Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-41 today, an act to
amend the Divorce Act, the Famil Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act, the Garnishment, Attachment and Pension Diversion Act and the Canada Shipping Act.
In contrast to what the hon. member for Halifax said earlier, she made the statement that governments cannot legislate loving families. I would like to put to this place today that in fact governments can legislate things that will destroy loving families through the very policies they put forward.
Government and the laws that are made can and do have a profound effect on those institutions that are the bedrock strength of our society. Integrity for instance, the most important single quality for any individual or nation, is born and thrives in the bosom of the examples and the conversations in the homes of this nation.
A healthy family is a place of nurture and growth for those qualities most essential for the success of individuals and nations. Within the walls of our nation's homes we learn to find our security and the acceptance and the unmasked behaviour of our family. We learn about ourselves through the interaction and sometimes blunt appraisals of those who know us best. We learn to wait and to compromise. We may hone our debating skills or even our self-defence techniques on our siblings, or we may find the value of that same brother or sister as a loyal ally on the far side of the school yard or on the mean street corner.
We answer to one another. We share responsibility in small and larger tasks. We see the value of shared love and caring, of complementary but equally valuable tasks as mother, father and children working together. We acknowledge the growing potential of family members. With greater freedom comes the greater acceptance of accountability to family, to society and to ourselves.
We face the consequences of undone tasks. We learn right from wrong. We share the benefit of a common purse. We grow in the knowledge of the stories of the past, the guidelines of custom and culture and carry those gifts forward to share with our children.
Sadly, the picture of the nurturing caring family is becoming less and less of a reality in Canada. It in fact has become the chief victim of our unfolding times and defective government policy. Divorce rates have increased 15-fold since the 1950s. It is projected that more than half of our young people will spend at least part of their growing up years in a single parent family.
Family break-up is a recipe for trouble for our youth. Many seek community outside their own homes with between 100,000 and 200,000 Canadian youth now homeless by choice. According to a UNICEF 1995 report, Canada has one of the highest teen suicide rates in the world. Since 1960 the rate has quadrupled to where almost 12 out of 100,000 of our young people, mostly boys, choose to put an end to their own future. "There is a mountain of scientific evidence showing that when families disintegrate children often end up with intellectual, physical and emotional scars that persist for life", points out social scientist Karl Zinmeister.
The failure of the justice system under the Liberals is also a threat to families. Canadian families are victims of a justice system that is more concerned about the rights of the criminals including violent offenders than about law-abiding citizens.
As part of the criminal justice system but within the walls of our homes is the issue of domestic violence. Domestic violence needs desperately to be addressed but not simply through a gender biased lens that prevents an accurate assessment and real solutions to the problems that exist. The Young Offenders Act does not take child crime seriously and, coupled with other legislation that weakens the role of parents in their children's lives, prevents parents from effectively tackling some of the criminal influences in their children.
What effects are there on the economic front? A Fraser Institute study demonstrated that the average family of four pays 46 per cent of its income on taxes. The same study found that taxes on the average Canadian family have risen 1,167 per cent since 1961. That number takes on greater significance when we find that real family income has actually decreased since 1988. Real income has actually been eroded by successive Conservative and Liberal government tax and spend policies.
A recent StatsCan report stated that since 1989, after tax family income has fallen 6.5 per cent, bringing it to the same level as at the end of the recession of the early 1980s. That income to maintain a household, it should be noted, now takes almost twice the number of paid hours it did 20 years ago.
This runaway economic policy has remoulded the neighbourhoods of our nation. In 1986 only 12 per cent of Canadian households were made up of one person in the workforce and a spouse full time at home.
The stresses are multiplied many times over for the single parent family. The precious commodity of time for communication or simple renewal is rare indeed, and the natural ally of a caring and understanding alternate adult is missing. Also of crucial importance is that money most often is too scarce. More than half of Canadians living in poverty are single parents and the overwhelming majority of these are women. However, because of debt levels and continuing government spending and the flawed appreciation of the importance of family, these patterns will continue to be the raw truth for our children and, unless something is done, for our children's children.
The Liberals like to talk about wanting to put the best interests of the child first in their legislation. It has become a common refrain from that side of the House. Yet as usual, the actions of the
government do not bear up under scrutiny when compared to its claims to be considering the child's best interests.
One would think that addressing an issue such as child support and marriage dissolution would be one of the best places to help a person focus most accurately on the issues of children and their best interests. However, again the Liberals are mired in their misguided concepts of the role of governments. They refuse to realize that the best interest of the child is a family that is supported and encouraged as the most important institution in society. Let me ask the Liberals some questions about their version of the best interest of the child.
Is the best interest of children shown in policy that passively sits back assuming that the present nature and rates of divorce are there without attempting to discover why and then attempt to do something substantive about it?
Is the best interest of children served in making institutional day care facilities more prevalent at a price that puts further economic burdens on families leading then to a greater use of those facilities as a second parent goes out to work just to make ends meet?
Is the best interest of children served by universal social programs that the government cannot afford instead of targeting those programs to those, particularly children, who are in legitimate need?
Is the best interest of the child served by stripping authority from parents so that they cannot effectively raise their own children?
Put simply, the most profound destructive force on families today is tax and spend, intrusive and divisive family policies that emanate from Liberal policy makers today.
The Divorce Act which we are talking about today which originally granted federal jurisdiction over matters relating to divorce has been re-opened twice before, once in 1968 when no fault divorce was established and in 1982 to institute further changes. For the sake of speed through courts and presumably less acrimony for the sake of children, all accountability for actions of either side was removed except in decisions relating to child custody.
It is significant that it is the very matters relating to children which still remain the most divisive and sadly, with this legislation that will not change. The full ramifications of the changes to the Divorce Act in the past or those which are before us today will probably never be quantified.
Opening the act up as we are again today however, with the records of social devastation that are before us, must demand that the government look seriously at its responsibility and all the realities of our present situation. The kind of tinkering and ideologically based approach that is being suggested in Bill C-41 reflects a bankruptcy of thought and conscience.
The bill addresses the issue of enforcement of support payments. I applaud both the recognition of that need and the attempt to look at real enforcement procedures. Legally binding decisions should have that force of law for the sake of all those who are involved. It would be nice if this mindset of enforcement would extend more generally to the protection of law-abiding citizens in a wider criminal justice system but we will leave that debate for another day.
Custodial parents do need protection in law for the rights that are granted to them in law. However, the government is using a one sided, gender biased approach which increases the commitment to enforce support payments but says absolutely nothing about the importance or the enforcement of child access agreements, something which is of equal importance to the child involved.
There are two parents in any divorce involving children. There is usually the custodial and the non-custodial parent, yet the proposed changes do not show the same respect for non-custodial parents. Both parents have responsibilities and both parents have rights.
The courts overwhelmingly make men the non-custodial parent. Sixty per cent of families living in poverty today are headed by men. Financial pressures, including high levels of taxation, have a powerful and destructive impact on the cohesiveness of those families. Men are involved. So are women. Yet the present system makes recourse difficult for the men who want to dispute a judge's support or access ruling.
Personally, there have been men in my office who have gone bankrupt. Some of them have told me they are contemplating suicide because their lives have been ruined by endless court battles launched to gain access to their children without avail. How does Bill C-41 address their concerns?
There is no commitment in the bill to enforce child access. Neither is there equality in the system in other areas. For example, Bill C-41 proposes to give the custodial parent access to the income information of their former spouse for three years. That is a radical departure from accepted principles of privacy. If consideration of those kinds of exceptions are being put into place, the same provisions should be there for both parents, for both sides of the divorce equation.
Divorce hurts children. The pain experienced by children of divorce takes many forms. In addition to the many costs to society, there are of course the economic stresses which I mentioned earlier. One of the significant reasons for the financial problems is the
simple fact that it costs much more to maintain two households than it does to maintain one.
I find it strange. The government claims to be concerned about child poverty. That has been a dominant theme which we have seen in this government. However, the government cannot be taken seriously if it ignores the much greater risk of poverty that exists as a natural result of divorce.
The economic difficulty comes a distant second in importance to the emotional trauma of divorce for children. Divorce is a very difficult experience for older children let alone the younger ones. The pain is dramatically multiplied by acrimonious legal proceedings which are further complicated by lawyers trained in adversarial methods which pit one spouse against the other.
In 1970 the Law Reform Commission of Canada released a major study on family law which argued that adversarial proceedings in divorce actions should be eliminated. The primary reason for this change is the detrimental effect it had on children.
Here we are 26 years later, and what have successive Liberal and PC governments done during this time? We have a win-lose approach to divorce settlements that involves legal wrangling from beginning to end both in the courts and in lawyers' offices.
We have an adversarial system that constantly succeeds in only one thing, destroying the relationship between the two combatants. It is designed to hinder the possibility of maintaining an ongoing relationship subsequent to the divorce that would be of benefit to the children. And what does the Liberal government, the government that claims to be family friendly and child centred, propose to remedy this situation? Absolutely nothing.
Here in Bill C-41 the government has its best opportunity yet to initiate substantive and constructive change. What is it offering as a solution? Absolutely nothing.
The Liberals are content to pursue their half measure, one sided, pat answer approach for an opportunity for real substantive change to this critical legislation. The government has dismissed completely the importance of the overall process. To the government the answer is simply enforcement and an inflexible payment schedule.
Recently a marriage counsellor was in my office. As one who is on the frontlines of dealing with marriage difficulties, he expressed serious concern over the present situation. He confirmed that there is no prevention component in the present process dealing with partners concerning divorce.
We have a government that advocates crime prevention, that pushes for greater health. Why in the world is there no interest in reforming the divorce process with a preventive component? Does the government ignore and discourage counsellors in the present situation? There is a determined lack of recognition of their value as front end prevention people to this crushing social problem. In addition, the government even charges the famous GST on their services.
So who does the government victimize? Family breakups hit poor families the hardest, and that makes situations that are already difficult worse by divorce.
I was talking to a local family lawyer in Coquitlam not long ago. He has spent 25 years in the practice of law. In his experience within family law he remembers only a handful of cases that actually avoided going through with full divorce after coming through his office.
The present system feeds conflict. The present system adds fuel to the fire. The present system breeds anger and suspicion between the partners, and the victim is the child.
However, there is an alternative, one that will help the legislative process and thus help the families involved. Presently the process of separation, spousal and child support, divorce and property division crosses provincial and federal jurisdictions.
The child support decision is decided in a federal court, whereas the enforcement is generally a provincial matter. For the sake of those involved, this issue must be addressed. First, I would propose the concept of a unified family court, a place where all matters related to family breakup can be addressed under one roof. Accordingly, the many facets of decision making can be brought together in a fairer, broader context so that equity and enforcement can be better applied.
Such a concept was introduced in B.C. with excellent results. It is time the federal government recognized the need for such a system and also showed leadership in making that happen.
The second issue was advanced not only by the Reform Party of Canada but recently by the Canadian Bar Association: the necessity of the process of mediation. Mandatory mediation through a unified family court is a cornerstone of an effective process for addressing divorce.
An effective system would make mediation mandatory in situations involving children. It would demonstrate itself as a process that facilitates solutions, not as the present system does, facilitating destruction.
The goal of mediation is to arrive at a solution that is mutually acceptable and mutually respected. This process has the potential to dramatically reduce the number of win-lose situations that leave at least one party victimized by the process.
This individual personalized approach to divorce proceedings is impossible in the present adversarial, one size fits all type of approach the federal government is putting forward.
In conclusion, we need to think of the best interests of the child. Children come into this world with two parents. The decision that goes toward that child must embody more than simple numbers, values and dollar figures.
A child is more than the money that the parents bring in. It is composed of the genes, the extended family history, the ancestry and values of that family.
The government, with this legislation, owes an apology to the whole population because we are all stronger if families are valued and nurtured.
I cannot support the bill which is totally blind to the real opportunity we have before us for strengthening the foundation of society and rather would simply look at a small slice of the total picture.
The value of families and children needs recognition in government policy. I challenge the government respectfully to recognize that this is but a small beginning that it has proposed and that the crisis of family disintegration is far too great to let wait any longer.