Justice committee  I would absolutely concur if there are the services required. Changing the building—building new bricks and mortar—will not do it. You need mandatory education. You need triage. You need domestic violence screening, and you need the services of consensual dispute resolution proce

Justice committee  I'll kick it off. The ones that come to mind immediately, of course, are domestic violence, mental health, people who are feeling so angry at the time of the separation, so hurt and whatever. It doesn't mean that they won't gradually move toward a more co-operative type of thing

Justice committee  I just want to mention the age of the child because you can have infants, who really are not portable, going back and forth. You just disrupt them totally. However, they might be far more able to handle it at a later age.

Justice committee  First of all, reinstating the family court clinics is the best way to do that. It's a wonderful way of doing it. They existed in Toronto, London, Kingston and I don't know if there were any elsewhere. These were wonderful opportunities. They were jointly funded across ministries

Justice committee  It's in the Ontario legislation, under the criterion, the best interests of the child—I think it may be here too—that where it's reasonable, you should be looking at the children's views and preferences.

Justice committee  I'm not aware of any valid poll that's been done that supports the assumption. I don't see why it's necessary, because we're encouraging parents to come up co-operatively with what makes sense for them. The experience over the last 30 or 40 years has been that, as we move to mor

Justice committee  I can take it. I'm a lawyer as well, and I have been a children's lawyer representing children. Very often in a mediation process or a collaborative law process, there is somebody who speaks to the child separately, depending on the age of the child, and listens to what their c

Justice committee  My understanding is that in Australia and in all the states that tried the presumption of shared parenting, they withdrew it. Only Kentucky continues to have that presumption. Since the last time we reformed the Divorce Act, we've had a lot more encouragement of alternative disp

Justice committee  I think we have sufficient.... I think the very fact that this legislation has encouraged so much of a focus on safety and well-being shows we have some serious concerns. Some 20 to 30 years ago in the House of Commons, they laughed at the issue of domestic violence. We don't la

Justice committee  It's Dr. Landau.

Justice committee  I want to donate a copy of my Family Dispute Resolution text to the Library of Parliament.

Justice committee  This has all the different dispute resolution options, in each chapter, written by wonderful, leading professionals, so not just by me. You have all kinds of good stuff in here. It's the 6th edition.

Justice committee  There you go.

Justice committee  That's okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to welcome Bill C-78 with its many positive reforms. I represent the Family Dispute Resolution Institute of Ontario. I've submitted my bio. I will briefly note the items that we strongly support and then discuss issues that w