Madam Speaker, I echo the comments of the previous speaker. My colleague from Gander—Grand Falls, who sits on the transport committee, has spoken previously on this proposed legislation and has indicated that, from the logistical aspect of the airlines themselves, he cannot support the legislation.
However, in saying that, I would like to thank the member for Lethbridge for putting forward legislation that is legitimate. The issue of abductions is a serious one, with non-custodial parents looking for ways to have access to the children. We have heard that in a number of cases this has been achieved. Children have been abducted and taken far from their homes and their custodial parent. We recognize that there should be, and in fact are, certain protections, certain abilities, certain attempts to resolve this issue and stop them at the onset.
However, it is our party's opinion and our transportation critic's opinion that this, unfortunately, is not the vehicle by which a lot of this will be corrected. If anything, the enforcement of this would be almost impossible.
As a father I have travelled alone with my children, as has my wife when she was bringing them to points where I was located. It would be very simple for her, if she did not have the right to have my children, to forge notarized documents that said she had total custodial rights. I suspect that would be one of the ways anyone could get around this legislation. If people were doing something of that nature they would not be terribly honest at the best of times, so I am sure they would try to circumvent the law and the legislation in any way, shape or form that they could. Enforcement would almost be impossible. Any document provided by an individual to the airlines would have to be scrutinized, and that in itself is almost impossible. The enforcement, the logistics would not make that possible.
Also, to circumvent this legislation, it would be very easy for a parent to simply go by vehicle, by rubber tire, across the border or fly overseas or to other points on American airlines which would not have this type of legislation in place.
Again, it would be difficult to enforce and difficult to restrict the kinds of movements that the hon. member legitimately, as I said, is trying to prevent.
It would also put a lot of the onus on the air carrier. I read the legislation and it says “the holder of a domestic licence”. The air carrier itself, under this legislation, would be responsible and would have some liability attached to it. Even though there may well be a forged document, there may be one circumstance where in fact someone could slip through. This legislation, in my opinion, would then hold the domestic licence holder liable. It is difficult enough currently, under the circumstances of the world, to operate an airline under our current regulations. To have the airlines now anticipating these kinds of issues and problems would be very difficult and it would be something else stacked on to the operations of the airlines that would make it most unprofitable.
I will not take a lot of time in the House on this. I simply wanted to be on the record of saying that I appreciate the member's concern. I have a lot of respect for the member for Lethbridge and I do know that his heart is in the right place when he brings forward this kind of legislation. However sometimes one has to think with one's head as opposed to one's heart and, unfortunately, the head says that the legislation is not enforceable and not something that we can put into place and make work.
That is not to say that we should not put in place other measures. That is not to say that the custodial enforcement procedures that we currently have should not be enforced in another fashion. That is not to say that we condone non-custodial parents abducting their children and moving them outside of our jurisdiction. That is not the case. We have to firm up the consequence. We have to firm up on our ability to stop that from happening in this society but this is not one of the tools that I and my party believe is available to us to stop this.
I thank the House for the opportunity to speak to this on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party. We will not be voting in favour of it when it comes forward. I look forward to helping the member perhaps draft something else that may be more workable for this circumstance.