Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
My experience, first of all, is as a family law lawyer since 1979. As a law student, I founded the Canadian Journal of Family Law. I've published many family law articles, including one that was cited favourably by the Supreme Court of Canada. My practice is dedicated to finding the optimum solutions for kids. I appear before you as a founder of Lawyers for Shared Parenting and co-author, along with five others, of the brief that our organization submitted.
As a little bit of my personal history, I have one 47-year marriage. I have seven kids, with no divorces amongst the married ones, and 13 grandkids. I hope that demonstrates that I have no personal axe to grind here.
If my views with respect to rebuttable presumption of equal shared parenting are adopted, I will likely ultimately have less family law legal work to do, and I hope that happens.
There are two reasons that this committee should adopt rebuttable presumption for equal shared parenting. The social science literature is crystal clear, and the public overwhelmingly wants it, but many lawyers do not.
The social science literature overwhelmingly establishes the utility of ESP, which is short for equal shared parenting. You can find the footnoted sources at footnote 44 of our brief. If you need help to access them, just send me or my co-authors an email. At my website, complexfamilylaw.com, I have a number of quotations from the social science literature under the title “Equal Shared Parenting Thought of the Day”.
It really comes down to three simple points when we're dealing with the literature. One, the closer we get to 50% residential time, the better the outcomes are for children. Two, ESP gives better outcomes on many axes of measured child behaviour and child adjustment. Three, ESP outcomes are better, even independent of other factors.
Let me make three points there. One is on the quality of the parent-child relationship, and we've learned that even marginally fit parents are beneficial for kids. The second factor is parental incomes. Benefits of ESP are not tied to standards of living, as some have claimed. Third, whether it's a low-conflict or high-conflict level, they do not yield appreciably different results in terms of benefits to children, but I will concede that extremely high-conflict situations could negate equal shared parenting.
The arguments against ESP are responded to much better than I could do by Professors Nielsen and Kruk, and they are cited in our brief.
I want to talk about public opinion polls. Our brief, on pages 13-15, presents the public opinion polls. Public support for rebuttable presumption is very consistent and high. Opposition within the bar is very strong, and for that, please see Professor Nick Bala's brief and see the Canadian Bar Association brief.
Bill C-78 did not even mention anything approaching a rebuttable presumption for ESP, so I ask, why doth they so vehemently protest? If we adopt the L4SP position—that's Lawyers for Shared Parenting—you will make a lot of lawyers very unhappy, but you will make many Canadians very pleased indeed.
Do you choose the lawyers, or do you choose the public? I say, choose neither. Choose the children. Give the children of divorce the best chance to maintain and strengthen relationships with all of their parents and grandparents. Even with your much-applauded change in terminology, unless you take the very bold step that I am urging on you here today, the system will continue to pit parents against each other, each trying to prove that he or she was the primary parent, and each trying to prove that he or she is a better parent. It's time to implement a sea change. It's time to really make a difference in the lives of Canadian children.
I want to mention two briefs, the B'nai Brith Canada brief, authored by John Syrtash, who I see is in the room today, and my very good friend Professor Nick Bala's brief. With reference to Mr. Syrtash's brief, B'nai Brith Canada has expressed support in its brief for a rebuttable presumption for ESP.
While Lawyers for Shared Parenting welcomes that support, we do caution that the test its legal counsel, Mr. Syrtash, applies is overly stringent—namely, that the presumption is rebutted only in “unconscionable circumstances”. We maintain that there must be greater flexibility.
L4SP also commends John for his analysis of the family violence sections of the bill. We agree that the current wording will likely create [Technical difficulty—Editor].