Canadian Equal Parenting Council applauds and supports Member of Parliament Maurice Vellacott who has tabled an Equal Parenting private member’s bill, C-560 in the House of Commons on December 6th, 2013. The bill aims to reform the Divorce Act so that equal parenting time is the rebuttable presumption, or the default in most cases.
The Bill’s good points:
1. It embeds the principle of “equal parenting” in the divorce act.
2. It replaces “custody orders” with “parenting orders”, which makes parenting central to the purpose of the Divorce Act and Parliament’s intent.
3. It equates “equal parenting” with “best interests of the child”
4. It makes an effort to deal with moveaways by placing the onus on the moving parent to maintain continuity.
5. It deals with family violence by using the phrase “committed in the presence of the child” which limits this out and suggests that it might not be committed unless proven (which is what we want).
6. It includes alienation of parental affection as a harm to the child.
Some parents may feel that the Bill has left openings for recalcitrant, renegade or biased judges to exploit to award sole custody in cases where equal parenting should happen. If passed, outcomes might depend on how the phrase “substantially enhanced” is interpreted and how judges interpret the level of proof required for another option to be “established”.
In short, this Bill may be the best that we can reasonably expect at this time. We can expect that the other side (vested interests) will try to water it down, or gut it entirely. Parents should be prepared to fight that, and at the same time, we should push to strengthen the judicial discretion restraining provisions of the Bill. That means parents need to organize to gain support for the bill and to push for strengthening the bill. If we don’t push this bill, we could lose this opportunity to improve it, give encouragement to the other side, and the Bill’s failure could make it more difficult to make reforms in the future.
While not perfect, it makes sense to push this bill through, use it to push for similar (preferably stronger, more judicial discretion limiting) provincial and territorial bills.
My bottom line is that this bill will move things in the direction we want. The Australian experience shows that it is better to move in steps than not to move at all, while blocking the other side from moving things back.
Thus, this PMB is worth supporting, as is Maurice Vellacott, who has loyally and faithfully kept our issue alive in Parliament and brought this bill to the floor of the House.
Here is a link for those parents who wish to work on advocating politically for equal parenting reform legislation:
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