Joint Submission of West Coast LEAF and Rise in Response to the BC Law Institute’s Consultation Paper on Parentage

In 2020, the Ministry of Attorney General asked the BC Law Institute (BCLI) to review and recommend reforms to Part 3 of the Family Law Act (FLA), with the goal of modernizing the legislation. To support this work, the BCLI subsequently convened the Parentage Law Reform Committee, comprised of legal, medical, and public policy experts. The Committee drafted the Consultation Paper to obtain public input on its 34 tentative recommendations for reform.

Currently, the FLA has gaps in its recognition of parent-child relationships in family structures that do not conform to the heteronormative, nuclear family model (i.e., two parents who live together with their children). West Coast LEAF and Rise’s joint submission on the Consultation Paper arises from their shared interest in inclusive and accessible parentage law that promotes the substantive equality of children, parents, and families. In particular, we support the creation of fair, effective, and accessible pathways for recognizing parent-child relationships in 2SLGBTQIA+, polyamorous, non-conjugal, single parent, and multipleparent families.

In our submission, we make recommendations in the following areas:

• The importance of providing legal recognition to diverse family structures and pathways to family formation.

• The importance of fair, effective, and accessible processes for establishing parentage that do not impose unnecessary burdens on families.

•  The right of donor-conceived children to information about their donor(s).

• The parentage of children who are conceived as a result of sexual assault.

• The importance of the BCLI engaging in a proactive consultation process that centres the voices of people and families with lived experiences of parentage law.