Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 16 - Evidence for June 16, 2005
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 16, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, to which was referred Bill S-21, to amend the Criminal Code (protection of children), met this day at 10:52 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Lise Bacon (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: We have today, again, Bill S-21, an act to amend the Criminal Code, protection of children. We welcome Ms. Diane Watts to our committee. We will hear her presentation and then proceed to questions from the senators.
Ms. Dianne Watts, Researcher, REAL Women of Canada: REAL Women of Canada is a non-partisan, non- denominational organization, which was federally incorporated in 1983. As a non-governmental organization, NGO, in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, we participate annually in the World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse endorsed by the United Nations and UNICEF.
Our platform in 2004 was that the age of consent was too low in Canada, child pornography laws needed to be fortified by removing artistic merit as a defence, and luring children on the Internet needed to be addressed. In 2003, we also made a submission to Canada's National Plan of Action for Children.
REAL Women supports parental protection in section 43. We hold that it is not up to the state to decide how parents should discipline their children. It is up to the family to decide on discipline methods, provided the discipline is fair and reasonable under the circumstances, and not abusive. Parents know their children best and are concerned about the children's best interests. Loving parents should decide what is best in terms of discipline.
Without section 43, according to our legal counsel, if someone did not like you and reported that you spanked your children, you would have to be investigated. There would be a legal obligation to investigate you and every family would be vulnerable. Indeed, in Sweden, two years after spanking was banned, 22,000 children had been removed from their families under this regulation. A loving spanking, administered by loving parents, is more compassionate and more in accordance with the best interests of the child than state intervention and removal of children from the home, which can be traumatic for all concerned. In Sweden, child abuse increased and peer abuse increased after the law was changed.
Section 43 would be the go-ahead for an army of social workers to intrude into family life. Such state intervention would undermine the valuable role of parents in society. Parents bear the primary duty and responsibility for raising their children. We argue that section 43 should be retained to protect parents.
We are not advocates of corporal punishment or spanking. We leave the decision to use reasonable force to raise children to the discretion of parents. We have no position on spanking as an organization. We support parental protection as expressed in section 43. We intervened in the defence of section 43 at the Ontario Superior Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada, as part of the Coalition for Family Autonomy, with Canada Family Action Coalition, Focus on the Family, and Home School Legal Defence Association.
This debate has been taking place in Canada since 1976. The Law Reform Commission of Canada stated that repealing section 43, or declaring it unconstitutional, ``could have unfortunate consequences, consequences worse than those ensuing from the retention of the section. [It would] expose the family to the incursion of state law enforcement for every trivial slap or spanking. [Is] this the sort of society in which we want to live?
Our position is that if section 43 is repealed, then any force used to discipline children may possibly make the parents subject to criminal prosecution. There must be a balance between the legal system protecting our vulnerable children and state regulation of family relationships for legitimate purposes such as genuine abuse.
In 1998 a petition was tabled in the House of Commons from 12,000 Canadians requesting that section 43 be retained. The Liberal government tabled its response on June 9, 1998. It stated that section 43 of the Criminal Code attempts to strike a balance by protecting children from abuse, while still allowing parents to correct their children within limits that are acceptable to Canadian society. It said that concerns that the government intends to remove section 43 were unwarranted, that the government does not support the repeal of section 43 and is not funding any research on its removal from the Criminal Code.
However, the Liberal government has in fact funded groups to challenge section 43. Coalition for the Rights of Children was given $365,000 for a report, which supplemented the government report to the UN Commission on the Rights of the Child. It also received $40,000 for a conference where a resolution was passed to oppose section 43.
The Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law received over $100,000 in federal help through the Court Challenges Program to bring the case against parental protection in section 43 through various court levels. The Coalition for Family Autonomy, of which REAL Women of Canada is a part, did not receive any government funding to defend the law protecting parental authority in section 43.
The Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law, however, advocates on the one hand criminalizing spanking, but, on the other hand, has advocated lowering the age of consent for anal intercourse to 14 years from 18 years. It did so in the Carmen case, which concerned a young girl of 13 who had been sexually abused by a 23-year-old. They based their argument on equality rights. As opposed to that position, REAL Women is an organization that advocates raising the age of consent for teens.
About the Foundation's position on the age of consent, our legal counsel for the Coalition for Family Autonomy stated:
It does reflect their ideology regarding children's rights, which is that the child is an autonomous rights holder and should be given the ability to make decisions as early as possible and about as many things as possible.
We disagree with this very expansive interpretation of the term ``equality.''
The court challenges to protection of parents were at the Ontario Superior Court level and the decision was rendered July 5, 2000, upholding section 43, Ontario Court of Appeal decision, January 15, 2002, upholding the lower court decision, and the Canadian Foundation appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, the decision rendered January 30, 2004, upholding the lower court decisions and affirming them.
Where do Canadians stand on the issue? A Leger marketing survey in 2002 found that 70 per cent of Canadians are against having a law passed that would prohibit parents from spanking their children. In a Toronto Health Survey poll, 72 per cent of Canadians favoured keeping section 43 as is. An Angus Reid Group/Globe and Mail/CTV poll indicated that 83 per cent of Canadians disagree with repealing section 43.
In the Ontario Superior Court case, which was decided on July 5, 2000, the Attorney General of Canada put forward a competent defence of the law. It said that, properly interpreted, section 43 excuses parents and teachers from only a narrow range of mild to moderate corrective force that includes customary forms of physical punishment. The Attorney General also argued that almost all experts acknowledge that such conduct is not child abuse and that any evidence linking physical punishment and negative outcomes for children is not scientifically reliable.
The Coalition for Family Autonomy argued that section 43 recognizes the importance of the family as a central influence on child rearing. In this regard, it is gratifying that Judge McCombs openly acknowledged in his judgment that our intervention provided ``an important perspective concerning the critical importance of the family as the most important influence on our children.''
The Canadian Teachers Federation also supported the Attorney General and our position by arguing that teachers must be free to restrain unruly or aggressive children when necessary in order to facilitate effective teaching and to maintain orderly classrooms. The federation argued that the result of removing section 43 from the Criminal Code would have a chilling and detrimental effect on the ability of teachers to perform their duties. That position was later supported in the Supreme Court.
In paragraph 118, Justice McCombs stated:
... S. 43 strikes the correct balance between the right of children to be protected from child abuse, and the protection of parents and teachers from unwarranted criminal prosecution.
He further stated:
Without S. 43, other forms of restraint would be criminal, such as putting an unwilling child to bed, removing a reluctant child from the dinner table, removing a child from a classroom who refused to go, or placing an unwilling child in a car seat. All parties to this application agree that these are common and necessary applications of force.
The fact that such commonly accepted forms of parental discipline would become criminalized without S. 43 is a very significant consideration.
In the Ontario Court of Appeal decision of January 15, 2002, Justice Goudge wrote that removing section 43 would limit parents in their important responsibilities to train and nurture children. The court stated that it was in the state's best interest to avoid the harm to family life that would come from criminalizing the conduct of parents who spank their children. The court also included a set of guidelines to determine whether the force used on a child was reasonable under the circumstances, which guidelines were affirmed by Chief Justice McLachlin in the Supreme Court decision.
The decision does prevent social workers from interfering or invading the privacy of the home to investigate or second-guess any parental decision in regard to discipline by spanking. In this regard, it is noted that one of the interveners on the side of the appellant foundation was the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies. If the case had gone the other way and prohibited all spanking of children by removing section 43, the result would have been a vast increase in the power and jurisdiction of children's aid societies across Canada. The latter would then have been required to employ legions of social workers to monitor and investigate private family life in order to weed out parents who violated the law by the spanking of children as a method of discipline. It is one thing for vigilant social workers to prevent abuse of children; it is quite another thing to give them the power to investigate everyday family discipline.
In the Supreme Court of Canada a decision upholding section 43 was rendered on January 30, 2004. Our intervention supporting the retention of section 43 was based on the three following grounds: First, parents bear the primary duty and responsibility for raising their children; that is, it is not the state. Second, there exists a presumption that parents act in the best interests of their children; that is, there is not a presumption that parents are abusers and must be monitored by state agencies. Third, parents are entitled to use reasonable corrective discipline for their children.
Further, the coalition argued that the Charter does not create autonomous rights for children under which all legal differences between children and adults are eliminated. The coalition also argued that section 43 is reasonable legislation that has worked well historically, in that provincial child authorities and the courts monitor the difference between reasonable corrective discipline and child abuse.
To remove section 43 from the Criminal Code, the court concluded, would risk ruining lives and breaking up families, a burden that, in large part, would be borne by the children; that is to say, according to the court, introducing criminal law into children's families and educational environments would harm children more than help them.
Therefore, the assumption that repealing section 43 will help children, as some social agencies continue to suggest, is unfounded. In fact, all three courts noted the harm to families and children that repealing section 43 would cause.
A report on child abuse in Stockholm, Sweden, noted the following:
Child abuse occurs at all levels of society, but most of all in socially high-risk homes. Unemployment and a poor financial situation are normal in homes where abuse occurs. Social isolation is common in families where child abuse occurs.
Alleviating the tax burden on families and addressing male unemployment would no doubt do more to reduce genuine child abuse than removing parental protection in section 43.
Mild physical correction is not abuse. We consider it crucial always to distinguish between discipline, physical punishment and physical abuse. A significant difference between physical punishment and physical abuse lies with the motive. As stated in the fall 1994 newsletter of the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto, ``the motive for physical punishment is to make the child behave appropriately, whereas the motive for abuse can range from relieving parental stress to meeting the needs of the punisher for control or revenge.''
The Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario has lent its name to a joint statement on physical punishment, advocating the repeal of section 43. The joint statement of the coalition rolled together discipline, punishment, hurting children and violence in order to build its case against section 43 protection of parental authority while appearing to claim a monopoly on the protection of children's rights and dignity. The authors appeared to have no concern for reasonable physical discipline provided in a loving manner for the correction of behaviour and of legitimate parental authority as protected in section 43. They falsely assume that section 43 legitimizes violence and physical assault, which harms the rights and dignity of children.
In the statement, parents are portrayed as easily prone to immature, extreme, abusive and even violent behaviour toward their infants, children and youth, rather than as the responsible, caring adults concerned about the formation of their children that most parents are.
The authors naturally conclude that any form of physical discipline should be outlawed by striking down section 43. Reasonable, corrective force is not fairly addressed in the statement. Intervention by child welfare services should be proactive, according to the authors. One of the authors of the document stated publicly that no scientific study could ever be done to prove that physical discipline was harmful, because such a study would be unethical, yet he persistently repeated that scientific evidence supported the joint statement.
The General Counsel for the Coalition for Family Autonomy said the following about the lobbying group, Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and The Law, one of many groups intent on repealing section 43:
The family unit, and particularly the parents, are seen as a potential threat to the autonomy of the child rather than as the child's first advocate and best resource, which most parents truly are for their kids.
Our recommendations are to preserve section 43 of the Criminal Code for the protection of parents and their children as well as families and society, and to further protect children by enhancing family-friendly legislation according to our submission to the National Plan of Action for Children, 2003.
The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Watts. You seem to have serious concerns about the consequences of this bill for parents. On page 8 of your brief, point number two says that there exists a presumption that parents act in the best interests of their children. If section 43 is repealed, the general assault provisions of the Criminal Code will apply to parents, teachers and guardians, and the defence of ``reasonable under the circumstances'' will no longer be available.
According to some of our previous witnesses, there are common-law defences that could come to the rescue of parents and others accused under the general assault provisions. At the same time, we could also presume that prosecutors will be diligent in cases involving children. As you said, parents usually act in the best interests of their children.
Do you think that the common-law defences and the good judgment of the prosecutors will suffice to protect parents, as well as others, against unwarranted prosecution?
Ms. Watts: All three courts determined that that was not sufficient. That is why they decided that it was in the best interests of children, society, and the legislators — we do not want the legislators to be discredited either — to retain section 43. It narrowed the scope of corrective action that the parents could legitimately use to direct and form their children.
The Chairman: On page 2 of your brief you mention that two years after spanking was banned in Sweden 22,000 children had been removed from their families under the regulation.
We were told that because of immigration to Sweden by people of different cultures this could add up to a fairly large number of people. After all, 22,000 is a large number of children. Many factors could have caused the removal of this number of children. It is not due only to immigration and cultural differences. People can accuse parents of doing bodily harm to their children, which they could not do before.
Ms. Watts: The removal of 22,000 children was as a result of the new regulation. It did not lump in everything. It did not lump in forms of child abuse that would have been dealt with previously. This was specifically under the new law against spanking, which was not in their Criminal Code but in their civil code.
The Chairman: One witness mentioned that the large number of immigrants and the difference in culture could have been a factor.
Ms. Watts: That is another factor as well. I have been reading on the Internet the material that is available on this issue. Some cultural groups say that they will be disadvantaged because of the way they bring up their children, which does not fit in with the white, middle-class idea of raising children. Thus, many feel they would be disadvantaged if section 43 were removed and certain legitimate methods of correcting children were made illegal. That is a case for retaining section 43. Removing it would discriminate against various cultures that are not white upper-middle class.
The Chairman: You are intervening on behalf of the parents so that their children not be removed from their families.
Ms. Watts: I believe the courts mentioned as well that this would be terribly disruptive and harmful to the children — in fact, more harmful than a loving application of physical corrective force within the limits set out in our law as appropriate behaviour toward children.
Senator Ringuette: In the introduction to your brief you mention federal funding that has gone to different organizations. How is your organization funded?
Ms. Watts: Our funding is from annual subscriptions from our members and from donations. We have a newsletter to which our members subscribe. We receive our funding through that subscription for membership in REAL Women of Canada, and from donations.
Specifically for the Coalition for Family Autonomy, when we defended this section, it was entirely through donations. We did not receive any government help.
Senator Ringuette: How is your readership distributed across the country?
Ms. Watts: We mail out newsletters.
Senator Ringuette: I mean as a percentage. How is your readership distributed geographically?
Ms. Watts: Across Canada.
Senator Ringuette: In Ontario, for example, how many members do you have?
Ms. Watts: We do not know specifically. Across the country, it is 55,000 members. We also have communication through email. We have an email list. We communicate extensively through email. Our newsletter is on our website. People can access our website to read our newsletter and access our briefs.
Senator Ringuette: I am asking these questions because I am trying to appreciate the level of support that you have across the country. You seem to be very active.
Ms. Watts: We are very active. Our accountants tell us that we get a lot out of every dollar donated to us. We are very conscientious. Most of the work done by REAL Women is by members on a volunteer basis.
Senator Ringuette: Do you operate an office?
Ms. Watts: We have a national office in Ottawa. Most of the work is done in our members' homes. We hire translators and secretarial help in the Toronto area. We also have chapters across the country, in the smaller towns of Canada.
Our members come from all walks of life and have various talents. Some of them are accountants. Some of them are in banking. Some of them are social workers. Some of them are teachers and other professionals, such as lawyers.
Senator Ringuette: Is your membership more rural than urban?
Ms. Watts: No, I do not think so. I would say both. We have a very good representation of Canadian women.
Senator Ringuette: In the second paragraph on page 9 of your brief, you state:
Alleviating the tax burden on families and addressing male unemployment would no doubt do more to reduce genuine child abuse than removing parental protection in S. 43.
Ms. Watts: Yes.
Senator Ringuette: Why are you specifying male unemployment? Should it not be parental unemployment?
Ms. Watts: I was referring to the study in Sweden, which said that unemployment and a poor financial situation are normal in homes where abuse occurs.
Dr. Blankenhorn has demonstrated that male unemployment is problematic to a greater extent than female unemployment. If you have an intact family unit in which the woman is unemployed and the husband is employed, most of the time the primary wage earner is the man. However, if the woman is unemployed, there is less of an impact. Because man sees himself as a provider, culturally, male unemployment has been shown to be much more stressful for the entire family unit.
We also sympathize with single-parent families, whether the parent is the mother or father, and, of course, when the child or children depend on one salary entirely, that is even more devastating, whether it is the one-salary, intact family or is the single mother or single father.
The tax burden itself is much more deleterious to the single-parent family because they have only one salary. They have this tremendous financial burden, and that adds to the pressure. As the Stockholm study indicated, it is not conducive to harmony and the parent being equal to the challenges that are part of raising children.
Senator Ringuette: We can have different opinions.
I have one last question. On page nine you refer to CHEO, which is probably one of the most credible public institutions in the area; it certainly has high credibility in regard to the various good deeds it is providing for children, including health facilities.
Ms. Watts: I would agree entirely with that.
Senator Ringuette: I have some difficulty when you say that CHEO has lent its name to a joint statement. The rest of the group is an impressive group of people. In the last paragraph on page nine, you say, ``The authors appeared to have no concept of reasonable physical discipline...'' I can imagine that the staff at CHEO witness health situations with kids that they receive at their emergency rooms that I as an individual would have a hard time to deal with on a human basis. And yet in the last paragraph of page nine you say that the authors appeared to have no concept of reasonable physical discipline. That is a very strong statement against such a distinguished group of people working for kids in our society.
How can you make the judgment that that group of distinguished institutions dealing with children can have no concept of what is reasonable physical discipline?
Ms. Watts: I agree with you. I have tremendous admiration for CHEO. I have been there myself with my children, and everyone I know has been there with children. I have a tremendous respect for the staff. I know people who work there at all levels caring for children. I am not making the statement about the children's hospital. I am saying that I was shocked and surprised that they would lend their name to a statement like this.
Possibly it was not widely distributed before it was published, but the statement affirms everything I have said about it. They present the most extreme abuse of children and then recommend that section 43 be repealed.
You stated that these institutions and organizations are charged with the different aspects of child abuse. They are, but section 43 is not about child abuse. They put out a document just full of horrendous abuse of children and then gradually they slip in the conclusion that we must repeal section 43.
They are talking about two different things. Every Canadian is against child abuse. Everyone I know is against child abuse. However, to throw it in as a way of proving that we need to repeal section 43 is not acceptable, in my view.
From the wording that they use here, no doubt they see all sorts of terrible abuse of children. Let us deal with the abuse of children. Let us deal with the parents. Can we do something to help them? There is not that much in here about that. The main objective is to repeal section 43.
Again, we are seeing false reasoning. The case to repeal section 43 is not strong enough; so they have to bring in child abuse and describe all these horrendous behaviours in order to defend the indefensible.
Senator Ringuette: Madam Chairman, just to make sure we have the correct perspective on all these good institutions for our kids in Canada, we should invite them to appear before our committee.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Senator Cools: On a point of information or clarification, most of CHEO's responsibilities have nothing to do with child abuse. It is a hospital that deals with every manner of illness. However, we have some individuals at CHEO who have decided to agree to a largely political statement, which is aimed at the repeal of section 43.
Perhaps this would be as good a time as any to canvass how many of their staff were involved, or to what extent the entire organization was involved, in supporting this, when these organizations agreed to sign statements. I would suspect that, for example, if you were to ask the nurses in the department responsible for intricate brain surgery with children if they know anything about this issue, you would discover that they probably do not.
The record should show clearly that the witness is not attempting in any way to impugn the fine work of any of these fine professionals. The witness is taking issue with the fact that certain people in certain organizations lent their names to a particular statement, articulated in a particular way.
The Chairman: If you allow me just to read it here, I have a joint statement of physical punishment on children and youth from the coalition that we just mentioned. It says the following:
The Joint Statement on Physical Punishment of Children and Youth had its genesis in a search by the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) for a way to assist parents who have difficulty at the hospital with their children's behaviour. The desire to support these parents grew into a plan to provide all Canadians — parents, caregivers and professionals who are curious or concerned about the physical punishment of children and youth — with authoritative information on this critical and controversial subject.
It continues. I think we have it.
Senator Cools: It is quite clear. However, we must remember that the objective of the hospital is to provide health care to children.
The Chairman: We have a recommendation to try to find someone who would want to.
Senator Cools: Absolutely, but the witness's criticisms of the statement are valid.
The Chairman: We respect that, and that is what I understood from Senator Ringuette. She respected the difference of opinions.
Ms. Watts: I would like to add that my statements and my analysis were not directed towards the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. As I stated, I was surprised that their name would be lent to such a statement. Our position is critical of this particular statement. I am sure there is a lot of material that comes out of the children's hospital, as well as all the other associations that lent their name to this.
The Chairman: To me, from what I just read, it is clear that they started it. They did not just lend their name to it; they started it.
Senator Cools: Not quite. These people in these hospitals do marvellous work.
The Chairman: That is in the report.
Senator Cools: They start particular programs, but the movement to repeal section 43 predates all of that.
The Chairman: Anyway, we will go back to them and ask someone else to come here.
Senator Cools: Most people around the table here have not had active experience in these matters with respect to how some of these hospitals, or the different departments, deal with child abuse or the stresses that the staff are under to get solutions to some of these problems.
Ms. Watts: Perhaps the hospital wants to decrease child abuse, but I believe they have been misled into thinking that repealing section 43 will do that. It will not.
Senator Cools: Good. That is her point.
The Chairman: We will try to find someone who would be willing to appear before our committee.
Senator Joyal: Yesterday, the representative of the Department of Justice referred to the work of the Law Reform Commission of Canada and the fact that they are reviewing their 20-year-old study. I wonder if we could contact them and see if they would be available to testify. That could be helpful.
I raise this because, in reading the brief of Ms. Watts, I noticed a reference to the Law Reform Commission, and I raised this issue yesterday in my own questioning.
Ms. Watts, I was not going to raise the activities generally of REAL Women this morning, because that is not the issue, but the first page of your brief invites me to do so. On page 1 of the brief, at point 5, you say:
5 — publish our newsletter REALity, which informs our membership, is sent to legislators and the media, and is often consulted on the Internet in many countries for research purposes.
I read some of your REALity letters and I am surprised that a group like yours, which claims to uphold Judeo- Christian values, denounces and condemns on moral grounds parliamentarians who hold different views. I am surprised by that. Much as I would always fight for your right to express your views and to be invited to testify, and so on, in extensive terms — and I would support that to the whole of my capacity, nevertheless, I personally have grave reservations when in your newsletters you denounce parliamentarians on moral grounds, and condemn them and invite vindictive public opinion against them. In your opinion, they do not hold Judeo-Christian values the way you interpret them.
That is something I do not accept and I want to be on the record to express it to you, because I do not think you help your cause in doing that, frankly. I do not believe you can put yourself in the position of a church to condemn people. I do not think that Judeo-Christian values are the way to approach issues dealing with families on those grounds. I want to express that clearly, because we have an opportunity to have an exchange of views this morning.
Ms. Watts: We do not deal with any issue, as far as I know, on moral grounds. We defend issues that we believe are beneficial to the family, and we use judicial precedent; we use our understanding of our values and the importance of the family. We use social science information, Statistics Canada information, which supports our position of the importance of the family for society, for all members of society, and for the well-being of society itself. We do not argue from a moral position, unless you make it so wide as being, ``This is better than something else.'' We believe that care and attention to the status of the family in Canada is the best approach on many fronts, from taxation to defining terms related to the family and to child care.
When we use the term ``Judeo-Christian'' we are talking about a general approach, which has been positive towards freedom of expression, towards the well-being and enhancement and propagation of the family. We have hospitals. We have schools. We have institutions to help the needy. We have an economy that enables families to care for their offspring. This is what we mean by Judeo-Christian. If you go through our literature, I do not find any specific moral condemnation.
We disagree very strongly when we feel that the family is attacked, and we do believe the family is attacked on many fronts. We defend children. Mothers who want to stay at home today are attacked as if their work is not important. The taxation system is hard on the single-income family. There are efforts made to equate the family with every other type of arrangement. We do not believe that equality is the same as identity.
I support that and I am sorry you have interpreted our position in the sense that you have, but it certainly was not intended to be a moral condemnation. We work with many individuals from all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of non-Judeo-Christian organizations. We consider ourselves a secular organization, not a religious organization.
Senator Joyal: Understand me well, and I want to be on the record in this, and there are minutes of this committee so I measure everything I say, I have nothing personal against Judeo-Christian values or background. I claim to be of Judeo-Christian values and background myself.
That being said, when you denounce some people who receive the Order of Canada on the basis of their own sexual orientation, I do not think that you address the issue of family values. When I say am totally receptive to the views of your group in relation to your understanding of the institution of marriage and family, nevertheless, when you go overboard in doing that I do not think you help your cause, especially in your newsletter. You know very well to what I am referring.
Ms. Watts: I am afraid I do not. Please write a letter and tell us specifically what you object to.
Senator Joyal: I certainly will.
Senator Cools: Say what it is.
Ms. Watts: I think he has something in mind.
The Chairman: I am chairing, Senator Cools. Let him finish.
Senator Joyal: I will finish, and I do not want to prolong this discussion.
The Chairman: Let us go back to Bill S-21.
Senator Joyal: Exactly. I will go back to that and I will write to you. However, I wanted to be on the record on this because I think it is helpful to understand the context in which we discuss this.
I would like to invite you to look at page 5 of your brief, the position of the Canadian Teachers' Federation, which states:
The Canadian Teachers' Federation also supported the Attorney General and our position, arguing that teachers must be free to restrain unruly or aggressive children when necessary in order to facilitate effective teaching and maintain orderly classrooms.
I understand that the teachers' federation supports the use of physical force on pupils in order to maintain order, but not for any educational purpose. I understand that the decision of the Supreme Court was to say that parents are entitled to use physical force for educational purposes. There is an important nuance between the two purposes. Children spend five days a week with school teachers and sometimes teachers have a more important role in the education of children than do parents. The court and many provinces, if not all, have prohibited the use of force for education purposes but have retained it for parents. I am trying to understand why that is. It seems to me that there is a lack of logic in that.
When I was at school, I got a slap on the hand from a teacher, and I never complained about it. I think it was good. It made me realize what I had done. I got only one slap, and that was enough. That is not possible now.
If we are to maintain the logic of the use of limited force, should we not have the same measure for parents and teachers? That was the logic of section 43 for a century, but this logic has been changed by the court. According to your position, should we not allow the teachers to use limited and transitory force for educational purposes?
Ms. Watts: The difference is the close relationship between parent and child, which cannot be duplicated. Even a surgeon who saves a child's life can never have that same close relationship with the child. Important as teachers are, they can never have such a close relationship. That is the logic.
As well, the school systems today are much more impersonal than they were when I went to school, for example. The teachers used to know all the parents in the neighbourhood. They were more an extension of the family than they are now. Now, parents may not meet any of their children's teachers. In the past, schools were almost modeled on parents teaching their children. The system now is much more impersonal. I emphasize again the unique relationship of parent and child. The parent knows the needs of the child better than any stranger could. A teacher may be a friend of the child for a few years, but the relationship is essentially very different.
Senator Joyal: I went to boarding school and I was there for five or six days a week, and the teacher was very important. We spent the greatest part of our time in school. When we went home, it was just for a visit.
I understand that at the secondary level there are big schools with thousands of students. With the organization of the curricula, students may have three different professors each day, although primary school is a different matter. In the old days, students stayed with the same teacher all the time and a relationship was formed, and the teacher could use limited force for educational purposes.
I am trying to understand the logic of this.
Ms. Watts: Times have changed as well. People now suspect that physical punishment is harmful, although there is no proof, so they are very concerned about imposing limits on it. Previously, we had a hardier society that did not believe that physical correction was harmful. We have no positions on that specifically. It might be a good idea to invite the Canadian Teachers' Federation to give you their point of view.
Senator Joyal: On page 8 of your brief you say:
Further, the Coalition argued that the Charter does not create ``autonomous rights for children'' under which all legal differences between children and adults are eliminated.
I have a concern about the definition of what I call subjective rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Supreme Court decision and various other decisions recognize that children are human beings and, as such, are entitled to certain rights.
I wonder how you can be against the notion of autonomous rights for children when you have argued in other fora that you are against abortion because the foetus has rights. In order to maintain logic in the interpretation of subjective rights, we must have a common approach to all persons being subject to the law and the protection of the law. This is very important to me. We should have a coherent approach to the rights of persons regardless of their age or gender. We must be coherent in developing entitlement to rights. We should not adopt them when it suits our purpose and ignore them when it does not. If we value life, we should value life in all its forms. I am against the death penalty because I believe in the sanctity of life. Once we have life, we must protect it.
I do not understand your position when you put reserves on the rights of the child.
Ms. Watts: In terms of equality, we believe that adults, children and unborn children are equally human beings. That is a foundation of our perspective. Accepting that, parents have duties and responsibilities with regard to discipline, character formation and defence of children.
The unborn child, the infant, the toddler, the child and the adolescent do not have the same duties and responsibilities as they will have if they reach their twenties and become parents. There is a difference there. You cannot pretend there is the same type of equality there as there is in terms of their all being human beings.
There are situations, for example, in respect of section 43, where we think parents should be protected when they use reasonable force to discipline their children in a loving way for the benefit of their children, the family, property and, perhaps, a neighbour who is being harmed if the child is not behaving properly.
The courts have supported that and said that, if we remove this, we open the door to harm for everyone involved. All three courts mentioned the term ''harm.'' Therefore, if we assume that by removing section 43 everything will be good for everyone, the courts tell us that harm will be caused when parents and teachers are not protected while carrying out their responsibilities.
Senator Joyal: That is a discussion over the impact of the use of force. I also have reservations that I share with you, to a point, about some of the assumptions.
When we talk about body integrity, we condemn and fight violence against women, oppose the use of force on a senior who has become more vulnerable and less autonomous in terms of his or her judgment capacity. We should never use force on a human being who is in a vulnerable position, and we would certainly not do it for a handicapped person. The court has said so in its decision. I try to reconcile that with the same respect for the child, even though I understand, as you do, that a child needs to be educated and that we cannot leave the child without any constraints. We all recognize that. It is a fact of life.
In terms of coherence, should we not maintain the same respect for the body integrity of the child as we do for other human beings at different ages in a vulnerable position?
Ms. Watts: If a bed-ridden senior is likely to fall off a high bed, sometimes force may have to be used — gentle force, I would hope — to ensure he or she is secure in the bed. There are different situations for different occasions.
We agree with you. The justices who made decisions on this situation did not see that mild, corrective discipline would harm the integrity of the child. They did not conclude that this harmed the integrity of the child.
Abuse would harm the integrity of the child.
Senator Joyal: Of course it would.
Ms. Watts: You might want to invite Focus On the Family to appear before you. They have a lot more literature on their website than we have explaining the proper use of physical correction for children.
Senator Joyal: In a family, there are often kids who they fight amongst each other. At a certain point, a parent who is intervening to separate them might slap one on the side to push him and say, ``Quiet.'' Similarly, a teacher in a classroom might have to restore order at some point. To me, maintaining order falls under the use of common sense. When you use force for educational purposes, a different set of questions arises, and, as you said, you may be in conflict with the rights of the parents, even with the best judgment of the person in charge of the child to decide what is good for the child.
Ms. Watts: The parent wants the child to lead an ordered life, not a totally disordered life, which is not going to be good for the child, the family or society. There is a certain educational component to using, as you mentioned, a slap to obtain order and to develop the proper habits and to stop the situation from becoming worse than it is.
Senator Nolin: I am reading the third paragraph on page 9, where you indicate that you are differentiating between three types of discipline. You differentiate between discipline and physical punishment, those two being acceptable. The third one, physical abuse, is not acceptable. The difference lies in the motives. I tend to agree with that.
I have a problem with the evaluation of those motives. Who is the referee of that? How do we get to referee properly? In theory, it is perfect, but the application of that theory seems to be problematic. That is where I have a problem.
Ms. Watts: Yes, it is.
Senator Nolin: Your recommendation is to not touch the law, but invest more in prevention, education of the parents and those who have the role of education.
Am I summarizing your brief properly?
Ms. Watts: We are all for education, but if the people who are going to educate the parents do not know the difference between child abuse and the reasonable application of direct force, they will be misleading people.
I do not know whether political motivation has clouded the issue, but when I read this joint statement there is a sense that there is no real effort to understand the difference between horrible abuse and —
Senator Nolin: Do not even use the word ``horrible,'' just the word ``abuse.''
Ms. Watts: Some of it is pretty shocking. However, there is a difference between abuse and the actions of a loving parent who knows the child should not go past certain limits for his or her own welfare, that of the property in the neighbourhood or that of the brother and sister who are being harassed.
As one lawyer put it, parents make countless judgment calls every day. Parents discipline their children in thousands of creative ways. You have to be creative to be a good parent and to guide the children properly. They make thousands of judgment calls. It is usually in rare emergency situations, in my experience, where you would use physical corrective force.
We do not want parents being vulnerable to being charged criminally when their intentions and motives are good. They know their child. They know the situation in the home. The children may be more boisterous than the average person who will be making the judgment — for example, the average professional who has not had, perhaps, ten children. It may be different to the person. It could be very dangerous to have a situation like that.
Section 43 is very limited. The Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court have pointed out many actions that are unacceptable.
Senator Nolin: That is all good in theory. In practice, hospitals are reporting important numbers of kids who have been molested by their own parents. How do we deal with that?
Ms. Watts: Not under section 43.
Senator Nolin: There are laws, but how do we make the laws workable? The law does not seem to work.
Senator Cools: Section 43 will not help.
Ms. Watts: Section 43 will not help.
Senator Nolin: Can I have the witness answer the question please? I think it is important. How can we make the law practicable?
Ms. Watts: How can we improve the situation for parents? There are many things we can do to help people. A Stockholm study mentioned isolation. We have social services, more than the majority of countries worldwide, to help in these situations. I can understand people being disturbed by this behaviour. We have made appearances before parliamentary committees about the type of material that comes into the home through the television set. Nothing seems to be done about it. They use the excuse of freedom of expression, and there are a lot of commercial interests there. We ask when we will see anything that is really helpful to the family, anything that portrays a well-balanced family. It seems more of a shock value to present things that are dysfunctional. All this comes into the home. Perhaps it is the number of hours people work, with both parents working now and not being able to supervise their children to the extent they could previously. We have lost a whole culture there.
Senator Nolin: We can contemplate the past and convince ourselves how good it was, but our society has evolved and we have to cope with that evolution.
Ms. Watts: If you are saying it has evolved into a position where we cannot control the child abuse, then we have to do something.
Senator Nolin: Our role is to make it workable in respect to all the fundamental rights of everyone. I believe that is the role we have.
Ms. Watts: That is right.
Senator Nolin: In contemplating the evolution of our society and saying it was much better before, we should try to accept the fact that the evolution is there and we can do nothing about that.
Ms. Watts: I did not say that. All I said was that we have lost a culture there. Our culture is changing and there are serious problems. According to the justices at the three court levels, there will be more harm to the families, if section 43 is removed, to the parents and the children.
Senator Nolin: I too have read that and it is part of my concerns.
Ms. Watts: The judgments are very good.
Senator Nolin: Definitely. I do not want the invasion of families by social workers simply because they have received complaints, but I am sure we can find some kind of middle ground, some practical way to make it work.
The Chairman: You do not want the parents to become criminals.
Senator Nolin: No, of course not. That would destroy families.
The Chairman: I believe it is our concern as well.
Senator Nolin: On the other hand, we do not want kids to be abused. No one wants that.
Ms. Watts: Absolutely. We are definitely against that; every year we are involved in the International World Day Against Child Abuse. We are very concerned about this.
The Chairman: That is why we have to hear from many witnesses.
Senator Cools: I would like to thank the witness for being one of the few witnesses appearing before us who are not being paid to do the job. I know the work of your organization very well. I heard that Ms. Landolt, the lawyer, was not here to testify with you today because she is travelling. However, I want you to know that I have great respect for your organization because to my mind it is probably the single, largest, most active women's organization in the country, and an organization that has consistently upheld the value of women and families.
The interesting thing about your organization is that it represents women who actually have children, whereas many of the feminist organizations did not. In a strange kind of way, it is a parents' organization. So far in the testimony we have heard very little from parents, and maybe parents are not usually organized as organizations and that may be the problem. That is why the testimony of Ms. Watts becomes extremely important, because she is speaking as a parent and is speaking for parents.
I would like to clarify several things. I share your concerns and I share your views. I know no one who would support child abuse. Very quickly this debate becomes a question of whether you support child abuse or not, which demeans the entire debate. I do not know anyone who would support child abuse. However, my concern, again, is that the repeal of section 43 does not differentiate between child abuse and a tap on the hand for doing something. Those are the reasons I cannot support the bill.
I heard Senator Joyal mention that he had one little tap on the hand. I went to one of those exclusive advanced schools.
Senator Joyal: This was an exclusive school I was referring to.
Senator Cools: Well, I went to an extremely exclusive school set on 10 acres of land with three tennis courts, and I want to say that at the school I went to, the girls' school, there was no corporal punishment, and I went to that school in 1952 or 1951, I forget now. Interestingly enough, the boys' equivalent school had corporal punishment administered in prescribed places. No teacher could just slap a boy or attack a child. That was proscribed. I was also aware that there was a difference between the genders in terms of what was viewed as the administration of corporal punishment. I just mention that for the sake of discussion.
I know a lot about the child welfare system and I have worked in these systems. I also know a lot about the havoc and the wreckage that is created within families when these investigations wrongly occur. Actually, the investigations themselves begin to become the major problem, bringing the pressure in itself. This is one of my major concerns about this bill.
I know that supporters of the bill say that we should trust the law enforcement system, but the problem is that complaints can be false. I cannot remember the name of the witness, or even the committee, but we had a witness before us one time from one of the children's aid societies who told us that two out of three of the accusations or the allegations or complaints brought to them were false or unsubstantiated. That tells you of the potential at all times for mischief and for vexation. That is my real problem.
We have dozens of laws now on the books about child abuse, but let us be quite frank, truly abusive people do not care about laws. The repeal of section 43 will do nothing to assist those children. As a matter of fact, the repeal of section 43 will only reinforce the current situation and, as spurious allegations are being investigated, will continue to remove resources, causing a loss of money to those who really need it.
Honourable senators, these are processes I know a lot about because I have worked in this field. When I was in social services there were many instances when I had to intervene, but one that always remains vivid in my memory is that I stopped one child from killing another child, and I swear to God that, if such a law had been in position, the three of us who were trying to stop it, because it was a very serious event, would have found ourselves facing some kind of prosecution.
Interestingly, in addition to that, at the end of the day we sorted all of those problems out by close collaboration with the families. At the end of the day, we did not go to this Criminal Code process.
There are many fragile families, and many of these people will feel the brunt of the changes that are being proposed by well-intentioned individuals who do not have an understanding of the concrete realities in the country. In addition, they do not have a fundamental comprehension of how those prosecutorial and investigative practices are carried out.
Children's aid societies have massive powers, yet there is still child abuse in that minority of people. I do not support giving them more powers. Perhaps I have seen too much malice in my lifetime. I also object to certain people pretending to be pious and prescribing for other families, when many families are quite capable of resolving many of the problems that occur by the use of love, forgiveness and healthy living.
Can you give us more information from families? Canada lags in the study of some of these matters. Because of my work on families, I have been invited to Texas in August to speak to 2,500 or 3,000 people. In the U.S., one in four young Black men is incarcerated regularly, and there is much concern about that.
Have you any information that expresses the opinions or apprehensions of parents in these matters? Parents are a neglected group in this country. Motherhood has been demeaned. I believe that a parent is a unique and special creature. The crux of the matter is what parents think vis-à-vis what the ``enlightened'' think.
I thank you for your brief, which is very substantial and substantive. I have counselled parents for the greater part of my life.
Ms. Watts: We are beginning to recognize more and more that fragmentation is one of the major causes of disorder in society. The Stockholm study deals with isolation of the family. More and more groups now believe that the family is threatened in many ways. Many organizations are increasingly supporting the family. Our organization started out very small. We are increasing our activities and our opportunities to speak to the nation through the media and our opportunities to defend the family against legislation that would be harmful to them. The United Nations has been involved in this through various conventions, to which we respond with our perspective.
Senator Cools: I believe that you have a special status at the UN.
Ms. Watts: Yes. We have special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. We try to send a representative from REAL Women to every conference where we believe there will be ideas expressed that are detached from the well-being of the family. When we hear about professionals being proactive with regard to the family, especially with regard to an issue like this, we are concerned that they may be trivializing the true abuse and decreasing their efforts to deal with it. Sometimes it occurs very close to them and it is ignored.
We are, of course, in favour of institutions dealing with true abuse. However, to expand their activity into the normal family for every slap and spanking goes beyond what their mandate should be. They do have an important mandate, as we do, in reiterating the importance of the family. Most parents do not have time to speak out on these matters. They are too busy doing their work as parents and, with both parents working, the stresses on the family are even greater.
There has been mention of having a department on the status of the family. Everyone is looking at the situation from the perspectives of various special interest groups, but very often the perspective of the family is missed in legislation.
I have attached to our brief our submission to the National Plan of Action For Children, which deals with Canadian statistics on children. We made some very important recommendations, including respect for the institution of traditional marriage. We recommended that the Income Tax Act should be amended to provide full-time homemakers with tax credits according to family income. We said that child tax credits should be paid equally to parents, whether children are cared for in their home or in substitute care. There seems to be discrimination against parents who choose to care for their own children, which is a very healthy tradition that Canada should continue. We recommend that payments be made directly to parents rather than to institutions so that the parents can determine the kind of care to be provided according to the means of the child and family values. We are making divorce easier rather than using means to have parents reconcile for the well-being of the child.
We are in favour of constructive legislation initiatives in the form of national affirmative action for families to enable them to relate to their members, particularly the children. We have recommended ensuring vital changes in the workplace to accommodate family needs, which is happening more and more; family leave to care for sick children and elderly parents; work projects that can be done at home; flexible work hours; job sharing, pro-rated, part-time work with benefits; extended maternity leaves — for which we are grateful; welfare legislation to restore the family by giving priority to mothers and fathers living together with children; and employee incentives to provide jobs for parents. That ties in with the unemployment situation that Sweden has recognized as increasing the pressure on families.
Senator Cools: Your organization has a very balanced position on divorce. Although divorce is not good or desirable, your position is that, if there is divorce, the child must maintain the entitlement to emotional and psychological support from both parents and to relationships with both parents.
Ms. Watts: This has been recognized through the social sciences. It used to be thought that it was fine if the mother cared for the child. Recent studies show that the child needs the father as well. We are very much in favour of shared parenting for the benefit of the child.
Senator Cools: I have read your work and it is wonderful. I thank you for your work, which you do as a volunteer. Your organization puts its pennies together and consistently takes a position in support of the maintenance of the family.
Ms. Watts: We did apply for funding from the Status of Women when we started up, but we were rejected because they did not like our view of equality. Perhaps our view of equality is more nuanced, but, as I attend more women's conferences, I find more women are becoming aware of the important perspective that we present, which is just as valid in terms of equality as those who would have a narrower view of equality in terms of employment or numbers or quotas.
Senator Joyal: Do you attend political party conventions normally? Does your group attend them?
Ms. Watts: Not as an organization, but our individual members are free to attend any convention or organization or be involved in any party. We are non-partisan. Regardless of the party, if it supports the family, we will support its initiative. If it does not support the family, we will be critical, because we think the family is very important.
Senator Joyal: That is ``family'' in the way you understand it in the presentation that you have made.
Ms. Watts: It is the way the social sciences have affirmed to us that it is to the benefit of everyone to support the family.
I believe the polls show that Canadians value the family very highly as well, in tremendous numbers. Their families are a priority for them.
Senator Joyal: I would not say the traditional family definition is a bad one. On the contrary, most of us are the products of those families. However, today we have to recognize that society is composed of different kinds of families. My colleague Senator Ringuette has referred to single-parent families. We cannot ignore that.
Ms. Watts: We do not ignore them, and some of our recommendations would be beneficial to single-parent families, who are often the ones in the greatest need.
Senator Joyal: Do you mean in need of support from the government, generally, and society?
Ms. Watts: Even just recognition of the importance of parenthood.
Senator Joyal: I think it was Senator Nolin who raised the idea that we have to recognize that now in families both parents normally work. That is the condition of so many urban families, and even rural families, because the women on the farm have just as much, if not more, work than the men.
In other words, we have to adjust the approach to the conditions in which the economy today has developed. As much as one of the two members of a couple would like to stay at home, we nevertheless have to address the issue of how to support children who have to be in daycare. It has created many different situations that we have to address. Of course, we also have to value, as you do, the traditional family, whereby the man is at work and the woman is at home to raise children and so on. I totally support that aspect of your activities. That is the way most of us have been educated.
However, we must recognize today that there are other models of family, and we have to be responsive to those other models in a diverse society that is defined in different contexts. The diversification of Canada in terms of ethnic background is a difficult challenge for us, as a country, to face. It is irreversible. We not only have to live with it but we also have to make the best of it for the future of Canada. It for us is an inescapable element of reality, if I can use that term.
I want to be fair to the recognition of what has been the traditional family and value it, because, as I say, we are the products of it; however, we have to be sensitive to the other conditions in which Canadian society is evolving.
Ms. Watts: We are very sensitive to that. Studies indicate that over 80 per cent of the women who work and must put their children in daycare would rather be at home to take care of their children full-time if they could afford it. There is financial pressure which is working against the choice of Canadians.
We also believe that when the government puts millions of tax dollars into institutional daycare, that tax money, which comes from all Canadians, should be given to the parents. The parents then have the choice of using institutional care, caring for their children at home or using a neighbourhood daycare centre, a church or an ethnically oriented daycare centre. It gives greater choice to the parents.
We must remember that women at home work very hard. It is very hard work, a great sacrifice and I know many women who have dropped lucrative careers to care for their children. We have to be open to the many choices that parents want.
As an organization, we are trying to meet all those needs. We have no intention of restricting Canadians to one form of family or putting undue financial pressures on women who miss their children when they are working. We want the system to enhance family life, but it does not enhance it. We seem to accept the fact that both parents are working, but when the mothers tell us they would rather be at home, we have to look at that fact as well.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for your presentation this morning. As you see from the questions and comments of the senators, we want to go as far as we can to study this bill because it is an important one. We want to make sure that the families and children are well protected so that there is a good balance for them.
Feel free to send us documents, if you feel we can use them, because we will be meeting with many witnesses who want to come.
Ms. Watts: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Senators, I have circulated to members a letter that I received from Senator Eyton requesting that the committee hear from more witnesses in conjunction with its study of Bill S-21. Suggestions have been made and duly noted and we will follow developments in this matter. We have not yet finished with Bill S-21 and still have a number of witnesses to hear from, unless you tell me that the committee should wrap things up now.
[English]
Senator Joyal: I am not of that opinion. I think it was mentioned by the witness this morning. We should hear from the Canadian Teachers' Federation because we heard two major participants in the decision of the Supreme Court, and the teachers are an important component of the reality we are trying to approach. I would suggest we call them.
[Translation]
The Chairman: We have taken note of that and will follow up. We do not know for certain how many more days we will be sitting. Rumours are swirling on the Hill. Some are saying that the House could adjourn tomorrow, while others maintain that it will recess next week. If the Houses rises tomorrow, then we have very little time remaining.
As you know, yesterday Bill S-39 was referred to our committee. We will have to begin our study of this proposed legislation. I plan to suggest to the leaders of the two parties to request permission to sit at different times, that is on Wednesday afternoon, on Wednesday evening and on Thursday morning, if possible, or on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This is a government bill.
Senator Joyal: Is it so urgent that we need to have additional meetings, aside from those regularly scheduled?
The Chairman: Apparently so. Bill C-2 is also scheduled to be referred to this committee before the end of the session. We will do what we can, like everyone else, but we will nevertheless need to hear from witnesses. We cannot adopt these bills at lighting speed.
Senator Joyal: Personally, I am opposed to adopting bills in a single sitting.
The Chairman: We cannot do that.
Senator Joyal: We are always somewhat uncomfortable doing that because we know that certain questions may have been raised, but not answered. We end up closing our eyes and passing the bill anyway.
The Chairman: You know where I stand on this issue.
Senator Joyal: Regarding Bill S-21, since the Supreme Court of Canada ruling mentioned the Human Rights Commission, I think we should hear from a representative of the legal community with expertise on human rights. That is really an underlying issue here.
The Chairman: Senator Eyton was concerned that the committee might not hear a range of opinions. So far, we have heard from groups on both sides of the issue. As usual, we have tried to maintain a balanced approach.
If the leaders on both sides agree, I will request permission to hold extra meetings. You will be notified immediately so that you can set aside some time in order for the committee to begin its study of Bill S-39.
As for Bill C-2, I am not certain that we will have time to get to it. These are, after all, government bills. We also need to consider the list of potential witnesses. If the House does adjourn in two weeks, maybe we should at least hear from a few people on Bill S-21 before the break. I will keep you posted. The Clerk can notify you quickly should a meeting be called.
[English]
As soon as we have documents on Bill S-39, we will distribute them to senators. The briefing notes will be sent to you.
The committee adjourned.