Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

Senator Plett: Well, I’m not sure what the answer was because your mic wasn’t on, and there is a reason why I am a little loud sometimes, not because I try to be, but because I cannot hear very well. I am assuming, though, that with your smile you decided to take a question. Thumbs up I can see.

Senator Kutcher, before I ask you a question here, the fact that this has been attempted, as you say, 17 times before over a number of different parliaments and, indeed, different governments should maybe give one an idea that there might not be as much appetite for it as some people would say there is.

I want to read a little bit about what the Supreme Court of Canada considered in whether section 43 was constitutional and consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights. They say:

Physical punishment cannot be used on a child in anger or in retaliation for something a child did.

Objects, such as belts or rulers, must never be used on a child and a child must never be hit or slapped on the face or head.

Any use of force on a child cannot be degrading, inhumane, or result in harm or the prospect of harm.

The Supreme Court further states:

The seriousness of the child’s misbehaviour is not relevant to deciding whether the force used was reasonable. The force used must be minor, no matter what the child did.

And lastly, I will say:

Parents/caregivers can only use corrective force (or physical punishment) that is minor or “transitory and trifling” in nature. . . .

And you have repeatedly, Senator Kutcher, at least implied that any form of physical punishment is abuse. With these guidelines here, how is using force to pick up a child who is throwing a temper tantrum and forcefully putting that child into a car seat, or taking a 5-year-old who is throwing a temper tantrum because he or she doesn’t want to go to school and picking up that child forcefully and putting that child into the back seat of a car and taking them to school considered, in your opinion, physical abuse? That is all part of child rearing.

Senator Kutcher: Thank you very much for that question, Senator Plett. Like you, I do have problems in hearing but I didn’t have a problem hearing you.

You ask a very important question and one that bedevils people in this discussion all the time. What are the limits to appropriate interaction with your children when they are misbehaving or having difficulties? That’s a fundamental question, and everyone in this chamber who is a parent has struggled with that question. I know that. I struggle with it.

I can very well remember when I was interning at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and my wife and, at that time, our 2‑year-old son came to see me because we used to work 48-hour shifts. There we were in the rotunda in the middle of the world’s most prestigious children’s hospital and our son decides he is going to have a temper tantrum. I was sitting there in my white pediatrics coat, my kid is having a temper tantrum and everyone is walking by looking at me, wondering, “What kind of a parent is that?” We just let him finish.

You know, like many of us in this chamber, I was not immune from receiving corporal punishment as a child. A lot of us had it. I will tell you, Senator Plett, some of the corporal punishment that I received no one would want to have. I made a vow, as many others here probably did, that when I was going to parent I wasn’t going to do the same thing. Those of us who are lucky enough to have grandchildren all want them to grow up to not be hit for any reason, and that is what this bill is trying to address.

Thank you very much for your question.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!