Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to my colleague that among all of my Reform colleagues, he is by far my favourite. However, I do not know whether I should be jumping for joy or crying after what he just said because, with all due respect, my colleague rose in this House and said: "I do not dislike the hon. member", all the better. However, he also said: "What we need to do is to start treating everyone the same".
You will understand that at face value, such a statement betrays a lack of sensitivity, because, if we acknowledge that in Canadian and Quebec society people are being molested solely on the basis of their sexual orientation, there is no way we can agree with our colleague's conclusion that we have to treat everyone the same.
This is like the kind of reasoning that used to be widespread a few years back, and I am choosing my words carefully. You will nonetheless understand to what point this example, regardless of how absurd it was, is worth calling to mind. I remember very clearly the debate that was raging in our society a few years back in which some people used to say: "Whenever a person, in general a woman, is raped, we must take into consideration whether she provoked the attack". And they said, some very sensible people included, even men of law, that the punishment for raping a woman
should vary, depending on how provocative she was, for example, if she was wearing a short skirt.
I never subscribed to this point of view. What our colleague is saying, is: "I am ready to accept homosexuality only if these people are treated the same as everybody else and only if we do not acknowledge, at this moment in time, that they are being systematically discriminated against and are being targeted for violence". This is contradictory, this is a paradox, this is illogical and cannot be. That is why we have a bill before us like the one that is before us today.