Experts call for recognition of multi-parenting
"Saskatchewan is more advanced than we are. I can't accept that!" says Mona Greenbaum. The director of the Coalition of LGBT+ Families is one of those who would have liked Quebec to recognize multi-parenting in its family law reform.
According to her, the phenomenon of multi-parenting - or the fact that a child has three or four parents - will increase in the coming years, so much so that three other Canadian provinces (Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan) have already recognized it in their laws.
Lesbian couple with sperm donor friend, gay couple with pregnant, infertile heterosexual couple who decides to start a family of three, the examples are numerous. "They exist," says Mona Greenbaum, hence the importance of recognizing them in law to protect their children.
In case of conflict, "for custody, both legal parents can block access to the child completely, but also the (third) parent has no legal obligations, so it greatly weakens the child not to have his family legally recognized and supervised," she illustrated.
According to her, the phenomenon of multi-parenting - or the fact that a child has three or four parents - will increase in the coming years, so much so that three other Canadian provinces (Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan) have already recognized it in their laws.
Lesbian couple with sperm donor friend, gay couple with pregnant, infertile heterosexual couple who decides to start a family of three, the examples are numerous. "They exist," says Mona Greenbaum, hence the importance of recognizing them in law to protect their children.
In case of conflict, "for custody, both legal parents can block access to the child completely, but also the (third) parent has no legal obligations, so it greatly weakens the child not to have his family legally recognized and supervised," she illustrated.
In introducing Bill 2 reforming family law on Thursday, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said that "the Quebec family and its needs have changed a lot in recent decades; society is evolving and this must be reflected in the law."
But he added in the same breath that "for us, it is very clear that the family unit has only two parents".
Mona Greenbaum sees this as a kind of double discourse.
"Simon Jolin-Barrette is complimenting himself for doing something so progressive, (...) but we are behind three other Canadian provinces that have found solutions for this, that have protected children with laws," she said in an interview.
For her, the coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) government has "ceded up" with its reform, but lacked "courage" when it came time to do more for Quebec families. The need to please a more traditional electoral base is probably no stranger to this, she says.
Isabel Côté, a professor at the Université du Québec en Outaouais and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Procreation by Others and Family Ties, was the same disappointment. "I wish we had gone further," she says. We could have taken the extra step and moved towards a multi-parent system like in Ontario."
The expert cannot help but observe that "we think in a heteronormative way. (...) This is really the strength of the Euro-American model of kinship that assumes that children have two parents. Obviously, the two-parent scheme is really very strong in our social representations."
Yet, she says, today's multi-parent family is born, in the vast majority of cases, from extremely thorough reflection, with parents even going so far as to discuss the desired school for the little one even before conception. In the other provinces, "so far,
there have been no difficulties related to this mode."
"A decisive turn"
The author of the report "For a family law adapted to the new conjugal and family realities", Professor Alain Roy, argues that the government has undertaken with its reform a "decisive turn towards the future".
"I salute the courage and determination of the Minister of Justice who has not hesitated to tackle the imposing project of family law reform despite the delicate and sensitive social issues it raises," he said in a written statement sent to The Canadian Press.
The voluminous Bill 2 also recognizes and regulates the use of surrogate mothers, which was eagerly awaited - eight provinces have already done so - in addition to enshing in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms a new right to know the origins.
Here too, Professor Côté sees something that needs to be corrected. In his opinion, Quebec should not allow the surrogate mother to think after childbirth about the possibility of keeping her parent-child relationship with the child. She believes this will create tension with the intended parents, instead of uniting the family.
But it's another piece of the bill that made lawyer Florence Ashley Paré, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, jump: a person will only be able to change their sex marker on their birth certificate if they have surgery to change their genitals.
For the others, the bill provides for the possibility of having a gender identity different from the sex marker. In other words, we "expose" anyone who has not had surgery, worries Ms. Paré, herself a trans person. On social media, the LGBT+ community is in "panic mode," she says.
"It would create in Quebec the most regressive situation in all of Canada. (...) We are really in a situation where a person could have a surgery that he did not want otherwise to satisfy the prerequisite that the government has just created."
On the issue of multi-parenting, "Quebec stands out for its lack of openness," said Ms. Paré.
"I'm pretty disappointed," she says. It really makes me want to go back to Quebec."
Bill 2 will be the subject of public consultations and will be studied clause by clause before its adoption. The Legault government has already announced its intention to eventually table a second part of its family law reform, on the theme of conjugality.
Quebec family law has not been revised since the 1980s.
But he added in the same breath that "for us, it is very clear that the family unit has only two parents".
Mona Greenbaum sees this as a kind of double discourse.
"Simon Jolin-Barrette is complimenting himself for doing something so progressive, (...) but we are behind three other Canadian provinces that have found solutions for this, that have protected children with laws," she said in an interview.
For her, the coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) government has "ceded up" with its reform, but lacked "courage" when it came time to do more for Quebec families. The need to please a more traditional electoral base is probably no stranger to this, she says.
Isabel Côté, a professor at the Université du Québec en Outaouais and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Procreation by Others and Family Ties, was the same disappointment. "I wish we had gone further," she says. We could have taken the extra step and moved towards a multi-parent system like in Ontario."
The expert cannot help but observe that "we think in a heteronormative way. (...) This is really the strength of the Euro-American model of kinship that assumes that children have two parents. Obviously, the two-parent scheme is really very strong in our social representations."
Yet, she says, today's multi-parent family is born, in the vast majority of cases, from extremely thorough reflection, with parents even going so far as to discuss the desired school for the little one even before conception. In the other provinces, "so far,
there have been no difficulties related to this mode."
"A decisive turn"
The author of the report "For a family law adapted to the new conjugal and family realities", Professor Alain Roy, argues that the government has undertaken with its reform a "decisive turn towards the future".
"I salute the courage and determination of the Minister of Justice who has not hesitated to tackle the imposing project of family law reform despite the delicate and sensitive social issues it raises," he said in a written statement sent to The Canadian Press.
The voluminous Bill 2 also recognizes and regulates the use of surrogate mothers, which was eagerly awaited - eight provinces have already done so - in addition to enshing in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms a new right to know the origins.
Here too, Professor Côté sees something that needs to be corrected. In his opinion, Quebec should not allow the surrogate mother to think after childbirth about the possibility of keeping her parent-child relationship with the child. She believes this will create tension with the intended parents, instead of uniting the family.
But it's another piece of the bill that made lawyer Florence Ashley Paré, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, jump: a person will only be able to change their sex marker on their birth certificate if they have surgery to change their genitals.
For the others, the bill provides for the possibility of having a gender identity different from the sex marker. In other words, we "expose" anyone who has not had surgery, worries Ms. Paré, herself a trans person. On social media, the LGBT+ community is in "panic mode," she says.
"It would create in Quebec the most regressive situation in all of Canada. (...) We are really in a situation where a person could have a surgery that he did not want otherwise to satisfy the prerequisite that the government has just created."
On the issue of multi-parenting, "Quebec stands out for its lack of openness," said Ms. Paré.
"I'm pretty disappointed," she says. It really makes me want to go back to Quebec."
Bill 2 will be the subject of public consultations and will be studied clause by clause before its adoption. The Legault government has already announced its intention to eventually table a second part of its family law reform, on the theme of conjugality.
Quebec family law has not been revised since the 1980s.
Caroline Plante -
The Canadian PressExperts call for recognition of multi-parenting | The Duty (ledevoir.com)
The Canadian PressExperts call for recognition of multi-parenting | The Duty (ledevoir.com)