Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to reiterate how sensitive my party and I are to violence against women and their children. We must work tirelessly to ensure that all women and children can thrive in a safe environment at all times. A woman was killed in the north of my riding recently and I am quite shaken up by it. This has to stop.
The bill under consideration seeks to remove parental alienation as a concept from family law. In our view, it is not up to the legislature to decide whether a concept should disappear as a psychological phenomenon, let alone be removed from the Criminal Code, just because there is an emerging and minority hypothesis that parental alienation disproportionately harms one group.
Objectively, the definition of parental alienation proposed between 2010 and 2013 by the Parental Alienation Study Group, or PASG, to the DSM-5 preparatory committees is the one that is now nearly unanimously accepted among experts who subscribe to the concept:
Parental alienation is a mental condition affecting children or adolescents (often in the context of high-conflict parental separation) and characterized by two elements:
1. The child or teenager allies strongly with one parent.
2. The child or adolescent unreasonably rejects the other parent, without legitimate justification. The child or adolescent resists or refuses contact with that parent, even when ordered.
Forensic expert, retired professor at the Université de Montréal and recipient of the Noël-Mailloux Award from the Ordre des psychologues du Québec Dr. Van Gijseghem points out that there is not necessarily a causal link between the two parts of the definition. He adds:
Despite the apparent simplicity of the definition, diagnosing parental alienation “disorder” is no easy task and requires a rigorous and thorough psychological and family assessment that includes all family members.
Family law lawyer Jérôme Harrison believes in the importance of identifying two situations where the child is the focus of tension. When a child still feels torn, feels like they need to make a choice, we speak of a conflict of loyalty. This type of conflict can be fuelled by a wide range of disparate factors. When a child flatly rejects one parent, seems to have made their choice, is no longer or not torn between their parents, there is reason to suspect that one of the spouses is engaging in parental alienation.
That said, a child, usually a teenager with more advanced critical thinking skills, may have made an informed choice without being pressured by either parent. If there are reasonable grounds to believe that parental alienation has occurred, Mr. Harrison suggests contacting a lawyer to have an action plan put in place to address the situation. This process illustrates how professionals are able to detect credible parental alienation and that mechanisms are set in motion long before a trial.
Furthermore, parental alienation is difficult to argue in court because evidence gathering is difficult and there is still some debate over this psychological concept. In a study conducted in Ontario between 1993 and 2011, 170 legal decisions referred to parental alienation. In the majority of these cases, the allegations of alienation were unfounded or there was insufficient evidence to reach a verdict.
Let us be clear: parental alienation, a phenomenon that the medical community can observe and measure and that a majority of family law attorneys use, is not abstract and cannot be dismissed on the grounds that it no longer corresponds to the findings of a few researchers with differing opinions on the subject. This implies that the judiciary, many family law attorneys, and in some cases the police, medical professionals, or child protection workers are not doing their jobs properly because they lack the judgment to detect potential acts by an abusive parent who encourages a child to reject the other parent.
Unfortunately, parents sometimes get into a fight where the children can be caught in the middle and used as weapons against the other parent. Quite often, one or both parents will convince one or all of the children to choose a side through a myriad of tactics, arguments, lies and defamatory statements at the expense of the other parent. On the other hand, a child may become alienated from a parent long before the divorce process begins. A child may have experienced abandonment, insecurity, fear, emotional detachment early in life or aggression from a parent. In short, the child might already be detached from a parent and therefore alienated without having been through a divorce.
Historically, divorce has remained a federal jurisdiction since the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1867, which placed marriage and divorce under federal jurisdiction. The stated objective was to ensure that the rules were consistent across provinces and to avoid contentious situations if a spouse decided to move somewhere else in Canada.
Unofficially, this has allowed Quebec to maintain control over family law, despite its clear distinction in the handling of separations by following French civil law tradition. It is therefore a holdover from another era that unnecessarily complicates family law and allows Ottawa to have the final say on marriages. The Bloc Québécois is therefore calling for marriage and divorce to be handed over to Quebec City in order to ensure uniform rights, regardless of the type of union individuals choose.
The Bloc Québécois supports the objectives of Bill C‑223, namely to guarantee the well-being of children in divorce cases, and it is prepared to revisit this sensitive topic. However, we reject the premise that parental alienation has a harmful and disproportionate impact on one group. The proposal to remove this concept from the Criminal Code to avoid cases where this may have happened seems excessive to us.
According to the experts in psychology and law who were consulted, it seems that this phenomenon is rare and that there is no consensus on this matter. Lastly, as previously mentioned, it is difficult to imagine removing a concept that comes from the field of psychology and that has been used by the courts for many decades because of an emerging minority theory that lacks consensus.
One of the cardinal principles of justice is equality before the law. Creating an exception risks causing more harm to children than good. We cannot brush aside the fact that a parent may use coercive alienation against their children. We must trust the various professionals throughout a difficult process such as divorce, and we believe that a parent who engages in parental alienation, intimidation or coercive violence towards their child will ultimately be found out and made to answer for it.
The Bloc Québécois believes that any amendment to the Criminal Code must be carefully considered, and we want to avoid weighing the legislation down with controversial provisions. Nevertheless, we will vote in favour of the bill so that experts can weigh in on the wording and so that the committee can debate the best practices for protecting children during a contentious divorce. If the committee deems it appropriate to improve the bill or remove parts of it where there are differences of opinion, the Bloc Québécois will offer its full co-operation.
Considering that family law is highly developed, regulated, and rooted in Quebec's civil law tradition, the Bloc Québécois calls on the federal government to give up this last piece of common law, the Divorce Act, which is an anomaly in separation and divorce management. This archaic separation, which was politically motivated at the time, is no longer necessary. Quebec courts have shown that they can deal with different separation cases seriously and professionally.
What is more, Quebec's justice minister introduced unified family tribunals, or UFTs. Since October 10, 2025, civil union-related claims are now heard by the Court of Québec's Unified Family Tribunal. This is another example of the Quebec government's expertise and seriousness in this type of civil litigation. Quebeckers simply want to handle divorce proceedings themselves, and they are calling for an end to this two-tiered system.