Mr. Speaker, I will not talk about the absence of members from the House but I will address my comments to the members of the Bloc Quebecois and the Liberal Party present.
Most of the stakeholders have put aside their own preferences in favour of the goal of national consistency and co-ordination. There is a clear recognition that the guidelines that have been put in place are a great improvement over the current system. That is recognized by the courts and family law practitioners who are already using the draft guidelines on an advisory basis.
Most provinces are now expected to implement these guidelines, learn from the experience and work together to improve them. The province of Quebec is the only province that has already passed legislation to introduce its own guidelines through regulatory process in order to coincide with the May 1 date.
Bill C-41 will allow these guidelines to also apply to orders made under the Divorce Act. Without Bill C-41 there would be in Quebec two different systems for determining child support orders, one for separation and common law relationships and one for divorce.
This bill is about children. It is about ensuring that their needs are met now and in the future. This bill will help parents come to an agreement more quickly on the issue of child support and thereby reduce conflict.
Finally, Bill C-41 also recognizes that some governments need to continue to focus on enforcement of support orders. New measures are introduced to assist the provinces and territories in this regard.
We have also heard that there are issues other than child support on the minds of many Canadians. Custody and access were raised repeatedly throughout the study of the bill by both Houses. We are not ignoring this issue. We are simply completing the task started six years ago by the federal, provincial and territorial governments. The long awaited child support reforms, custody and access, was the subject of public consultation prepared by the department in 1993. The officials of the justice department have already started to work on this issue through the federal, provincial and territorial law committee.
To reaffirm our commitment to addressing this issue, the Minister of Justice has agreed to move that the government establish a joint House and Senate parliamentary review of custody and access. It is my hope that interested Canadians and stakeholders will take the opportunity to voice their concerns to the parliamentary committee.
We will be making an important first step in finding solutions if we all work together. As you know, Mr. Speaker, two amendments were made to Bill C-41 by the standing Senate committee on social affairs, science and technology. That is why we have the bill before the House again today. I would like to comment on the impact of these amendments to the Divorce Act.
First, some committee members had expressed concerns about the definition of child of the marriage in Bill C-41 which was introduced for the first time in explicit reference to the pursuits of reasonable education-