Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak to this motion, all the more so because I practiced law in my former life. I had studied labour relations and wanted to specialize in labour law. However, the reality of the practice of law, with all the separations and divorces, led me to submit petitions for divorce, of course, but also to argue divorce cases on their merits in various courts.
I am concerned with the whole matter of children, especially after separation. This concerns me as a lawyer, a member of the House and a father of two.
For the same reasons raised in a dissenting opinion when the report entitled “For the Sake of Children” was published in 1998, you will understand that the members of the Bloc Quebecois will have difficulty supporting the motion by the member for Fraser Valley requesting immediate implementation of this report by the government.
By the way, I would not want people to act like rabble rousers. Unfortunately, political discussions sometimes lead people to take a sentence or a phrase and say “Oh yes, the Bloc Quebecois does not care for the children's rights in the case of a separation”. We were not against the substance of the report.
The same applies to the motion. The principle involved is fine. But this is a constitutional matter and it is unfortunate that the government does not want to assume its responsibilities in resolving this issue. The matter is one of power sharing among provinces. And I am not talking of Quebec only. I am not talking about Quebec's interests and rights only. This has to do with the sharing of powers between the provinces and the federal government.
We know that the study by the joint committee dealt with issues that are still very current and constantly evolving: the increasing number of divorces and the reality of the children. We remember that a few decades ago, in Canada and in Quebec, marriage was the most standard form of union between two persons. Now, cohabitation is becoming increasingly widespread.
As a result of this cohabitation, children are born out of wedlock. I do not deny the appropriateness, however, it is a reality. Thus, children come to be part of a new dimension, which is often very complex.
In our opinion, this special joint committee was not the appropriate forum to look at legislative solutions to social issues that affect more and more of our fellow citizens.
Indeed, we realized, when the report was being drafted, that there is a paradox, an unjustifiable dichotomy, in the view of the members of the Bloc Quebecois, in terms of power sharing between the provinces and the federal government. All matters relating to the family, education and social services, as well as all issues relating to legal separation, are clearly under provincial jurisdiction.
In Quebec we have the civil code. As members know, our civil code comes from the Napoleonic Code; our civil law is the civil law of France. In Quebec, sections 493 and following deal with legal separation.
However, under the Constitution, divorce comes under federal jurisdiction. Members will agree that most divorces are settled out of court. They are settled through agreements. The court simply ratifies whatever the parties agree upon. In Quebec, we also have family mediation services to help couples come to an agreement. We have lawyers who specialize in mediation.
In most cases, it is at the time of the legal separation that agreements on child custody and access are signed. As legal separation comes under provincial jurisdiction, it would be logical for divorce legislation to also come under provincial jurisdiction.
We think it would be much simpler if all of family law came under the same jurisdiction, the provincial one.
Let me quote a long text from a prominent expert in constitutional law in Canada, whose expertise no one would question. He is a specialist; it is Senator Gérald Beaudoin, a Conservative member of the other house.
Senator Beaudoin is not known for being a sovereignist. We must recognize this. I hope we are able to agree that there will be a summer, and a winter. I would also like us to agree that Senator Gérald Beaudoin is not a sovereignist. He says so himself, he is a federalist. Sometimes, however, he is a tired federalist, as was the father of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Mr. Léon Dion.
So I quote Senator Gérald Beaudoin, who wrote in 1990:
One might ask why, in 1867, the framers gave Parliament exclusive jurisdiction over marriage and divorce. This seems to have been for religious reasons. Under article 185 of the Civil Code of Lower Canada, marriage could be dissolved only by the natural death of one of the spouses.
It was impossible to divorce under the civil code of Lower Canada. This principle was accepted by the vast majority of Quebecers, who, at the time as you know, were Catholic.
Let us talk about the situation of Protestants. We must refer to people from other provinces because Quebec was by and large French and Catholic, and the other provinces were English and Protestant.
The Protestants, however, wanted the Canadian parliament to legislate divorce, hence section 91.26 of the Constitution Act, 1867, which gave the federal parliament exclusive jurisdiction over marriage and divorce.
Yet, that which was appropriate in 1867 may no longer be appropriate today, because the society in which the law evolves is, by definition, an evolving society. I do not need to tell the House that we do things differently today than we did in 1867.
So, it is important, critical even, that our laws reflect contemporary society. It is our responsibility as legislators to tailor the statutes to today's realities.
We in the Bloc Quebecois were of the opinion that the provinces should have had complete jurisdiction over family law and should have been able to legislate in this area.
Given that I am out of time, I would simply like to say that we cannot support the motion moved by the member for Fraser Valley.