Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
The matter we are debating today goes to the court ruling where four words were read into the decision in the Ontario Court of Appeal and that is redefining the term spouse. That is what we are debating. We are debating the courts' and the judiciary's acts of doing that in their decisions, where they read into a decision something that is not there and something that is not in the context of that particular decision. That is what we are talking about today. That is the point.
We are talking about the judiciary, their role and what has happened in this case. It is quite clear as with many other cases that the Ontario Court of Appeal in this case has gone ahead and read something into law that was not previously there. It has set a precedent. We all know in this place and we are being very naive if we do not admit that decisions made and rendered by justices have an impact on further decisions down the road.
What we are looking at here is a view to the future. In this decision and others like it in all different areas of legislation, if we in this place say that it is fine for the courts to go ahead and to redefine what elected parliamentarians in this place were sent to do, then what is the reason for us to be here?
The reason for us to be here is to debate issues like this one and many other important issues. These debates should take place on the floor of the House of Commons so that we who have been elected by our constituents to represent their views are able to argue strongly in many ways the points we believe reflect the will of our constituents.
If the government abrogates its responsibility and allows the courts to go ahead and redefine law, then it is not showing leadership. The point of the motion today is that we need in this place to have open debates about very important topics. If we fail to do that, then we miss the point of why we are here.
We must openly debate issues of great importance without any fear of being labelled as others have done in the House today. We must openly and honestly debate these issues and bring them to the forefront.