moved:
Motion No. 10
That Bill C-41, in Clause 11, be amended a ) by replacing line 16 on page 13 with the following:
"26.1 (1) Subject to paragraph 15.1(3)(a), the Governor in Council may" b ) by replacing lines 41 and 42 on page 13 with the following:
"for the purposes of making a support order in accordance with subsection 15.1(3);" c ) by replacing lines 44 and 45 on page 13 with the following:
"the purposes of making a support order in accordance with subsection 15.1(3); and"
Motion No. 11
That Bill C-41, in Clause 11, be amended a ) by replacing line 16 on page 13 with the following:
"26.1 (1) Subject to paragraph 17(6.1)(a), the Governor in Council may" b ) by replacing lines 41 and 42 on page 13 with the following:
"for the purposes of making a variation order in accordance with subsection 17(6.1);" c ) by replacing lines 44 and 45 on page 13 with the following:
"the purposes of making a variation order in accordance with subsection 17(6.1); and"
Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the amendments put forward by the opposition parties to Bill C-41.
My comments are confined to the amendments in group No. 2 put forward by the Reform Party. I note that of the eight amendments that have been grouped together in Group 2, six of the eight have been put forward by the Reform and two by the Bloc.
Motion No. 4 establishes an order of priority so that the court will look first at the needs of the child and the ability of the non-custodial parent to pay and then at the applicable guidelines for child support.
During remarks made at second reading on Bill C-41 by my hon. colleague for Mission-Coquitlam, she elaborated on why we view this as so important. We feel there is a need to look at the best interests of the child or children involved rather than just make arbitrary decisions based on the guidelines.
In speaking to this bill, as a number of us have already, we have clearly endeavoured to be advocates for the children. We are not trying to pick sides, either on the side of the custodial parents, or non-custodial parents, or mothers versus fathers. Heaven knows enough of that already exists in the present system of dealing with divorce.
The real purpose of putting forward these amendments to try to better the bill is to see that the interests of the child or children are paramount.
While we recognize the need to have guidelines to direct and to guide the judgments levied in these types of cases, it does not make a whole lot of sense if we do not look at the ability of the non-custodial parent to pay. It really does not matter what the support level is set at if the father, who it is in a predominant amount of time, is unable to meet that commitment.
Motion No. 5 is consequential to Motion No. 4. It is a means for us to amend the bill to allow for Motion No. 4 if it was to be passed.
I will move on to Motions Nos. 7 and 8. The bill was written when looking at awarding child support. The court is supposed to take into consideration and apply the guideline when awarding spousal support. The Reform Party believes that the court should look first at the abilities of the parties to pay for the welfare of the child and if it needs to look elsewhere, then go to the guidelines. Basically Motion No. 7 follows along the same lines as Motions Nos. 4 and 5. Again, dealing with child support, we want the court to look first at the party's ability to pay and the needs of the child.
The government should be legislating in the best interests of people. If the court needs further evidence after looking at ability to pay and the welfare of the child, then the court could look to the guidelines and apply them if necessary.
That basically deals with Motions Nos. 7 and 8. Motion No. 8 is consequential to Motion No. 7, similar to the way in which Motion No. 5 is to Motion No. 4.
I will move on to the other two amendments put forward by Reform in this grouping, that is, Motion No. 10 and Motion No. 11. I know this gets quite complicated. Motion No. 10 is consequential to Motion No. 4. It refers back to that subsection.
The governor in council establishes the guidelines, which are the main focus of the bill. In establishing these guidelines, the governor in council is to take into consideration a number of matters. Most important in the list of matters that must be taken into consideration in the eyes of the Reform Party is the ability to pay and the needs of the child. This amendment, therefore, restricts the governor in council in that in making guidelines, the paramount interests should be the needs of the child and ability to pay.
I know I am repeating myself in referring to all these motions. It really comes down to the central focus to which we are trying to direct the government, rather than just bring down these arbitrary guidelines. We want the courts to look at other considerations, to have that as part and parcel of the bill rather than exclude them.
Motion No. 11 refers to the same section found on page 13 of the bill. It refers back to a different section, section 17(6.1) which deals with variation order. The governor in council under this bill does establish the guidelines for spousal support as well as child support. Therefore we want to ensure that were Motion No. 7 to pass the courts address all the concerns that would be presented at the time of the case rather than, as I said earlier, to arbitrarily bring forth the guidelines.
Motion No. 11 is consequential to Motion No. 7 in the same way in which Motion No. 10 is to our Motion No. 4.
Perhaps to summarize why there is this need to bring forward these numbers of amendments that we have brought forward that are grouped into Group No. 2, I would like to make a couple of points. If one were to compare the Notice Paper or the Order Paper from Friday with today's, one would note that there were two amendments brought forward by the Bloc Quebecois obviously at the eleventh hour. One would have to question how that is when we already understood all the orders and the motion numbers, trying to understand exactly how they are all going to fit together, were they to pass, and change the bill. We have to wonder how serious the Bloc is about putting forward amendments to this piece of legislation.
In dealing with Bill C-41, the government has once again taken the easy route of dealing with the support payments. We have tried to make the point during debate on this bill already that we are concerned this simply is not a comprehensive look at the whole issue surrounding divorce.
The justice minister has promised for some time now that he would be bringing forward comprehensive legislation. We are not suggesting that it would have to be included in one omnibus bill. Heaven knows there have been times in the past when we have been quite critical of the government for trying to lump too much into one bill. But we have not seen any indication from the government other than vague promises by the justice minister that he will indeed be bringing forward legislation to address the other side of the equation which is dealing with perhaps mandatory mediation prior to the disputing couple's ending up in court and a bigger issue of access and custody.
I have brought forward a private member's bill, Bill C-242, which would endeavour to bring into effect joint custody being the rule instead of the exception. Very clearly we can look at statistics and we can see that the whole business of the ability and the willingness of non-custodial parents to pay their child support payments is contingent on access to their children.
As access increases and shared custody increases for the non-custodial parent, then equally so statistics show that willingness to pay that support also increases.
The hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam, when she brought forward a private member's bill dealing with grandparents' rights and the need to have grandparents have access to the courts during divorce proceedings, once again she was looking at what is in the best interest of the children. That is what we are dealing with here.
At that time she was told by the justice minister that the reason that the government voted that down was the government would be bringing in more comprehensive legislation.
Despite our best efforts to amend the bill by bringing in a number of amendments which are in all five of the groups, what we perceive is a general unwillingness on the part of the government to look at the other side. It seems to be totally focused on something which is a quick fix, something which would be the easiest to address, to get tough with fathers who are unwilling to meet their obligations and who in many cases are unable to make their payments.
As we have pointed out in our speeches, the simple fact of the matter is in many cases when the non-custodial parent, usually the father, withholds support payments it is simply because it is the only to get back at the fact that they do not have access to their children. I believe that the government is really missing the boat by not addressing the whole issue by not bringing forward companion legislation so that the opposition parties and Canadians can view the entire package rather than just piecemeal, which is easier.