Mr. Speaker, the recent death by suicide of Darrin White in Prince George, British Columbia, has sadly brought to the spotlight the story of an unrealistic regime of family law. How a father could be ordered to pay twice his income for child support and be labelled a deadbeat dad is a cruel indictment of a regime that is unresponsive and broken.
This immeasurably sad tragedy illustrates the need to accelerate change in laws that demand more money than can be reasonably be paid and labels impecunity as deadbeat.
Darrin White was not a deadbeat. He was a victim of a system that cries out for fixing. Most tragically, his children will never know a father who ended his life in a hopeless morass of impossible financial demands.
I can only ask: What can parliament say to the children of Darrin White today?