating as taught to Girls,"

"Women are groomed to enslave men."

When we first asked Trottier about the association, he refused to comment.

Every social justice movement has its crazy, radical

fringe portion or crazy, radical fringe member organization. That doesn't speak to the issues of the larger movement. So my response is look at what we're actually doing. Look at what Kevin's group's doing, look at what CAFE is doing, look at what we're doing at the Centre for Men and Families. come meet with us, meet with the volunteers, meet with the facilitators of our programs. Actually understand what it is that we're trying to do and then judge us based on our own merits or lack thereof.

So is A Voice for Men a radical group within this issue?

Well you know what, talk to A Voice for Men. I'm not going to sit here and and comment on other organizations.

It's funny because Justin Trottier, he's denied claims that they've worked together. I saw them in the same room together hanging out this summer. Like, let's not pretend.

You have, what's his name, Daniel Perrins, who is a Canadian representative for A Voice for Men, who works in Justin Trottier's office for the Centre for Men and Families. Like, it doesn't it take a rocket scientist to put this thing together.

Daniel Perrins turned to the men's rights movement when he ended up in jail after lodging a complaint against an ex-partner.

"I should have killed that [ __ ] five years ago" he admitted in articles, adding "I'd be out by now."

His newfound social activism led him to A Voice for Men and eventually CAFE.

Well he's served on various committees, he was on our board for a year, he's quite involved on social media, he's been involved in our events,

he's been quite active in the organization.

Isn't it true that he used to work with A Voice for Men?

I believe he did, yeah.

Does he anymore?

I really don't know. I really don't know. I don't follow the comings and goings of the hundreds of volunteers that that work at our organization.

We also by the way, have volunteers that work for feminist organizations too. So you know, I don't really know what to conclude from that, as well, we have probably dozens and dozens of individuals who work for many social justice causes. Gay rights causes, environmental causes, feminist causes and yes, men's issues causes. Sure, you can point to one person out of 1000 who was involved in a men's rights association but I'm not sure that you can draw much in the way of a pattern from that.

Well do you support what A Voice for Men does?

I support what CAFE does, I support what the Centre for Men and Families does, I don't really know what A Voice for Men does.

I don't spend my time worrying about the activities of groups that I have no association or affiliation with. So I can't really offer you an informed opinion on A Voice for Men.

But people are protesting CAFE and things like that because of associations with a Voice for Men.

Because they have a vested interest in conflating us with organizations that they can more easily target.

Then shouldn't you have a vested interest in

learning about these organizations and proving that you do not have –

For the sake of these opponents who have no interest in informing themselves about us? No. People who want to maintain their ignorance about what we actually do,

I don't really have any interest in spending time on those groups. I'm going to spend time providing therapy and peer support and legal assistance and fathering programs and employment assistance and putting up billboard ads to raise serious conversations about serious issues that are getting neglected. That already occupies a full day's work for me every day. I have no other time to spend worrying about what other groups are doing or what irrational critics of ours think.

But if you want to inform everyone, shouldn't you try to?

Well you have to pick your battles and I focus on providing core mental health programs for people who need it. I think we're doing a pretty good job. I think that they think they're doing what they think is best, as 
I think that Hitler did. Not that I'm saying that they're Hitler but that's the thing, right.

I think that people believe that they're doing what they think is best, given the circumstances. In an email, A Voice for Men's founder, Paul Elam, claims he is an avid supporter of CAFE's work but denies any official or unofficial affiliation with the group.

The law has decided, the law by feminist legal theorists

But CAFE has repeatedly invited A Voice for Men associates and supporters to speak at their events.

These supporters include Janice Fiamengo and Karen Strahn, who once said that abused women regularly demand the abuse they receive but that many of them also get some sort of sexual charge from it.

Whether implicitly or explicitly, I'm sorry but A Voice for Men is a full-on hate group and CAFE is the diet version of that. The issues that CAFE claims to represent or mobilize around are absolutely valid and absolutely worth discussing. But to do so in a way that demonizes women or demonizes feminism or demonizes organizations that have been doing this work for 
10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years is downright wrong and offensive and reinforces a power dynamic that I see as exactly what these organizations ought to be tearing down. Most of the issues in our society are quite complicated, have multiple different approaches and perspectives that need to be brought to bear to fully understand them. So my point of view is men's issues and women's issues kind of go together and if you don't look at social problems from different angles at the same time, you really risk not seeing the real problems that are there at the core and by virtue of that neglect you might not find the appropriate solutions.