Maurice Vellacott

[Divorce Act, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have some concluding comments for this second reading stage of debate on Bill C-560. I look forward to this, and I look forward to speaking again, hopefully, if the bill gets to committee and passes at that stage, amended or intact, and then back to the House. However, it has been an interesting process.

Over the past several months, I have heard from Canadians from coast to coast, from every province, from la belle province all the way across to western Canada and British Columbia. Over the course of the past years, I have heard from thousands of people.

I will confess from the get-go that the bill is not from my creative imagination per se. Certainly, I have carried the banner over the years, but there are some significant groups in the country that are involved in this.

I want to credit and thank Lawyers for Shared Parenting, a very distinguished group of lawyers that works in collaborative law and sees that all of these different things we have tried in the past, such as mediation and various other things, really have not got to the heart of the problems that of the flawed family law system.

I also want to thank the National Parents Organization, Preserving the Bond Between Parents and Children.

I want to thank Leading Women for Shared Parenting for the very considerable job it has done, and the number of its distinguished women across our country and the world grows every day.

Most of all, I want to thank the Canadian Equal Parenting Council, a very broad umbrella group comprised of 35 to 40 groups across the country that all have their own individual chapters. There is a sizeable number of people represented within these groups.

As well, I want to thank the many researchers with whom I have had the privilege to be in touch. They have weighed in on this, provided input and so on. Certainly, they will be prepared to come to committee. They are from Canada and abroad. A large consensus paper was recently written by a bunch of these individuals who have the intellectual heft on the social science kind of research that is being done.

This is coming at us in an avalanche. We are now beginning to better understand what the best interests of children are, adding already to those different criteria and parameters in the courts across the provinces.

Particularly, children want to love and be loved by both parents. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child talks about that very necessary thing.

Long-time supporters of the New Democratic Party, Liberals, Conservatives, Bloc Québécois and the Green Party, from every region across the country, have been calling their elected representatives to stand up for the best interest of Canada's children in a divorce by voting in favour of Bill C-560.

I want to make the point that, resoundingly, across party lines, across the entire country, a number of polls over the last years show support at 80% and upwards, or just hovering at about 79%, in all provinces by all parties represented in the House and by both genders. In fact, it is about 80% in support from men and about 1% or 2% more for women.

Members may ask why women even more than men are supportive of this equal shared parenting bill or this concept. It is because those men and women may marry again or have another partner. The issue of children having access to them consumes them and creates different dynamics in those relationships as well.

In fact, the current adversarial litigation system of settling child-related disputes is focused on parental rights. It is about winning the boat, the car, the house and the battle over the children. The present system is focused on the rights of the parents, whereas this bill is focused on the rights of the children. It would actually foster settlements, reduce the litigation and so on in the best interest of children.

We have had the discussion about the myth of the fifty-fifty. It is actually in the 35% to 50% range. We have talked about how this is not a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all solution. There are variations and arrangements that could be made. This is to drive it to the best interest of children so they have access to both mom and dad, aside from abuse or neglect.

I would encourage my colleagues to read some of the good material that has been sent to them. Read the bill itself, and not what the Canadian Bar Association is saying about the bill. Read the myths and fact document that has been circulated to members.

Please help me to get this to committee where it can be looked at for further amendments or adjustments, so we do the right thing in the best interests of children in the days ahead by way of passing the bill.

[Petitions, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, petitioners from British Columbia indicate that the current impaired driving laws are too lenient. They want to see that changed so we have new mandatory minimum sentences for persons convicted of impaired driving causing death. They want the Criminal Code to be changed to redefine the offence of impaired driving causing death to impose vehicular manslaughter. They have some other good suggestions in their proposal as well.

[Petitions, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, these petitioners ask that the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selected pregnancy termination, in that in Canada ultrasounds are being used to tell the sex of an unborn child so expecting parents can choose to terminate or abort the pregnancy if the unborn child is a girl.

The petitioners call on Parliament to condemn this worst form of deadly discrimination against females.

[Divorce Act, May 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my private member's bill, Bill C-560, is about a child's best interests, about a child's right to two primary parents and equalizing that access. The current system is focused on parents' rights, not children's rights. Published decisions in our current adversarial system show a cookie cutter approach of making one parent a primary parent, and marginalizing the other to someone the children get to visit from time to time.

The legislation still on the books is three decades old. Social science research has conclusively revealed the need for children of divorce to have the significant involvement of both parents. Bill C-560 would provide that, while retaining sufficient judicial discretion for custom parenting plans.

A full response to questions raised about the bill is found in a myths and facts document already sent to all MPs and senators. I urge my colleagues to actually read that document.

The vast majority of the public, over 75%, support equal shared parenting. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support Bill C-560 at second reading to get it to committee, to hear witnesses and leading researchers, and to make adjustments as necessary.

Our children deserve nothing less. Let us do it for the sake of the children, for the best interests of the children.

[Pan-Canadian Palliative and End-of-life Care Strategy, May 14th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite pleased to be able to speak this evening to this very important topic and this motion put forward by the good member for Timmins—James Bay. This motion we have before us calls on the federal government to develop a nationwide palliative and end-of-life care framework or strategy, “framework” being what we Conservatives prefer. Either way, we do need to get this under way in our country, based on some very good recommendations from a committee of this House.

As mentioned before, in 2010 several members of Parliament formed that all-party Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care, and in 2011 they published their report, “Not to be Forgotten: Care of Vulnerable Canadians”. Several of their excellent recommendations are embodied in this motion before us. As was mentioned, the Conservative member of Parliament for Kitchener—Conestoga co-chaired that committee, and Motion No. 456 benefits from the excellent work done by a number of other members from all parties in the House. Other Conservative members, as I note, included my colleague from Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar and the MP for Newmarket—Aurora.

I do want to thank the member opposite, the NDP MP for Timmins—James Bay, for bringing this motion forward. It is time for this discussion to be had in the country. In fact, it is just on the very front edge, thankfully we think, but not any too soon.

The committee's comprehensive report came out with 14 recommendations, including:

Developing and implementing a National Palliative and End-of-Life Care Strategy; ...the development of a flexible integrated model of palliative health care delivery, able to take into account the geographic, regional and cultural diversity of Canada; ...strengthen the home care delivery program for First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities, developing home delivered palliative care resources, sensitive to community, cultural, familial and spiritual needs. ...expand the provisions of the E.I. based compassionate care benefit... ...set up a Canada Pension credit for family caregivers....

That is a pretty big package of things, actually. However, we are focused today on a framework, from a Conservative point of view, whereby we have the provinces and we have these various people co-operating, working together, and sharing what is already out there such that the public is better informed and better understands those resources.

We see various priorities reflected in Motion No. 456, calling for:

...working with the provinces and territories on a flexible, integrated model of palliative care that: (a) takes into account the geographic, regional, and cultural diversity of urban and rural Canada; (b) respects the cultural, spiritual and familial needs...

It has:

...the goal of (i) ensuring all Canadians have access to a high quality home-based and hospice palliative end-of-life care, (ii) providing more support for caregivers, (iii) improving the quality and consistency of home and hospice palliative end-of-life care in Canada; (iv) encouraging Canadians to discuss and plan for end-of-life care.

I had the privilege, in a younger era of my life, of working in seniors care homes as a health care worker, as an orderly in a hospital and also in a seniors care setting. In those early days when I thought the whole of my life stretched before me, I was a young guy with all these possibilities and was also interacting with, serving, working with, and ministering to those who were in their sunset years of life. As I had those interactions and got good advice from people and enjoyed the conversations and the wisdom of their years, I also began to more and more realize that I was vulnerable, that I was not invincible, and that I would not live forever. My parents, thankfully, and others had informed me of that same thing already, but it kind of affected me a little more as I looked into the wrinkled faces and frail eyes of the individuals who were in those home care situations.

There is all the more need today, as we have the aging baby boomers moving to retirement years. More pressure is being placed on society and on governments to discuss the needs and the concerns, including end-of-life care. The issue of euthanasia keeps coming up, and assisted suicide. Elder abuse and quality of life are things we should be talking about, and we should be standing in the way of abuse of our dear senior people as they live out their final golden years.

An aging population means that doctors and nurses will be increasingly facing the population and the public with end-of-life issues. I believe that at the core and heart of it is support for human dignity, being that we are all individuals made, in my view, in the image of God, from a Judeo-Christian point of view and that of some of the other world religions as well. So there needs to be that respect and support for human dignity and quality of life, with investments in pain management and other palliative care tools. That is where the Canadian conversation definitely needs to go.

We do not want to go down the dangerous and failed route of assisted suicide or euthanasia tried by other countries. We need better, consistent, end-of-life and palliative care in Canada. Palliative care and emotional support are necessary and appropriate responses to those who suffer from terminal illnesses and are near death.

Effective palliative care will also reduce the pressure to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia. The Canadian Association of Palliative Care distinguishes four main reasons that patients request death: pain and physical suffering; loss of control over their illness, their lives, their bodies; the desire not to be a burden; and depression and psychological distress linked to their illness.

Palliative care is the most prominent alternative to the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia. As opposed to therapeutic obstinacy, aggressive treatment that might prolong a patient's life to the detriment of his or her quality of living, palliative care instead aims to provide “better medical care for pain and symptom control and to attend more appropriately to the personal, emotional and spiritual issues at the end of life”.

Advance care directives are also important to talk about in this conversation. I am sure members in the House are familiar with that, so that should take place well before the time comes for any of us. I do not have an advance care directive, but I am certainly reminded in the midst of these days and this topic that every one of us should be having those discussions with a spouse, our children, and with loved ones, about the kinds of measures that can be taken and the kinds that are beyond what we would want or require, the heroics, so to speak, that sometimes do not end in proper end-of-life care.

As an end-of-life treatment, it addresses the psychological and existential factors that influence requests for assisted suicide and euthanasia. We need to have instead these other topics of discussion: advance care treatment, advance care directives and also the kind of palliative care and pain relief that we would desire. Palliative care targets the sources of a patient's anxiety, therefore renewing his or her will to live, the overall quality of his or her life and ultimately, the quality of his or her death.

I would like to share a couple of brief anecdotes that look at life on the ground in Canada as Canadians serve those who need special care at the end of their lives. these accounts come from the March/April issue of the magazine Faith Today.

In the small eastern Ontario town of Perth, the O'Dacre family provides care at the end of life. They operate a funeral home, and they are supporting an initiative to bring a hospice to their community. Janey O'Dacre and her husband John both worked as nurses who provided palliative care prior to entering their present field.... “Our focus is supporting families with end-of-life decisions”, she explains. “But we're not just there for families when there is a death. We know exactly what it's like to be caregivers to the dying too, how emotionally, spiritually and physically exhausting it can be in that role”. They look forward to the day when local families who can't tend to dying loved ones at home can select hospice care, rather than hospitals or long-term care facilities.

The author of the article about palliative care also shared her own story, concluding this way. She said:

I'll forever be grateful for the privilege of helping to care for my father during his last days. As his life ebbed, he continued to communicate love for his family, and to receive the love we offered through our care. That exchange of love was a final, precious and intimate gift. And when he died, we found solace knowing that we would see him again, and that we had eased his final journey.

The world of palliative care continues to grow as the need expands and technology advances, but much more is needed. In recent years, each time the budget period rolls around, I have been urging the finance minister to commit more funds to palliative care. The passage of this motion would be a clear indication of Parliament's support for such a move.

Much more could be said in the way of dignity therapy, and members can google this. I would have mentioned in my speech, had I had more time, the work of Dr. Harvey Max Chochinov of the University of Manitoba, a very novel therapeutic intervention for suffering and distress at the end of life. Much can be said about pain relief at the end of life and there is a lot that can be done that is not much understood by the Canadian public, a crucial part of palliative care and what we need to be doing to provide the end-of-life relief for people as they fade from this life to the next.

[Petitions, May 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, in the third petition the petitioners ask for a change to the Criminal Code in respect to impaired driving causing death being changed to the offence of vehicular manslaughter and a number of other specific suggestions to change the Criminal Code in this matter.

[Petitions, May 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from a number of individuals who support a farmer's right to save, reuse, select, exchange and sell seeds, whereas that is now being changed by commercial contracts, identity preservation and so on.

The petitioners want us to go back to and allow for that inherent right of farmers derived from thousands of years of custom and tradition to do so.

[Petitions, May 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present to the House today.

The first petition is from a number of individuals who ask Parliament to amend the Divorce Act in keeping with my private member's bill, the concept of shared equal parenting as a presumption in child custody decisions except, of course, in cases of proven neglect or abuse.

[Petitions, April 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition. The petitioners are drawing attention to the fact that children thrive best when raised by both parents, even in the course of a breakdown of the marriage. Therefore, the petitioners are calling on Parliament to amend the Divorce Act, as in my Bill C-560, to require that equal shared parenting be treated as the rebuttable presumption in custody decisions, except in cases of proven abuse or neglect.

[Human Trafficking, April 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, sexual trafficking is a global scourge, and Canada is not immune to this crisis against women. With the member for Kildonan—St. Paul and Senator Jaffer, next week I am co-sponsoring the viewing of Red Light Green Light, a documentary exploring the problem of sexual trafficking across 10 countries.

Nations around the world are trying to address this scourge. The member for Kildonan—St. Paul has been a leader in keeping it at the forefront of public policy in Canada.

The Supreme Court of Canada recently struck down Canada's prostitution laws, so Parliament has to rewrite the law. Our government has launched online consultations with respect to Canada's prostitution laws.

Red Light Green Light is a Canadian production. It is an important tool in this battle against prostitution and sexual trafficking as it seeks to answer the question of how we can prevent sexual exploitation before it happens in the first place.

Governments and all Canadians must participate in the battle against sexual trafficking, and I urge all my colleagues to contact the office of the member for Kildonan—St. Paul to confirm their attendance at the screening next Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. in the East Block.