Canada: Conservatives must make Equal Shared Parenting a key policy plank

Article here. Excerpt:

'It is neither liberal nor conservative to believe that children belong to their parents, not the state

Even the words used in adversarial court battles — like “awarding” of custody — reflect the disturbing attitude that children are the state’s property to bestow as it pleases. But mothers, who end up with sole custody 79 per cent of the time in court-ordered custody arrangements, cannot be “awarded” what is already half theirs. It is more accurate to say that in the majority of such cases the state “takes away” children from their fathers.

It is neither liberal nor conservative to believe that children belong to their parents, not the state. Or to believe that, absent extraordinary circumstances, the state should have no more power after separation to rank parents as “better” or “worse” (an assessment that children normally have no desire to make) than it had before separation. That is, none.'