Speech (House debate)

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{
    "time": "1999-12-10 14:05:00",
    "attribution": {
        "en": "Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.)",
        "fr": ""
    },
    "content": {
        "en": "<p>Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to contribute to the consideration of Bill C-235 today. I take perhaps a different and more personal perspective on this matter.</p>\n<p>I should begin my remarks by saying that prior to becoming a member of parliament I was a lawyer. The bulk of my practice was civil litigation. A portion of that civil litigation practice pertained to matrimonial law. Within that matrimonial law sphere, I did my share of divorces. It was early in my practice and early in the experience of the Divorce Act newly passed. There were certain obligations placed on lawyers at that time and they are still in the act.</p>\n<p>One of the members opposite characterized the duties of the lawyer as perfunctory. When I was practising law, I considered those duties to be anything but perfunctory. I thought they were very important.</p>\n<p>It was my obligation as an officer of the court to bring to the attention of my client, who was either responding to a matrimonial situation or initiating it, that reconciliation counselling was available. I had to ask if the client had considered reconciliation counselling and more to the point, to provide the names of reconciliation counsellors, the names of arbitrators and that sort of thing in order to keep the peace within the breaking up family.</p>\n<p>That is what I did\u2014</p>",
        "fr": ""
    },
    "url": "/debates/1999/12/10/tom-wappel-1/",
    "politician_url": "/politicians/299/",
    "politician_membership_url": "/politicians/memberships/2625/",
    "procedural": false,
    "source_id": "",
    "h1": {
        "en": "Private Members' Business",
        "fr": ""
    },
    "h2": {
        "en": "Divorce Act",
        "fr": ""
    },
    "document_url": "/debates/1999/12/10/",
    "related": {
        "document_speeches_url": "/speeches/?document=%2Fdebates%2F1999%2F12%2F10%2F"
    }
}