The source is Statistics Canada. If the hon. member wants to get into sources he may be a little sorry.
One of the things I want to say with regard to the hon. member's comments is that we have to be very careful in attempting to draw a correlation between the children of divorce and participation in the criminal justice system. If the hon. member has sources for that kind of allegation we would be very interested to hear them on this side of the House. Given the fact that divorce rates are high, I believe we would be seeing an increase in the crime rate, as opposed to a decrease, which is what we are in fact seeing.
However, for all the goodwill that came from that speech and which comes from the hon. member opposite with respect to this matter, there is a naivety which needs to be corrected.
As I said before, the post-divorce world is not the best of all possible worlds. People get divorced because, in general, they have come to the end of their tether in a relationship which is the most personal and intimate relationship people have on this earth. When the emotional response turns from one pole to another, the reaction and the fallout can be horrifying, not just for the husband and wife who are going through the divorce, but clearly, as the hon. member has noted, for the children.
Every piece of legislation in this country that relates to children in any way, whether it is the Divorce Act or provincial legislation on maintenance, custody, or whatever, has in it somewhere the phrase "the best interests of the child are paramount". One of the tragedies of our country is that we have still not learned, whether as legislators, as lawyers or as jurists, how to truly implement that phrase. If the parents, the people most directly concerned and the people who allegedly should care the most for the best interests of the child cannot do it, it becomes insane to suspect that anyone else can do it.
In the post-divorce world children are going to be traumatized. As legislators we have to bring in legislation which will minimize the trauma and maximize the benefit. No one has ever suggested, nor should anyone suggest, that solutions which come from the legislature will be a panacea. It is not possible.
When I started to practise law in 1978 the rate of child support and maintenance payments which were not enforced was over 90 per cent. Eighteen years ago over 90 per cent of support payments in this country were unenforceable. Since that time we have
improved. I do not know the statistics today, but I believe we are fluctuating in the area of 60 per cent. That is still unacceptable.
One of the things which I saw time and again as a family lawyer, acting for women who were attempting to enforce child support payments, was what I would refer to as the brow-beaten syndrome. They had come to the point where it was not worth it. The child support payments would be late, if they came at all. The process in the family court or even, from time to time, under a divorce decree in the Supreme Court, meant that those women took time off work. They worked themselves up into an emotional state. For most people, appearing as a witness in court, particularly in an area as sensitive as one which involves both the financial state of the individual and the state of their personal relationships, causes great stress.
Time and again a client would call to say that the support payment had not come in again and I would say we will go to family court and we will do this. Then she would say: "No, to hell with it. I cannot be bothered anymore, it is not worth it, I would rather do without than put up with all of this".
This legislation, which relates to settlement agreements, is being brought forward in an attempt to alleviate that kind of problem. It is also being brought forward because whether hon. members opposite like it or not, on divorce the woman's standard of living falls considerably and the man's rises. Do you want statistics on this? Just check. I will bet that you could even check with some of the hon. members opposite who might know about it. There is no question that women across the board do not have the same access to money, to jobs, to promotion, et cetera, as men. It is a fact of life.
Second, if the woman is paying tax on top of this money and is in a lower category to begin with, she is going to get hit with a bigger bite. This is another thing that this legislation is here to do something about.
The whole thing, however, comes down to the recommendations that are being given to judges and those who are going to hammer out the settlements either in the courts or in mediation ahead of time. Spot news for the third party, mediation has been in place for quite a long time and it works. That is probably the reason we are down to around 60 per cent on enforcement of maintenance orders. However, that is still not good enough.
This problem will not be solved by saying that fathers who do not pay or parents who do not pay are just misguided. They are not just misguided, some of them do not want to pay. They just absolutely do not want to sign that cheque. Enforcement is and continues to be a problem. Again, this legislation is aimed at addressing some of those problems and alleviating them.
This is not a world where mothers and fathers are going to reunite after they have broken up. That kind of thing happens in the odd movie that is released at Christmas time and tragically in the minds of many children of divorce, but it does not happen in reality. Let us not go on talking about how we can heal the personal relationship and wasting our energies there, which is no place for the legislator at any rate, and talk about how we can ensure that the financial burdens and the financial problems are at least taken care of in such a way that children and single parents have some small chance of making their lives a little bit better than they have been.
I am sure there are other areas in our society and other professionals and other people who can work on the emotional reconstruction that may be possible in a limited number of cases. That is not our job just as it is not our job in this legislation to deal with the question of access. Our job is to deal with the question of amendments that will handle corollary relief under the Divorce Act. That is what we do.
A number of questions were brought up by the hon. member opposite that relate purely and simply to matters within provincial jurisdiction. It is all very well for people to question jurisdiction. Jurisdiction matters. Certain things fall within the provincial purview and other things fall within the federal purview. This is something that falls within the federal purview. It is something that we can do. It is something that we are doing.
It is something that has been long overdue. It was given its impetus by the Federal Court's decision in the Thibaudeau case. It was given its impetus by the hon. member for Nepean who came forward and championed this cause from the beginning. It is something that I am proud to stand here today and support.