Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to the first group of proposed amendments to Bill C-41. I will speak briefly to the four motions we are presently discussing which have been submitted by the Bloc Quebecois.
We have five groups of amendments to discuss. Although some amendments were put forward in my name, they were really drafted by the hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam. She has done an incredible amount of work dealing with this bill. She has analysed it and gone through it with a fine tooth comb. She has worked to try to better the bill on behalf of Canadians. I want to pay tribute to her.
Motion No. 1 deals with designating the applicable provincial law should both spouses or former spouses not be resident in the same province at the time the application for the child support order is made. Under the amendment the applicable law would be that of the province where the child is ordinarily a resident.
The second part of the amendment put forward by the hon. member from the Bloc states that if there is more than one child of the marriage and they live in different provinces, then the federal guidelines would apply.
I feel the amendments fill a hole in the bill as they describe situations that are left out of the bill in its present form. Therefore, my view is that Reform will be supporting this motion.
Motion No. 2 which was also put forward by the Bloc changes the word "may" to "shall" to make it obligatory that the governor in council designate a province for the purposes of the designation of applicable guidelines as set out in the bill. This amendment also
makes sense. It should not be discretionary which provincial laws apply for enforcement.
Motion No. 3 seeks to establish that the federal guidelines will not apply in a province where there are provincial guidelines for payment of support. We feel that it is very necessary to have national guidelines. They should be established and at least be present to be reviewed by the court in addition to any provincial guidelines. In light of that we will be opposing Motion No. 3.
Motion No. 12 limits the power of the governor in council so that in making the guidelines the governor in council can only take into consideration the matters raised in paragraphs (a) through (h). We will be soon be debating Motion No. 4, a Reform amendment. We feel the government has this whole issue backwards as far as whether the court looks at the guidelines first and then looks at extenuating circumstances surrounding the case. We believe it should be the other way around.
Reform opposes the amendments as we feel that they support what is already contained in the bill and would allow the guidelines to be used first, rather than see the court look at extenuating circumstances such as the ability of the non-custodial parent to pay and other issues that may arise. That sums up my comments on group No. 1 amendments as put forward by the Bloc Quebecois.