Désolés, le blogue de Patricia Hughes est seulement disponible en anglais pour l'instant.
This morning the LCO released our Interim Report in our Family Law Project (en français), including discussion of the issues and draft recommendations. It focuses on proposed reforms that we think will reduce fragmentation and confusion in the system.
The project is a "process" project. It doesn't deal with substantive law (it doesn't recommend reform to the matrimonial home provisions in the Family Law Act, for example.) Instead, it looks at when and how people having family disputes enter the system. It emphasizes the need for the family law system to respond to Ontario's increasing pluralism or diversity, the reality that members of different communities may have different needs to which the system must respond if it is to be effective in addressing their needs.
After releasing an options paper with two different types of projects, a consultation paper, a paper that summarizes the results of our consultation process, after considering the recommendations and analysis of others who have indicated their own thinking about needed reforms in the last few years, commissioned research papers and the reforms put in place by the government over 2010-2011, and after receiving input from our advisory group, the Interim Report represents our current thinking on the kinds of reforms the system needs to be more effective.
We believe a law reform commission should be both practical and "visionary" and so we've divided our recommendations into two categories, those we think could be implemented in the short and mid-term. A number are low cost, but it is hard to change an existing system without some cost; in some cases, however, it may be possible to make cost savings through changes that can then be dedicated to new aspects of the system. The second type of recommendation is more ambitious; these are changes that we know are unlikely now, but might be possible when political will and economic circumstances coincide to allow real change.
We release interim reports with draft recommendations so that we let people know what we're thinking as clearly as we can. They are more likely to attract attention and a response from those affected than is a simple statement of what we're thinking (an ordinary discussion paper, in other words).
Certainly not everyone will agree with them, and we may find that some of them are not as feasible as we think. In some recommendations, we identify the "agent" of change because calls for change "in the air" are not helpful. We expect to hear from them now that our thinking has crystallized to this extent. It's important that we hear from those affected, whether workers or users in the system or they are responsible for the system. This post-release consultation can take several forms: emails, online comments, written submissions, in-person discussions. Contact the LCO at
- 2032 Ignat Kaneff Building, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3
- LawCommission@lco-cdo.org
- 416.650.8406
- Fax: 416.650.8418
- TTY: 1.877.650.8082
- Toll free: 1.866.950.8406
- Online: http://www.lco-cdo.org/en/content/get-touch or/ou http://www.lco-cdo.org/fr/content/get-touchÂ
We have considered the recommendations carefully, but we are not "invested" in them. Some of our draft recommendations may change; we may even decide it's best not to make some of them at all; we may add others that reflect ideas that did not previously come to our attention. All the feedback and post-release consultation will inform our draft final report for the Board of Governors to consider. Final approval rests in their hands.
