Mr. Speaker, as usual I am pleased to debate the bills before us in this House.
Bill C-33 is another bill that has raised some serious debate across the country and rightly so. I will raise three issues on which I believe hon. members on the other side have not given any real serious consideration.
First, this bill deals with the workplace. It deals with the working environment of government, crown corporations and industries that are federally regulated. We already have a law on the books which deals with sex in the workplace called sexual harassment.
Sexual harassment is completely outlawed in the workplace and rightly so. Anyone who feels they are going to impose some kind of sexual overtones needs to be punished. We will not tolerate that in the workplace. Sexual harassment has been defined to be more than physical assault. It considers such things as discussion of sexual innuendo, sexual prowess, sexual adventure, anything sexual in the workplace that offends someone else. That is the way it should be.
Therefore, to provide sexual orientation in the workplace is in direct contravention to the law that already exists which says that sexual harassment is not allowed. Now we are going to say that sexual orientation is allowed, and sexual harassment is not allowed.
I do not know why the government thinks that sexual orientation in the workplace, however that manifests itself-and I am not sure how-is acceptable. People can walk down any street and I am sure they will pass people of a different sexual orientation and never know what they are. Somehow or other we are going to say it is perfectly acceptable to demonstrate sexual orientation in the workplace, yet sexual harassment is absolutely and totally illegal. This is a total contradiction of the facts which this government has not considered as it pushes the bill through against the wishes of many Canadians.
Second, there are many Canadians who find the term sexual orientation to be code words for homosexuality and lesbianism. Some people find these acts repulsive and repugnant and are opposed to legal sanction being granted to them by this House. The Reform Party has a responsibility to represent that opposing point of view. There are some people who feel these types of issues should not be entrenched in legislation.
It is important to give expression to those who are opposed to the point of view that is being put forth by the government. It is important to recognize that these people hold these views quite legitimately. They are entitled to their opinions. They are entitled to see their opinions expressed. These opinions are being expressed freely by the Reform Party. I hope they are expressed by more than just a few of the people on the other side who have to summon the courage to stand up against their colleagues in the Liberal Party and give free expression to the large number of people in their ridings whom they represent that they do not agree with this bill.
Third, this bill has been in the public domain of debate for the last two or three weeks. Something else has been around for the last two or three thousand years, the moral code we call the Judeo-Christian principles. We could say they have withstood the test of time. These are principles such as thou shalt not kill, thou shalt respect thy father and thy mother, thou shalt not commit adultery, and so on.
When we look at those and what we have done in the last 25 years, we find that this House of Parliament has abandoned the principle of thou shalt not kill. It does not even express an opinion on abortion any more. We do not have a law in this country against abortion. In Canada 100,000 unborn children are being aborted every year. We have turned our backs on an expression which is 3,000 years old: Thou shalt not kill.
The hon. member for Burnaby espouses the principle that we should take away the principle of thou shalt not kill. Now we are focusing on the older generation. Euthanasia is almost upon us. That will be debated in this House at some point in the future. If we measure the old principle and moral code of thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother against the debate on euthanasia which is on the horizon, we have to ask ourselves what is going on.
I ask all members of the House to weigh a code which has been around for 3,000 years against the debate which has been going on for approximately three weeks. I would say to government members and my colleagues in the Bloc that if these principles have withstood the test of time for 3,000 years, and thousands of people have died for them and committed their lives to upholding them, surely there must be something in them that we should not lightly cast aside.
I sincerely hope that government members and Bloc members will give serious thought to that point. While they may think they are in command of all the facts and while they may think it is the right thing to do, let us remember that for 3,000 years we have had a code which says that what we are about to do is wrong, what we have recently done regarding abortion is wrong, and what we may do in the very near future regarding euthanasia is wrong.
We are dropping a moral code which we have had for 3,000 years into the trash can. We are saying that members of the House and the people on the street in Canada today are imbued with a sense of wisdom and knowledge which far exceeds the people who lived on this earth in the last 3,000 years. That is a note of caution.
I urge my colleagues to weigh the issue very carefully. In my humble opinion we will be wrong if we approve this bill.