Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member who last spoke did concede that this is an issue which we should be discussing and that we are on solid ground.
Let us talk for a moment in this House about the Rosenberg decision and what we are trying to achieve in the House. Rosenberg was a decision by one of the highest and most respected courts in this country. It was about the interpretation of the charter, the fundamental document which governs us in our democratic society. It guarantees that this legislature and all legislatures across the country will conduct themselves in accordance with the principles which govern us as Canadian citizens and as legislatures.
I believe that that charter decision was right. I believe that it was right in what it was stating about us and our society. It was right about what it was trying to do in ensuring that people were not discriminated against because from a practical point of view it does not make sense in today's world, and I will come back to that point. It is right in principle and it is right about what it is doing in society. It is right about what it is doing in my riding of Toronto Centre—Rosedale and in all members' ridings in terms of people who are living in similar circumstances who are paying taxes, leading decent lives and who have a right to be treated the same as everybody else.
To go back to the issue of which is supreme, the courts or parliament, I made this point when I asked the member my question. In my view the charter is supreme. Parliament spoke. The people of this country approved of the charter. We as legislators and the legislatures of the various provinces approved of the charter precisely because the people were aware that one day people could stand up and make the allegations of the type that are being made in this House. The people were aware that they wanted a bulwark of courts and law to stand between them and the type of rhetoric we have been listening to this afternoon.
When it is said the charter is being misinterpreted by the court in the Rosenberg decision, where were those members when we adopted the changes to the human rights act? I was in the House that night. Seventy-five per cent of the members in the House voted in favour of changing the human rights act to provide against discrimination. They represented the will of the Canadian people. When the Rosenberg judges read what we were doing in this House and they made that decision, they were saying Canadians do not believe in discrimination and that they as the courts are not in the business of enforcing it. If you read that decision—