I hope we don't lose me again.
Thank you.
I was talking about the areas where L4SP agrees with Nick Bala's submissions. I talked about new terminology, the use of parenting coordinator and counselling services, and the best interests lists. I'm going to go forward. I want to make sure I finish this within the next three minutes.
I'm very proud to be a member of FDRIO and when I hear Barbara Landau giving such wonderful submissions—aside from the one, which you all will probably know that I didn't like—I am proud to be a member of the organization with Barbara.
To return to Nick Bala, we applaud Nick for bringing to the forefront the need to specifically address alienation and children resisting contact with a parent. We agree that children's views need to be considered, but his recommendation to encourage judicial interviews we cannot condone. As you'll see, I'm on the same page with Barbara Landau on that point. Interviewing children is an art and not all judges are sufficiently trained in that area. It places judges and children in a pressure cooker.
We agree with Nick's analysis of family violence and heartily welcome his call to the federal government to provide resources to support educational efforts and supports for victims of family violence.
With respect to relocation, we disagree with Professor Bala that there should be a 40% threshold, which he lifted from the child support guidelines. The L4SP brief points out that the onus or burden of proof should always be on the parent who proposes to relocate and thus deprive the child of significant contact with the other parent.
The other recommendations that Nick puts forward, we disagree with. In particular, of course, we disagree with his protestations against the rebuttable presumption. His discussion on pages three and four of his brief tends to largely cite his own work and gives propositions that are simply contrary to the social science literature.
In conclusion, for kids' benefit, we need to thwart the custody access wars from the get-go. We need to remove incentives to strife. No longer should parents need to prove the other unfit in order to win. To reduce conflict, the legal system employs presumptions, onuses and burdens of proof. Even C-78 proposes relocation presumptions. In 1997, we implemented some strong presumptions in the federal child support guidelines and succeeded in removing a huge source of conflict in our system.
Implementing a presumption for equal, shared parenting—that is shared decision-making and residential time that is approximately equal—is a progressive and totally child-focused reform. It's not about parents' rights and it's certainly not about fathers' rights. It's all about adopting legal and social policy that is bound to substantially improve the lives of children of divorce.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much.