Madam Speaker, I would like to ask one thing of the member for Mississauga South, who has just spoken. He mentioned having taken part in the work of the committee, or subcommittee, probably in 1998. Our expectation at that time was an in depth reform of the Divorce Act.
As hon. members are aware, under the Constitution, the Divorce Act is a federal jurisdiction. Would it not be wiser for everything relating to families to be under the jurisdiction of the provinces, Quebec among them? From listening to him, it would appear they have changed the entire world and wanted to give this legislation some real clout. Yet, imagine, Quebec has been talking about the child's interests for more than a decade already, and this is already in the Quebec civil code.
The Divorce Act already contains provision for the child's interests, in subsection 16(8), so this bill is not changing the whole world and improving the legislation. Once again, it is a matter of just sprinkling a little bit of blue powder in the eyes of the public, or those who are having problems, in order to convince them that their government is working for them, listening to them. But all of society is affected.
We have no choice but to study this bill here, because this is still an area of federal jurisdiction. Ought we not, however, to take this out of the Constitution and hand it back to the provinces?