Madam Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my deskmate from the New Democratic Party. I always enjoy talking with him and listening to his speeches. He is a brand new member who has been here for only a few months and I must admit that we get along very well.
His statements are in line with what I said about the need for a true family policy, which is lacking here in Canada. We are trying to achieve this in Quebec; this could be done if we had the means, if we had the money, if we had the opportunity to pass legislation and the possibility of taking money from the EI fund.
My colleague talked about the community raising children. I totally agree with him. When you live in a small town or village, everyone knows one another or at least one another's children and can take certain responsibilities. When you know your next door neighbour has a drink and hits his wife, you can intervene more easily than if you lived anonymously in a large city.
That said, my colleague talked about two aspects: prevention and cure. As to prevention, if there were no divorce, we would not need the Divorce Act if we maybe had the means to help families. That is what our colleague said.
As to cure, when people divorce, it seems that both spouses are not on equal footing.
I would like our colleague to talk about these two elements, that is, the need to have a real policy to help families and, second, about what is missing for both spouses to be on an equal footing when they divorce.