Madam Speaker: To resume adjourned debate on second readings, on the proposed motion of the honourable First Minister (Mr. Filmon), Bill 2, The Elections Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi électorale), standing in the name of the honourable Leader of the official opposition (Mr. Doer).
Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing? [agreed]
Madam Speaker: To resume adjourned debate on the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson), Bill 4, The Child and Family Services Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les services à l'enfant et à la famille et modifications corrélatives), standing in the name of the honourable member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), who has 36 minutes remaining, and standing in the name of the honourable member for Transcona (Mr. Reid).
Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing in the name of the honourable member for Transcona? [agreed]
Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): Bill 4 relates to The Child and Family Services Amendment Act. I first would like to recall some of the background of this bill and then go into the issues.
This legislation, which established the Children's Advocate office, was created by an amendment to The Child and Family Services Act passed in June 1992. In the meantime, by December, the government appointed the first Office of the Children's Advocate, and he was serving under the pleasure of the government, the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pitura)
Then, in April 1993, the legislation which created this Children's Advocate office was proclaimed, but there was a mandate in the legislation that there shall be a review of that legislation after three years. This review will be done by the Legislature itself, and the Legislature, through its Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, appointed a subcommittee to conduct hearings on the operation of this office. They started holding public hearings in April 1997 and went through to May, and then, finally, they presented the report on June 24, 1997. If I may add, this is an all-party standing committee of the Legislature. All political parties are represented on the committee.
Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair
Before I go to the substantive content of the report, which is now embodied in this bill before us, Bill 4, I would like to focus on the importance of children and the issue of children's welfare in our society. We know that after us our children will be growing up, and they will be replacing us as members of society and as citizens. It is therefore important that they be brought up properly. Every child, to my way of thinking, has a right to be loved, a right to be well fed and a right to be well instructed, but because of the vicissitudes in our everyday workaday world, we sometimes neglect this important role as parents, and when parents can no longer perform their parental duties and responsibilities to their children, somehow the state, the government, will have to take over; otherwise we will be left with children with no guide, no instruction, and because of the imagination of children, if they are not instructed and properly guided, we will have problems on our hands.
It is indeed exciting to be in the perspective of a child when you are in the realm of innocence with your imagination roaming around, chasing the stars. There seems to be no limit to a child's imagination. In the words of a poet, to be a child again is to see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.
Eternity in an hour, this is in the perspective of a little child while yet in the realm of innocence, but the moment the child has grown neglected, like the wildflowers, like the wild grasses, they will be difficult to manage. So, unless we tell them what to do, they will not know what to do; but, if properly instructed, they will know the way to go.
It is said in the Proverbs: train a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not turn away from it. It is very important, therefore, that they be initiated in the proper direction. Indeed, psychologists confirm this. They say that the infant, the baby in the first seven years of his life, if well cared for, attended to all his needs, has a feeling that he is being loved by the parents, he will grow up to be a responsible adult in life.
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So, if we discharge our responsibilities as parents with respect to the child in the first seven important years of life, then you can leave the child alone and it will be a responsible being because of the training instilled in the psyche, in the mind, in the personality of this child. But, if the child is left alone--and this is the usual case now in our workaday world where both parents are working; they leave the child to a babysitter, practically a stranger--there is no concern or love for the child who is helpless. The child, when he feels that he is abandoned, will be greatly disappointed in life. He will be full of disappointments and disillusionment as a person, and when that happens, you will see the behaviour change, as we have been seeing now.
Children nowadays, the moment they become a little bit older, enough to understand the world around them, we now notice that they love luxury so much. They have developed bad manners. They have this childish contempt for authority, even the authority of their parents. They show disrespect to their elders. They love to gossip and chatter around instead of following their exercise. They tyrannize even their own parents, the young kids, we call them punks. They no longer rise when elderly enters the room. They contradict their parents openly. They gobble up food with no right kind of conduct, or etiquette of any kind, and they even tyrannize their teachers.
I have been young and have been a teenager and growing old now. I have not seen yet any child who not only disobeys their parents, they even commit criminal offences against their parents. This is unusual in our world today, therefore, it is very important that we start the child properly by training them and instructing them.
It is said that if we teach our children the moral code, the laws of God, the Ten Commandments, early in their life, if they do not forget the 10 moral codes--there is the lawgiver Moses--then there is a promise that in their life, length of days, years of life, and peace will be theirs. So it is also the virtues that we as parents can impart to our children. Let not kindness and truth forsake you. Bind them around your neck; write them in the table of thine heart, then you will find favour and good repute before the eyes of God and men. If we raise up kids who are honest and kind, who are truthful, who have integrity, then they gain the respect of their fellows and their elders and people around them.
We as parents sometimes will teach them, like any preacher, the good rule of conduct which in the eyes of the kids, the children, are contrary to what we are actually doing. Let me give you an example. Supposing a father said to the kid, do not smoke, that is not good for you, it is not healthy for you to smoke, and he is saying this while his own lips have the cigarette. The behaviour is contradictory to the teaching, and, then, of course, it will not be effective because the child will observe, and the child will see that he himself is not living up to that moral code of conduct. So, in this inconsistency, the child will not listen at all. In fact, he will be skeptical and cynical about all these instructions.
But, if we show, by our own behaviour, by our own example as parents, we do not have to teach them or say to them, we do not have to preach to them because our own way of life, our own behaviour will be the best teacher there ever can be with respect around children. Any parents who cannot control their own children in their own home, how can we expect the government or the state or the justice system to control them in the streets? It is not possible. The primary responsibility, as I have stated, resides in the hands of the parents.
The parents themselves cannot be in all things because they have to earn a living. Sometimes the father and the mother have to work, and they neglect their children, and the children grow up without proper instruction. This is the beginning of problems in our society. Now, when the children become teenagers, and they begin to sow wild oats, then it is time for the parents to put out the threshing machine. I do not agree with those who say, let them do what they want. I do not agree. Personally, I think they should be subjected to some kind of disciplinary behaviour. There is a place and a time where the behaviour has to stop. You do not have to be cruel parents to do that. All you need to have is a firm decision: this is it. Be careful though, you do not hit a child in the face because you may miss, and you may hurt yourself.
An Honourable Member: Just a little tap on you know where.
Mr. Santos: Well, you smack the child in the one end and remind him. If it does not work, then you touch the other end. But it is no good to hurt them physically, not at all, because they resent this. The best way is really to teach them through proper teaching by example, followed by a reminder that this is not the way to do it.
An Honourable Member: You are not a proponent of corporal punishment.
Mr. Santos: I am not proposing corporal punishment, but a little discipline. I can even send my kid to some karate thing, so they will be disciplined there. Well, that is the way to hit. They understand what it is to be there, and they get hit there formally, and you even pay for it. Well, there is a moral code attached to this kind of behaviour also, they are not supposed to hit without any reason.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable member for Broadway (Mr. Santos) will have 21 minutes remaining. As previously agreed, this matter will also remain standing in the name of the honourable member for Transcona (Mr. Reid).
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