Mr. Speaker, in this brief time we have had an opportunity to see the beginnings of the kind of debate we should be having in the House.
We heard some good speeches. We heard some speeches with different points of view. This should not be the end. This should be the beginning. Unfortunately it will be the end because when I am finished speaking this bill is dead for all intents and purposes.
Some speakers missed some of the points. For example, the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas said that no one is shirking the debate. No one in here is shirking the debate because we are all here debating. However one of the stated reasons of the justice department for opposing the bill is that it risks opening further debate, particularly if referred to committee. The Department of Justice is shirking the debate, not members of parliament in the House of Commons.
Some speakers want to redefine marriage. I remind members that the position of the federal government, the position of the Government of Canada, the position of the minister, is that the law I quoted at the beginning is the law of Canada. The Department of Justice will continue to defend that law.
I am trying to put that in statutory form so that the judges of the country can see that the people of the country, as represented by their members of parliament, have spoken and give them guidance on the position of the government. Marriage is the voluntary union between one man and one woman who are not otherwise married. In fact that is what the majority of people believe a marriage should be. We are not talking about benefits. We are not talking about pensions. We are talking about the concept of marriage.
The member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve says that we cannot take a moral viewpoint in legislation. I could not disagree more. Everything we do in this place has a moral foundation to it, depending on how we were raised and how we look at things.
He talks about my taking a legalistic point of view. What do we do in this place? We pass laws. We control or try to control the lives of people based on the laws we pass in this place. Each and every one of us brings a set of moral guidelines which they consciously or subconsciously apply to every piece of legislation, whether it is gun control, tobacco restriction, tobacco advertising restriction, control of gangs and gang related activity, or the Criminal Code of Canada in which every sentence has a moral aspect. It is a complete code of what one must or must not do.
The member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve also said that the celebration of marriage was a provincial matter. That is completely incorrect in law. We have a federal Divorce Act. The reason for that is that marriage, the capacity to marry, is dealt with federally. It is up to the federal government to decide who can or cannot marry.
My friend asked whether two people could live together freely. Of course they can. Many people live together: brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, lesbian and gay couples, but that does not make them entitled to marry as we have known it.
If we want to allow other types of relationships we will have to open it up to all kinds of relationships, and that is not a debate to take place in a courtroom. That is a debate to take place here because it is up to society to decide what relationships will be recognized as a marriage. It is not up to the courts.
The hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough went on and on about would this bill put a chicken in every pot, would this bill get a car in every garage. Of course it would not. All this bill is trying to do is enshrine in statute that which is currently the government's position, which is that there is no capacity to marry unless there is a male and a female.
In conclusion, as this is Private Members' Business this matter dies in about 10 seconds. I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to deem this bill votable so that we could debate the bill for another two hours and then have a vote.