Mr. Speaker, the Divorce Act does allow the courts to give people access to children other than the parents. Many times we have heard of grandparents who are caught up in the divorce issue and are not given access to their grandchildren. They wish to have access but in many cases they do not have any and it becomes very difficult to see the children.
All the issues that surround custody and maintenance orders surround the ability to have a divorce. Half the people who get married end up in divorce. That is an alarming statistic but it is a fact of life. I am not sure when it became easier to walk away than to stand and fight for the marriage and the family but it seems that is what is happening in many cases.
Many of us, in our offices and in our ridings, deal with the Divorce Act in one way or another, not on a daily basis but certainly on a weekly basis. We have people going through custody issues in the courts. We have people whose wages are garnisheed or their driver's licence is taken away for failure to keep up maintenance payments and it all becomes very troubling to deal with.
I hope that sometime in the future, although I do not think it is on the radar screen just yet, the government will have an opportunity to have a look at the Divorce Act and to make some changes.
A few years ago, a joint committee of the House and Senate tabled a very well done report entitled, “For the Sake of Children”. The report contained a lot of key issues that needed to be looked at. A some point in time, maybe with more pressure and more private members' bills from the House of Commons from all parties, we can start working at getting some of those changes implemented.