Mr. Speaker, this is a good set of issues. If I had my way, I would have acted a lot more robustly in relation to the courts of appeal.
It is true that the Supreme Court of Canada has not had an opportunity to test the constitutional validity of an opposite sex requirement in the definition. It is also true that in every court of appeal in the seven provinces, and now we have an eighth province on track, the opposite sex definition was tested and failed.
I suppose there is an outside mathematical chance that the Supreme Court of Canada might have said that all the appeal courts were wrong and that it would strike them down and uphold the opposite sex definition. I do not think there were any observers who really believed the Supreme Court would do that.
I was disappointed that it did not take the opportunity to deal with it in the reference. I understood why it did not. The member makes a good point. He must realize that all the courts of appeal of the country that have dealt with this issue, as I understand it, have struck down the opposite sex definition.