News Items Relating to the Proposed Custody and Access Changes

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The Ottawa Citizen
Thursday, December 10, 1998

Shared parenting priority
Report on Custody

Chris Cobb
Ottawa Citizen

The special parliamentary committee on custody and access released its final report yesterday urging the federal government to accept a new legal concept of shared parenting that would give mothers and fathers equal rights after divorce.

Landon Pearson, Liberal senator, and Roger Gallaway, Liberal MP -- both committee co-chairs -- said the report, For the Sake of the Children, had been written with children in mind. Its 48 recommendations are aimed at reducing the impact of divorce.

But Reform members on the committee said the report does not go far enough in furthering the access rights of grandparents, or in its proposed measures to prevent false allegations of abuse which can be influential in a court deciding who gets custody of a child.

While agreeing with the general thrust of the committee, NDP members wanted the final report to push the federal government to spend more money on legal aid and relieving family poverty.

Mr. Gallaway said the recommendation to eliminate the terms custody and access and replace them with "shared parenting" is the cornerstone of the committee's report.

"This is a profound shift in the law," he said. "Children are entitled to two parents after a divorce -- as they had pre-divorce."

The recommendation would not necessarily mean a 50-50 time share between parents but would, said Mr. Gallaway, eliminate many of the "games" that often happen in acrimonious separations and divorces. Shared parenting would give both parents equal rights in all major decisions in their children's lives.

The recommendations would require divorcing parents to develop a shared parenting plan and present it to a court for approval. Only in cases of proven abuse would a judge be able to grant sole custody to one parent.

Parents who agree on a shared parenting plan without legal intervention would not be affected by the recommendations.

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National Post
(December 9th, 1998)

MPs call for shared custody
Reform wants tougher stand on abuse allegations

Robert Fife, Chris Cobb
National Post ; Southam News

A parliamentary committee recommends courts no longer grant sole custody to one parent. But the Reform party says the MPs' report on the Divorce Act fails to take a tough stance against false accusations of child abuse arising during divorce battles or to provide greater access for grandparents to children of divorced parents.

The Liberal-dominated committee reports to Parliament today after three months of emotional, often controversial, hearings across the country.

The report, For the Sake of the Children, advocates changes that would see both parents treated equally under law. The words "custody" and "access" would be wiped from the books, to be replaced by "shared parenting." Parents would be expected to devise a "sharing plan" that would guarantee both partners remain involved in the child's life. Failure would lead to a court-imposed plan, after mediation.

Liberal MPs on the committee had endorsed the idea of new criminal sanctions against parents who falsely accuse former spouses of child abuse, but they have now backed off that pledge. Reformers will issue a dissenting report.

Paul Forseth, a Reform MP and former family justice counsellor in Vancouver, said Liberal MPs rejected the idea that Crown attorneys should lay perjury charges against parents who falsely accuse former spouses of sexual or violent abuse of the children.

"I was very disappointed at Liberal intransigence especially around the issue of false allegations," Mr. Forseth said.

The Liberals were also unwilling to propose that provincial law societies direct lawyers to warn clients that they could face perjury charges if they make up stories of child sexual abuse to punish their former spouses, he said.

Mr. Forseth said the Liberal majority was reluctant to punish parents who disobey court orders allowing non-custodial parents access to the children. There is a double standard at play since the government recently passed laws to punish so-called "deadbeat dads" for failing to pay child support, he said.

Although the Liberals did recommend that grandparents and other extended family be allowed access to children under the concept "best interest of the child," Mr. Forseth said there were no concrete recommendations to enforce the principle.

"We fought for that issue but the Liberals said 'No, no, no,' so grandparents are still left out in the cold," he said. Grandparents will still have to hire a lawyer and become a third party at divorce hearings in applying for access to a child, said Mr. Forseth.

The committee is expected to recommend increased funding for mediation in custody cases and counselling for parents who can't agree what to do with the children after the divorce.

Among the 40-plus proposals in the report are:

- Elimination of the so-called "tender years doctrine," which, in disputed cases, has usually meant mothers get sole custody of younger children.

- Judges be bound to grant shared parenting rights unless there is "clear evidence" of abuse of one parent by another -- or of children by one parent.

- Elimination of supervised visitation unless there is clear evidence of violence.

- Mandatory 90-day notice if one parent wishes to move a significant distance from the other parent.

- If one parent moves, an adjustment in support payments -- if necessary -- to allow the other parent to travel to visit the children or have children visit.

- Ending the right of one parent to deny the other parent access to their child's school or medical records.

- Giving extended family members, especially grandparents, the right to ask a court for access to children.

- Divorcing parents be encouraged to attend at least one mediation session to develop a shared parenting plan for their children. The sessions should be structured to screen for family violence.

The recommendations will go to Justice Minister Anne McLellan.

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Toronto Star
December 9th, 1998

Reform argues fathers' outrage not represented

By Tonda MacCharles
Toronto Star Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA - The long-awaited recommendations of the joint Senate-Commons Committee on Child Custody and Access, to be tabled today, will be a toned-down version of early drafts, and will be accompanied by three dissenting reports, sources say.

One of its previous recommendations - that those who make a false allegation against a spouse be criminally prosecuted - has been dropped from the final report.

The Reform party says while it supports the main thrusts of the report - to force divorcing parents to take children's interests more into account - it doesn't go far enough in reflecting the outrage of many fathers, who are often the subject of false allegations.

``We were not able to convince the Liberals to be strong enough,'' said Reform MP Paul Forseth (New Westminster-Coquitlam-Burnaby).

The report is expected to recommend that divorcing spouses come up with an acceptable parenting plan, which works out custody and access arrangements. But it wants the words ``custody and access'' out, and replaced with the notion of ``shared parenting.'' The report will stress it wouldn't necessarily mean 50-50 custody.

Those ideas got the support of most at the table.

But Forseth, a former family justice counsellor and probation officer, said Reform wanted even tougher provisions on forcing courts to enforce access orders, and taking lawyers to task for accepting false affidavits. There are some suggestions about dealing with false allegations, but Forseth called them mild and bland.

``The whole area of family law is a mess across the country,'' he said, adding the report should have been more ``provocative'' to encourage more debate on issues.

``When you look at the over-all issue and you see the tremendous upset there is out there in the community, we want a report that kind of reflects that.''

While the Bloc Québécois agrees there is a need for reform in the areas of family law, its dissenting opinion will argue it is not the responsibility of the federal government to do the overhaul. Rather, it says, what is involved - administration of justice, health and social services, family law - are all areas of provincial jurisdiction.

Still, Bloc member Caroline St-Hilaire said the committee's 23 members managed to find a middle ground on most issues.

``The reality is most divorce disputes are resolved before it gets to court,'' she said. ``While it was very emotional at the time, we were able to put that in perspective.''

The New Democrat member of the committee, Peter Mancini, has also written a dissenting opinion on one aspect that the party feels went too far: automatically requiring the professionals who deal with children of divorced couples, like teachers or doctors, to hand over information to a non-custodial parent.

Committee co-chair Senator Landon Pearson said the volume of E-mail and Internet communications on the subject was more than she's ever seen on any issue, a lot of it intensely personal stories.

The government must now answer the committee by tabling its own response within 150 days.

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CANADIAN PRESS
December 9th, 1998

Divorce Act report out today

OTTAWA (CP) -- A Commons-Senate committee on child custody believes it has reached a fine balance that will satisfy women and men in its rewrite of the Divorce Act.

The report -- scheduled to be tabled today in Parliament -- stops short of recommending tough punishment for parents who deny former spouses access to their children or make false accusations about abuse.

It also won't recommend that joint custody be the rule of thumb in every divorce case, sources say.

Fathers' rights groups lobbied hard for guaranteed joint custody after divorce. Women's groups pushed to protect the power of the courts to decide custody arrangements.

The final recommendations have been the focus of both sides in the weeks leading up to today, with each side publicly urging the committee to see it their way.

In any case, the report, coming after a year of acrimonious hearings, accusations and heated debate, is far from being law. It must be accepted by the justice minister, who would then direct legislative changes. But the Liberal government has already distanced itself from the committee's work.

Sources familiar with the final contents say it does not include recommendations supporting the tough punishment that fathers' groups wanted for parents who make false accusations of abuse to keep a partner from seeing their children.

The report does recommend that the government look at strengthening Criminal Code provisions dealing with false affidavits and accusations.

The overriding principle weaved throughout the report is protecting the interests of children.

To that end, the report recommends that children be given a voice in the divorce process, a source said.

The report says children should also have access to both parents, as is the case now.

But the committee also indicates that because each case is different, courts should still be the final decision makers on who gets the children and for how long.

In a disagreement on child custody, the committee recommends parents receive compulsory education on how their battle affects their children.

The report also includes a vague suggestion that the government look at avenues -- both through punishment and mediation -- to deal with parents who don't comply with court orders. It also supports finding less confrontational ways to resolve divorce disputes.

Committee members feel they delivered a report they can all live with, despite the fact that there will be minority reports from New Democrats, Reform and the Bloc Quebecois.

Committee member Anne Cools, a Liberal senator, and the committee chairman Roger Gallaway, a Liberal, were under fire from women's groups who said they were biased in favour of fathers.

A coalition of women's groups started a letter-writing campaign to discredit the committee's work and Cools and Gallaway accused Hedy Fry, the minister responsible for women's issues, of enabling the campaign by allowing a link to her department's Internet site.

But Fry denied meddling with the committee's work.

"A child deserves to have safety, continuity, care, love and not to be used as a pawn," she said Tuesday outside the Commons.

The committee's cross-country hearings were often raucous, with women who testified complaining about their treatment by the committee, including a suggestion they should be put under oath to prove they were telling the truth.

After all the work, travel, and hundreds of thousands spent, several committee members say they don't expect the government to do much with the report.

"It's a weighty report because it was such a controversial issue," said New Democrat Peter Mancini.

"It would be a very controversial thing for the government to pick up in the last two years of its mandate. So I'm not overly optimistic." Justice Minister Anne McLellan has said the provinces and Ottawa would be interested if the report included recommendations to improve the legislation for the best interest of children.

Cools, who has long sided with the fathers' groups, said the report will at least shed a light on the inequities of the existing Divorce Act.

She was instrumental in having the committee struck.

Along with Conservative senators, Cools blocked the passage of a Liberal government bill in 1997 that included harsh punishment for deadbeat fathers until the government promised to strike the special committee as a concession.

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