Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-252.
Hon. members have well covered the mechanics of what is involved here, but I have some points that I want to make. Whenever I hear of an issue on the floor of the House of Commons that has to do with families and children, I want to be part of it. One of the first bills that I had as a member was to provide income splitting between spouses so that one spouse could stay at home and care for preschool children.
I started to get involved in family and children issues and in fact, I have penned a number of small books on the subject. One of the books I wrote is called Divorce--The Bold Facts. It deals with a significant issue called parental alienation syndrome. This is one of the problems when there is a family breakdown and there is a custody issue and it is a nasty one or a confrontational split-up.
One of the things I learned in doing research for that book was that children who witness abuse of their parents are as affected as if the children themselves had been abused. I also found that children who were used as pawns, as it were, in this parental alienation syndrome were also very much affected by the fact that one parent was pitting the children against another parent.
Through all the research and work that I have done, the truism for me is that both mothers and fathers have an important role to play in the lives of their children, even if the parents hate each other. That is important and that is the principle that this bill has raised.
Having said that, the bill itself, as we know, has now been amended. It was a one clause bill. That clause has been deleted and replaced by another clause. It basically addressed the substantive concerns that people had with regard to the bill and that was that it appeared to be putting a greater reliance on a principle that the spouse had a right that may have impinged on the whole concept of the best interests of the child.
About 10 years ago a joint committee of the House of Commons and Senate issued an excellent report called “For the Sake of the Children”. I participated in some of the dialogue. One of the things that came out is that in these custody and access dispute issues the child was the only one in the proceedings that did not have a representative. The mother had a lawyer, the father had a lawyer, but who was taking care of the child? In fact, the child was being used as a pawn. Parental alienation syndrome was part of it. In fact, domestic violence was part of it. It was a number of these issues.
That report contained some excellent recommendations. I am sorry to say that the Divorce Act still has not been amended to take into account some of the important recommendations that were made by the special joint committee of the House of Commons and Senate in its report, “For the Sake of the Children”.
The items in the report deal very frontally with the kinds of things that the hon. member for Lethbridge has raised in his bill.
The bill in its original form was in some difficulty and likely would have not been successful at second reading. I understand that was the reason it was necessary to respond to the points that were raised during the first hour of debate some 30 sitting days ago.
Even with the current wording, and I think the member for Burnaby—Douglas also has expressed some concern, there are a couple of things that do not quite work. We are at second reading debate on the bill where we debate the fundamental principles of the bill, the intent. We can deal at committee and at report stage with ensuring that the words are correct. I am not going to mince words that this bill does not technically work in the end result for me and so I am not going to support it; I will support it in principle and I will be recommending that my caucus support the bill in principle and that it be sent to the justice committee.
I should also say that I share the concern that others have. The member for Hochelaga indicated that the justice committee is totally bogged down. It is unfortunate, because it means that good legislation may have some difficulty getting through before there is another election after all the work that parliamentarians have done. It is a possibility. The Minister of Finance will concede it is a possibility, unless he comes up with a darned good budget.
The problem with minority governments is they have a quirkiness in that the legislative process by and large takes a substantial period of time. If a bill does not get introduced early enough in a minority Parliament, it will likely die on the order paper and that is a shame. Let me be specific for the members' purposes and for the committee that will look at it and I hope it will have a chance.
The issue that they will be granted access appears to require to be defined, because in saying they shall be granted access, there are no dimensions. Could it be a day? Could it be a week? Who controls the timing of that? The mechanics of how it works is not in the existing legislation. This bill does not define it. We may have to deal with that in committee and I will urge the committee to make a definition about what it means and how it ties in consistently with the whole family of issues related to custody and access orders.
The second item has to do with children. Children are persons 18 years of age and under. We have to ask ourselves whether or not the provisions of the Divorce Act amended by the bill would actually coerce a 12 to 17 year old to actually visit with a parent when a court may not order that and the child may not want to visit that parent. We have age of reason issues as well. There may be a conflict that has to be dealt with. What if a child of the age of reason does not want to visit that parent? This cannot be black and white. It is like most of our laws in that we have to deal with it on a case by case basis. There may have to be some proviso, for example, where possible, in accordance with orders or what are the rights of the child.
The importance of the bill is that it provides an opportunity to take the first step at making a critical appraisal of the condition of the current Divorce Act and the recommendation of the joint committee that did the report, “For the Sake of the Children”, to open up these issues to dialogue and discussion.
I am supportive of the intent. I am a big fan of private members' business. I have had some success, but I can tell the member and all hon. members, in my view the best outcome of a private member's bill is to have the government adopt it as its own so that it can get fast tracked through the appropriate minister. There is nothing better.
For instance, there was a private member's item which provided that if there was a situation of domestic abuse, the penalty related to that would be more than common assault because a trust relationship was being violated. In fact, in the Criminal Code today there are stiffer sentences for those who are convicted of spousal abuse. That happened not as a result of the ultimate discussion and debate and going through the whole private members' business process, but because the minister took it upon himself to do it.
The extension of maternity and paternal leave under EI from six months to a full year was the subject of a private member's bill. I do not even think it had second reading, but it appeared in the very next budget of the minister. The Minister of Finance is here. Maybe there are some opportunities here to do that.
The bill is at second reading in principle and I believe the member was motivated with all the best intentions. I think he has the support of the House and I recommend that the House pass the bill at second reading.