Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to make a few comments on Bill C-232 tabled by our hon. colleague, the hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam.
Since the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell spoke about the health of the hon. member for Nepean, allow me to point out that we think about her often, especially when we are dealing with issues such as this one which affect the most vulnerable in our society.
The bill before us today is no magic solution. I believe, however, that it is a step in the right direction. Indeed, Quebec, which is concerned about its areas of jurisdiction, has always looked with a very critical eye at amendments to the Divorce Act and to family law, because it knows that we must still live in a federal system for a certain time and tries to balance federal and provincial jurisdictions.
Are we dealing with a filiation problem or a divorce problem? What is the situation? We could debate this for a long time.
In any case, we have before us a provision which would allow grandparents to avoid the additional step required of any third party in divorce proceedings. A neighbour is not treated any differently from a child's grandparent in being granted access or custody rights in divorce proceedings.
That obstacle would be eliminated. In the eyes of the law, grandparents would, for all practical purposes, be reintegrated into the slightly extended family unit. So this provision may be a step forward.
As I said at the outset, we should not see this amendment to the 1985 Divorce Act as a magic solution. A similar provision, which covers all children, whether they were born to married couples or common law partners, has been in effect in Quebec since 1981. Having practised family law since 1981, I can tell you that grandparents are not rushing to make applications to the courts. Since 1981, few grandparents have applied for access in Quebec.
Today, grandparents applying to the courts in Quebec do so only when the conflict is quite serious. Grandparents, the grandfather or grandmother-who should have reached a point in their lives when they could start relaxing a little-often must go against their wishes and say: "Well, I must retain the services of a lawyer, I am going to take my own son or my own daughter, or my son- or daughter-in-law, to court and I am going to take this to the limit, with all of the emotions that go with it". Not many grandparents insist on an all-out battle: their lives already have been one, they have had their children, raised them and worked all of their lives. So, we must not think that this clause will be the magic solution.
However, the fact that such a disposition is even included in the bill could make many divorce lawyers strongly advise their clients to do the following: "Give the grandparents the right to visit their grandchildren. Otherwise, they could take you to court in the future to fight for it".
This kind of provision could prevent a great number of legal disputes and is better than using court cases to settle them.
I also think that we could use our vote on a bill like this one to send a very clear signal to the courts which must interpret these laws, and that is to listen very carefully to the petitions of grandparents before declining their requests for the right to pick up their grandchildren to take them out from noon to four for a pop and a Big Mac and to bring them to a park to play before being forced to take them back home. The courts should perhaps also give them a little more time together, because it takes time to bond. In the era of broken families, we are all aware of how difficult it is to rebuild the ties between our children and their parents and grandparents.
Thus, all of the aspects that have been raised during this debate show that we have the opportunity to help remedy a rampant and very serious social ill. And, although this bill is not perfect, I think it should be passed at second reading and sent for consideration to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.