Further on that point, Mr. Speaker, it is critical to understand that this legislation would be entrenching specific provisions in law for the first time: a definition of family violence that is expansive, that includes the impact it can have on children even in observing family violence. Insofar as it relates to the position being articulated on the opposite side of the House about an equal parenting provision, it is family violence that is so critical in understanding why a best interest of the child analysis should not have an equal parenting presumption.
In the evidence we have seen, which has informed the development of the bill, what has been resoundingly approved of from members of the bar, stakeholders and parents from coast to coast to coast is that looking at each case in its uniqueness is the critical approach. It can account for family violence in a way that hitherto was not possible. That is why the presumption has changed and moved away from equal parenting.
How does the member opposite reconcile those two? A rebuttal of presumption is not enough. We have to put family violence and the best interest of the children square and frontal in our analysis here. That is what the legislation would do.