It is unbelievable and it is unacceptable. This is not democracy. This is a minister who has a very narrow agenda. He is imposing his will not only on the Canadian people, but on his colleagues as well. I am sure most of them did not want to see the legislation come before the House and certainly do not want to support it. However, this is the way democracy works in Canada today.
It calls into question the parliamentary process and underlines the need for the changes that the Reform Party of Canada has proposed. But I will not get into that right now. I will stay on the subject.
The justice minister has admitted in his public statements that Bill C-33 will lead to special status. I do not have his quote in front of be, so I will paraphrase: "Obviously, when you recognize the sexual orientation aspect of this bill it must lead to same sex benefits and the recognition of marital status". It cannot help but do that.
The justice minister knows it full well because he said it. He is the representative of the Canadian public on justice matters. He cannot stand now and tell the Canadian people that that is not what the bill is all about. I know we are not allowed to use certain words in the House, and it is unfortunate because sometimes those words are needed to describe the actions of some members.
I have received in my office about 180 calls and faxes from constituents. They have said very clearly and overwhelmingly: "Do not support this legislation. Vote against it". On the other side I got one phone call in the last two weeks saying: "I want you to support this legislation". All the rest have said no. We are receiving petitions daily.
The government is trying to ram and stuff this legislation through the House so quickly that members cannot get petitions through the clerk of petitions fast enough to get them into the House before the legislation becomes law. How can this be called a
democracy when people do not even get a chance to express their opinions by petitioning the government and have the petitions duly noted and recorded before the legislation becomes reality?
What is going on with this legislation? It does not stand the light of day. It is what gives Parliament a bad name. It is what the Liberals ranted and railed about when they were in opposition and the Conservatives invoked closure and time allocation time after time. Now, when they are the government they are doing exactly the same thing. Obviously, they were crying crocodile tears back then. They have no real commitment to democracy. They have no real commitment to opening up the House and allowing proper debate to take place. They have no real inclination to move with the Canadian people on these issues. They want to impose their vision on the Canadian people.
There is a gulf between the vision of this government and its cabinet and the vision of the Canadian people. A gulf is widening in many ways. This is another example. It is undermining the faith of ordinary Canadians in their government and in the system.
I submit that as long as we continue down this road that gulf will widen even more and the Canadian people will become more disillusioned. I also submit, as I have said many times in the House, this government by these actions, by this arrogant, top down social engineering attitude is going to destroy itself. It has to face the voters in the next election. It will have to explain to ordinary Canadians why it invoked time allocation and closure and why it rammed this legislation through the House of Commons, why it ignored the wishes of ordinary Canadians right across Canada. It will pay the price.
In the meantime, it is certainly a sad day for our nation that the government is moving with as much speed as I have ever seen on any piece of legislation to ram this through and make it a done deal before Canadians even realize what is going on.
I conclude by saying what I said to the reporter. Politics in Canada in 1996 is a dirty, rotten, slimy business.