Mr. Speaker, I started at Dalhousie law school in 2001, and in my second year I took family law with the great Rollie Thompson, one of the foremost thinkers on family law in Canada. If he is watching right now, he is laughing out loud at home because I said that; but he is a great thinker when it comes to family law, and I was really lucky to be able to take that class with him.

There is one thing he drilled into our heads over and over again. Yes, it is the law, but he made sure we fully understood what it meant, and that was the best interests of the child. We talked about different scenarios and hypotheticals, such as what we would do if we were judges with a certain case in front of us and how we would make the decision. We talked about the best interests of the child, because when it comes to conflict about custody and access in Canada, the paramount guiding principle under the Divorce Act, and also in many pieces of provincial custody and access legislation, is the best interests of the child.

What does that mean? It does not mean mom; it does not mean dad; it does not mean grandparents. It is the bests interests of the child. I point out that it also does not mean children across the board. That was a tricky thing for us to understand as law students. The question was not what the best would be for the children, writ large; it was this child who stood before us, who had a specific case, a specific family situation in a specific geographic area of Canada. There were all kinds of different considerations, such as socio-economic considerations, and it was about this child before us.

When we consider the best interests of this child who stands before us, there can be many different possibilities under the legislation. There can be equal time. Equal time is allowed under the Divorce Act. There can be sole custody by one parent with access by another parent. There can be sole custody by one parent and no access by the other, because it may be determined that in the best interests of this child, he or she should not have contact with a parent. There are all kinds of circumstances where that occurs.

Shared custody is an option as well, and it is even possible to have a scenario where a child has a different set of circumstances from that of his or her sibling. Again, I come back to the idea that it is not about what is best for children; but it is this child, not his or her brother or sister; this child. It goes back to the idea that the most important thing that we consider is the child standing before us, and that is the root of the law when looking at family law and how to deal with custody and access. It is beautiful and elegant. It is an elegant concept. Let us forget about who lives where and who has more money or anything like that. What is the best scenario for this child?

The bill before us would instruct judges to find a presumption of equal sharing of parenting responsibilities. This could be rebutted. It is a rebuttable presumption if a party can show that the best interests of the child would be “substantially enhanced” to do otherwise. Even if I thought this bill was a good idea or creating this rebuttable presumption was a good idea, which I do not and I will explain why later, this is a significant departure from Canadian family law. It is a significant departure. Even if I thought this was a good idea, in no way could anyone possibly think that something as significant as this concept, this reversal, this rebuttable presumption, should be changed through a private member's bill.

I know I am talking process here, but process is important. Not everybody knows that private members' legislation is different. It gets very limited debate. There are two hours at second reading and maybe a couple of days at committee. One would think a couple of days is big, but a committee meeting is just two hours. Then there are two hours at third reading. Therefore, we are talking about four hours of debate in the House.

The best interests of the child is the cornerstone of our federal Divorce Act, the cornerstone of custody and access laws provincially, and part of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is something to which Canada is a signatory, and we cannot possibly think that four hours of debate would be sufficient for changing this concept.

The mover of the bill is speaking to this bill; I am speaking to this bill; there is a smattering of other MPs who are speaking tonight; and that is it. We are just going to have this four hours of debate. Members cannot think that there is enough thought or insight or discussion here tonight that could support this fundamental change to family law. That is in the make-believe world where I think this is a good decision.

However, I do not support this bill. I do not support it in any way, shape, or form, thanks in large part to the constant drilling of the best interests of the child by Rollie Thompson, my family law professor. This is the most important concept.

I am going to quote the Canadian Bar Association.

The Bill would represent a disservice both to children and families by: taking the focus away from children in favour of parental rightsdetracting from the individual justice required by the Divorce Act andpromoting further and more fractious litigation.

Litigation; we often hear how we need to change the Divorce Act. We need to change this idea of best interests of the child because there is all this litigation and it is so difficult. Yes, it is difficult. Of course it is difficult. However, there are lots of avenues for parents to take, so they do not actually have to resort to litigation.

When the focus is on the best interests of the child, it makes parents take stock for a minute. It makes them take a deep breath and focus on their children, rather than themselves. With this concept, they are more likely to put aside their differences. They are more likely to put aside their self-interest and to work to a resolution that works for their family.

This bill would actually make that consideration of the child secondary. I cannot support a law that is going to make the child second.

In coming up to this debate, I was contacted by a constituent of mine. He asked me to support this bill. He shared a heartbreaking story, a truly heartbreaking story of his situation with his ex-spouse and kids. He told me about how sole custody was used as a weapon against him and held out as a reward for his ex-spouse.

We are contacted often by people who want us to support legislation or to not support legislation, vote for or against, but his story really did stick with me. It was a very difficult story to read. There are always individual situations that do not fit or somehow do not work, but when I looked at his situation and he told me about everything he had gone through, I could not help but think about how much different his situation would be if we had support for parents, if we had access to justice, if people could actually access the courts and have legal representation.

I think that the goal of this bill, which is co-parenting, would be better served by greater funding for parental education, for access to justice, for access to legal representation and to counselling services. It would be better served by those things than it would by this bill.

I do not have a lot of time left. In doing research for this bill, I found there is a fantastic paper put together by the Canadian Bar Association. It was about a previous incarnation of this bill. I remember when this bill was introduced in the last Parliament. I was deputy justice critic, and my colleague the member for Windsor—Tecumseh was justice critic. We met with lots of folks to talk about the implications of this bill.

I will say the CBA discussion paper is fantastic. I wanted to quote from it, but I probably do not have a lot of time. I am going to make one quote. It talks about this committee that existed in Parliament, a special joint committee on child custody and access.

The Committee recommended:a series of criteria defining the best interests of the child, among which would be the principle that children benefit from consistent, meaningful contact with both parents, except in exceptional cases, such as those where violence has occurred and continues to pose a risk to the child. Whether an equal time-sharing arrangement is in the interests of a particular child would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis, with a full evaluation of the child's and parents' circumstances....the Committee said that “legislation that imposes or presumes joint custody as the automatic arrangement for divorcing families would ignore that this might not be suitable for all families, especially those with a history of domestic violence or very disparate parenting roles”.

I know my time is up. I thank the Speaker for being a little lenient.

Megan Leslie

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