Madam Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest for his thoughtful consideration of this issue. It is a consideration and a thoughtfulness one would come to expect from the member.
I hope he will not be hurt if I tell him my reaction to his comment is that it is the rankest sophistry to say that one is in favour of eliminating discrimination or against discrimination but against a measure which is destined to eliminate that discrimination.
What does he say to those who say it is okay under federal legislation to discriminate? Will he stand in the House when other measures are talked about which deal with discriminatory measures based on sexual orientation in federal legislation and speak out against them? Will he denounce them?
Should members of the courts and human rights commissions read the statement he made in the House today as the reasoned argument that those who voted against this measure are not in favour of discrimination but just have some trouble with this measure and therefore our courts can proceed with the work they are already doing to eliminate discrimination? They could say that, after all, the will of the House is clearly expressed by that member that even those who vote against it are in favour of eliminating all forms of discrimination.
Is the member advocating we should take all the other lists such as references to ethnic origin, colour, religion, age or sex from the bill for the reasons he suggested? Does he not subscribe to the point made by the hon. member for Halifax that there is a historic reason why these provisions are in the bill?
These provisions are in the bill because those were categories of people who were discriminated against by a dominant class. That is the position we find ourselves in with respect to sexual orientation today.
Given what he said about his wish to get rid of discrimination, he should embrace this concept. If we have to clean up the bill to make it better and more effective along the lines he suggested, let us work on that together.
At least let us address this issue in an efficient way at this time.