Mr. Speaker, the law concerning dissolving families when separation and divorce occurs is under much needed review.
In the last parliament legal changes were made to ensure more reliable child maintenance payments. The overly narrow focus of those changes resulted in a rekindling of the gender wars.
Women's groups make their case of being victims without appropriately acknowledging their abuse. Men's groups make their case of being victims of both the system and women without providing sufficient leadership for culpability and remediation.
Fortunately the government relented to permit a joint Senate-House of Commons committee review the Divorce Act. Last week we heard witnesses in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina and Winnipeg. Last Monday in my city of New Westminster I sponsored a well attended open forum giving the public a voice.
It is essential that we fashion a framework that emphasizes parental responsibilities over rights and meets our children's needs over parental wants. To say it simply, we must put our children first.