Mr. Speaker, for many of us in Canada this is a very difficult issue. As I came to the House this afternoon I had to put down a few of my thoughts on it. I want to refer to some very difficult situations which we as Canadians have to face.
We all recognize that with the supreme court decision, we as a government are literally being told that people who are involved in sexual relationships of the same gender should be acknowledged in terms of the benefits that might be available to them as citizens of the country. I personally feel we are offering a special status to certain groups in our society. It is a status which is outside marriage and one which is based, as the amendments would say, on conjugal relationships that are not of a traditional nature.
Nearly every religion I have studied has had a great respect for marriage. If we go back to our Biblical stories which deal with Adam and Eve, Eve came as part of a man and was made his helpmate. The two of them developed according to Christian ideas and Christian teachings a world civilization on which we as a Canadian nation have based our general philosophy. We have seen throughout Biblical teaching various aspects of different sexual relationships. In fact after the great flood in the story of Noah, there were sexual activities that were condemned by the general society in which Noah lived.
The response I have had from across New Brunswick and especially in the Miramichi, is that a great number of people are concerned about how marriage might be interpreted if we as a government accept the new standards in which people have special rights in terms of their sexual relationships. In regard to my own community, I have had e-mails, letters and phone calls and they run about 99% showing great concern about what the government is doing.
We have to realize that in terms of relationships and dependency, there are a great number of different aspects by which people are dependent upon one another. I can think of situations in my own community where two brothers or two sisters live together, or where a brother and sister have shared a household. When I look at those relationships and I consider the bill before us which amends various acts, it gives me a great deal of concern.
I have to be concerned in that the definition we write today which will be in the preamble will not really apply to all of the different acts which we are attempting to amend. I would certainly want to ensure that if we are going to write marriage into the general amendments of the various acts, we should put the same definition into all aspects of the acts that are affected by these changes.
We as Canadians have always been tolerant of all forms of relationships, but the basic concept of marriage and the family values that this country needs to develop are very important. All of us have friends and people we know who are involved in different types of relationships. But in terms of the bill which we are looking to amend various parts of the different benefits and relationships that we might have under the law, we certainly should not base it upon sex.
In the marriage vows that many of us have taken, there is no definite aspect which says that we have to be involved in a sexual relationship. Yet with these changes, we are saying that people who are involved in conjugal relationships are the only ones who will receive benefits of the various plans that our government has available.
I want to go on the record as representing my community which has great concerns with this bill. It is my suggestion that this bill should be set aside until the government can put before the House a definite concept of what other relationships might cost.
We must not in any way discriminate against other family groups who are not sexually involved but who represent a great tradition of this country. I hope all of us as parliamentarians can look at this and hopefully table this legislation until such time as we fully study the costs and benefits of all types of loving relationships that exist in the country.
