Mr. Speaker, the member commented that if certain amendments had been adopted this legislation would have been acceptable to him.
I refer to one of the amendments he put forward, that the bill be amended to define family as meaning a heterosexual couple with their natural or adopted children.
As I pointed out to the member in a note, does that mean if I were a woman with four young children and my husband had the bad grace to die on me, I would not be considered a family under Canadian law? If I were living with my husband, having raised our children and maybe our mother was living with us, sharing our meals, bathing in the same bath tub, using the same washing machine, looking after each other, that we would not be a family?
According to his definition we would not be. I would like him to explain why that amendment to the legislation would have made sense to him. Is he aware the Canadian Human Rights Act is already being interpreted as if discrimination based on sexual orientation were in it?
Does he not think employers, providers of services, have the right to know they cannot discriminate? Right now they do not by reading the legislation.