Mr. Speaker, I am dividing my time with the member for Ottawa West.
I rise with pleasure and pride to speak to Bill C-33, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to add sexual orientation as a prohibited grounds of discrimination. I congratulate the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister for bringing this amendment forward at this time, because there has never been any doubt about the government's commitment to this principle.
This amendment is about the principles of justice and equality which have always been the bedrock of the Liberal Party's belief. They have always been the bedrock of Canadian values that we hold dear, values of tolerance, respect and social responsibility.
Today more than ever we need to emphasize and set strategies to promote equality. Today more than ever we need to name in legislation what we mean by equality and how we intend to implement that equality.
Today we see attempts by some groups to erode fundamental Canadian values, groups like the Reform Party which speaks of equality and yet its members espouse discrimination. They speak about representing the grassroots of Canadians yet seek to divide Canadians into different classes of citizens, those who would be relegated to the back of the bus or the back of the shop, those who would eat in different establishments eventually or go to different schools. I thought that ended with apartheid.
The third party, which will undoubtedly vote against this bill, as it has been saying, will have proven yet again that apologies or not, its record is clear. It has voted against every equality seeking piece of legislation the government has put forward.
Let me speak about the ugliness of discrimination. I know because I am a member of a visible minority. I was a family physician who listened daily to the pain, the anguish, the shame and the loss of self-esteem that each patient of mine who was a target of discrimination told me about, whether it was because of their religion, colour or sexual orientation. These people lived with that loss of self-esteem, with their mental health, with their ability to walk proudly down the street, damaged and harmed with the pain of discrimination.
Discrimination kills the soul. The idea of optional discrimination is the antithesis to the fundamental values we hold dear. It is the antithesis to the whole idea of equality. In a fantasy world, which one day I hope to live in, where we are all equal under the law, where it has been established that we no longer need to seek equality, then the hon. member across may have something to say.
It is interesting to look at what history has taught us. It is interesting to see how at every point in history and at every stage where the fight for equality and freedom has been fought arguments have always been made by majority groups against the equality and the freedoms of the groups seeking equality.
Arguments have been made giving quasi-logical and legal reasons for denying those freedoms. There were arguments for slavery based on the fact that blacks were mentally inferior. All the excuses were made on the mass genocide of Jews. People were told there were economic arguments for ensuring the Jews were put down.
The equality of women was denied consistently for centuries based on the fact they were merely chattel and lacked the intellectual ability to take an equal place in society.
I would not be standing here today in the House of Commons if these kinds of legislation were not put into place to ensure I had the same fundamental and basic equality as the other people sitting in the House of Commons.
I have listened to the arguments made by the third party to deny this amendment. The arguments go on about groups and that equality means we should all be treated equally. Equality can be achieved only by removing barriers.
I am disabled and I cannot achieve equality if I cannot get into the building to participate without a wheelchair ramp. That is a special measure taken to ensure the equality of disabled people.
Today we know, and it has been well documented, that gays and lesbians in this country are denied the right to employment based on sexual orientation.
As a physician I have seen on a Friday or Saturday night gays and lesbians who were beaten purely because of their sexual orientation, taken bloodied into an emergency room.
The fundamental amendment we are discussing seeks to give equality of access to employment and housing. I know what it is like to be denied housing. When I was a medical student in England I sought an apartment. Because I came from a Commonwealth country I sounded quite British on the telephone. When I went to the door, about one minute later because I telephoned from around the corner, the woman took one look at me and said: "I am sorry, it's gone".
People have to know what it is like to feel that way, to suddenly feel inferior, subhuman, dirty and disgusting. That is what we mean when we talk about the reality of the lives of people who are discriminated against.
I do not hear the third party talking about equality in terms of "then let us not let gays and lesbians pay taxes. Why should they be equal and pay taxes?" We know this group belongs to one of the highest income groups in the country and pays an extraordinary amount of taxes.
We talk about equality and I do not think members of the third party understand the reality of people's lives because they come from a privileged majority. We sit here and listen to them espousing very warm, fuzzy and logical arguments, sot to speak, based on airy-fairy ideas. They do not understand. They seek to represent true Canadians and I do not think they even understand the reality of the lives of ordinary Canadians.
The statements repeatedly made in the House by the members of the third party tell me they represent only a particular group in the country. They do not know what it is like to be a person of colour. If they did they would never talk about some of the things they do. They do not know what it feels like to be disabled. If they did, they would talk about special measures to be taken to ensure that disabled people are able to take their places in the workforce. They would support the kinds of changes which would give people the ability to seek equality opportunity from a level playing field. That is what the amendment is about.
The amendment speaks to the fact that 71 per cent of Canadians have supported the bill in poll after poll and survey after survey. Canadians are fundamentally and basically people who espouse freedom, justice, equality and who talk about respect, not just tolerance. Tolerance means to put up with people. Respect means we know that person belongs and that they have something to share, something which will enrich the lives of Canadians. This country is based on respect. We are the role model to the world.
The third party talks about discrimination. Name any country that within the last part of this century has understood discrimination better than South Africa? Yet as soon as it got rid of apartheid and formed its first democratic government, one of the first things it did was put into its constitution lists of all those people who had been held back and who have a long way to go to achieve equality. In that list the South African Parliament put sexual orientation.
There was not a debate. The reason there was not a debate was that people who have been downtrodden, people who have been seeking equality understand the reality and do not seek to keep anyone from that basic fundamental freedom we talk about when we speak of equality in this country.
Equality and justice are based on the fact that the greatest of us in society will always seek to lend a hand to raise the smallest and the least of us. This is what we are talking about. This is what this party stands for. This is what this government stands for. This is what the third party opposite does not even begin to understand.
I am proud to stand here and I am proud to support this bill. Every Canadian looking on today, the 71 per cent of Canadians who continue to believe in the things that hold us together, the common values that hold us together as Canadians, will be applauding in their homes today when they see us speaking to this bill because they believe in it.
It is no coincidence that we have been seen as a role model to the world. It is no coincidence that when Boutros Boutros-Ghali met the Prime Minister at the 50th anniversary of the United Nations he said: "Your country is the greatest country in the world because you have learned how as a diverse people to live together, respecting differences, sharing equally, seeking constantly to bring equality to the world. It is you who will lead us into the 21st century". This piece of legislation is beginning to do exactly that.