Mr. Speaker, despite a severe cold it is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak to Motion No. 147 brought forward by my colleague from Port Moody-Coquitlam.
This motion calls on the government to work together with the provinces to actively promote and implement unified family courts and to emphasize mediation of family law matters.
It is a sad reality that in 1990 about 30 per cent of all marriages in Canada ended in divorce. In 1990 the average length of marriage was shorter than ever before.
Out of all divorced and separated Canadians, 350,000 are parents. We know about the emotional toll that divorce and separation takes on adults, but the impact of family law battles on children is even more traumatic. It should be of great concern to everyone in this House.
The system, as it stands now, does little to alleviate children's pain. The administration of family law is a mess. This country seems to have forgotten the value of parenting and the importance of preserving the child-parent relationship in the context of family break-up. Instead, we have an adversarial system that creates winners and losers. Inevitably those who have the most to lose are the children.
The administration of family law in Canada as it exists today can be summed up in three words, inconvenience, confusion and frustration. We know that family conflicts are seldom cut and dry. They involve many different issues. The break-up of a marriage that involves children can lead to issues of child support, spousal support, custody and property division.
In most provinces, people who are separating are forced to go to different courts for different issues that come up. Divorce, custody, access and support issues cross over federal and provincial jurisdictions and create a tangled web of red tape that inconveniences, confuses and frustrates.
For example, in most provinces if a couple decides to split up but not divorce and they want to deal with custody, access or support issues, they must go to one court. Then, if they later decide to divorce, they must go to another court. Then there is enforcement, which is generally a provincial matter. The list goes on and on.
When will the confusion end? Is the whole process not stressful enough without aggravating matters by this sort of nonsense? What kind of impact is this having on our children?
I can say what kind of impact it is having. There are studies out there telling us that the emotional toll that long, protracted family law litigation has on our children is simply devastating.
This psychological damage is the root of many of the social problems we are seeing today, youth crime, suicide and poverty. This raises serious concerns about the future social health of our country.
Anyone who has ever been involved in any kind of lawsuit will say that litigation should be the last resort. It is not as though this is news to anyone either.
In 1974 the Law Reform Commission of Canada reported that the main goals of government should be to encourage resolution of family matters without resorting to litigation and to lessen the confusion by vesting jurisdiction over all family law matters in single, unified family courts.
Here we are 23 years later. The Liberal government has spent a good part of its mandate reviewing family law issues. Yet it still does not have it right. This government has done nothing to address this sad state of affairs.
We are still left with an adversarial system that destroys any chance of ongoing healthy relationships after the smoke clears in the courtroom.
While there are presently unified family courts in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Newfoundland, not all are province-wide and the matters they deal with vary from one province to another. Some provinces do not even have unified family courts. We heard earlier from the hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair as she took us through the history of the present unified family court system, that it is working in some provinces and that we have made substantive progress.
However, the question that must be asked and which has failed to be answered is why is it so slow to get this process in place across the country. Why is it taking so long? It is because it is a very low priority for this government.
Equally troubling is the fact that nowhere in Canada is mediation mandated as the preferred method for resolving family law conflicts. When relationships end it is only natural for people to blame each other and feel a sense of hostility. But if these people can be assisted and encouraged to respect each other as loving caring parents, this can only be good for the children involved. This government owes the children at least that much.
The advantages of mediation are undeniable. The financial cost is much less than litigation. Most family law conflicts can be resolved in five to ten one-hour mediation sessions. Mediation costs an average of $100 to $150 per hour. Compare this with the
millions of dollars pumped out to family lawyers each year to battle it out in court.
Mediation can allow parents to work out amiable solutions to parenting and support issues without being forced to use their children as pawns. This is better for everyone involved. It has been shown that compromises that tie access and support issues together will not only be emotionally better for children but also financially better.
Several studies have linked non-payment of support with the non-custodial parents' frustration at being deprived of participation in their children's lives. For example, a study in 1995 showed that 79 per cent of non-custodial parents with access paid their support, while only 59 per cent of those without access paid.
It makes good sense that people are more willing to go along with decisions they have made themselves than with decisions that have been imposed on them. But the Divorce Act takes a weak approach to this issue. All it does is require lawyers to inform their clients that mediation is available, hardly an encouragement. The Bill C-41 disaster does nothing to address these procedural failures or to help families on an emotional level either. It is just a piecemeal approach which does more for lawyers and judges than it does for average Canadians.
The list of problems with Bill C-41 is endless but what concerns me most as a parent is the fact that this government has not even dealt with the suffering of children, children who are denied the right to enjoy relationships with both parents, not just the custodial parent. Divorce is meant to end the marriage bond, not the child-parent bond. It is disturbing to realize that in 1992 Canadian courts awarded sole custody to mothers approximately 72 per cent of the time, and yet joint custody was only awarded 16 per cent of the time.
I do not know if the government understands the impact of this, but in the words of the Canadian Council for Co-parenting, there's no hurt like it. Kids need both parents and both parents need their kids.
I offered a solution to this problem. In March 1996, I tabled Bill C-242 which would make joint custody automatic unless not in the child's best interests, as in cases of abuse. Psychologists have also offered a solution called joint custody mediation which has been used with success in some American states. I call on this government to look closely at these options because so far this government has missed the boat on this issue.
Bill C-41 misses the boat by only dealing with outcomes, not with actual process, a process that is leaving deep emotional scars on anyone who has the misfortune of being involved in it. If this government were more concerned with the process and especially with what it is doing to this country's children, the social cost of divorce would not be what it is today.
Canadians are looking for some real procedural reform here, reform that addresses the current jumble in the administration of family, reform that lets Canadians actively participate in the resolution of problems in a way that is best for all involved. That is why I urge all members to support this motion. It is time the House demanded some action from this government. It is time we called on this government to work together with the provinces to encourage and implement reforms to the administration of family law in Canada.