Madam Speaker, I rise to speak against this motion for two reasons. The first is that it offends the fundamental principles of democracy. Second, it is in fact a very discriminatory motion because it completely goes against all Canadian principles of equality.
I want to speak first to the issue of how it offends the principles of democracy. The balance in a democracy between an elected body like the House of Commons and the supreme court of the land or the courts of the land is to find a way in which justice can be served through the law and the interpretation of the law. That is especially true in our country right now.
We have to look at the charter, the Canadian Human Rights Act and all of the legislation that has come about which talks to the equality of persons and recognizes the fundamental distinction that people are not all the same. Equality is not about treating people the same. Equality is the fundamental bedrock on which Canadian society has been built. It is one of the common values which we all believe in as Canadians, regardless of where we live, where we come from or what colour we are.
It is really important to recognize in the Canadian Human Rights Act and in our charter that when we speak of equality we speak of equality as recognizing the diversity of people. That is what this motion is trying to undo.
If in this democracy parliament undermined the decisions of the supreme court of our country, decisions that are based on our Constitution and fundamental justice, then we would have removed democracy from Canada and replaced it with dictatorships.
It is in countries where the governments of the land and the parliaments of the land seek to override fundamental justice and the law that dictatorships occur. Is this what the hon. members, when they bring this motion forward, are trying to suggest?
Let us look to the past when governments have sought to muzzle the courts of their land. Let us look at the more recent example of South Africa where governments set about making laws that were fundamentally discriminatory to the people of that country. They gave rights only to certain people and took them away from others. These rights included: the right to walk down the street; the right to be out after dark in any of the cities of South Africa; the right to work; the right to education; and the right to interracial marriage. In South Africa the government of the day, through its parliament, decided that if there was an interracial marriage in South Africa it was not legal in the eyes of the law.
Is that what we are trying to do? Are we saying that governments are always right, that houses of parliament are always right and that they alone have the right to decide how our people will live and what is essential to fundamental justice and equality in our country? Is that what we are trying to do? Are we trying to undo democracy? Do we want Canada to become a dictatorship? That is exactly what the fundamental principle of this motion is about. It is about dictatorship. It is about what we call the tyranny of the majority.
The members of that party have always talked about how they represent the people. Do they represent only one type of people, or do they represent all Canadians, including gay Canadians, lesbian Canadians, black Canadians, Canadians of different religions, Canadians who live in isolated areas of this country, Canadians who cannot find work in the maritimes, and Canadians who are aboriginal? Are Reform members suggesting that they represent all of these people? Because members of the Reform Party have stood up in the House day after day and have slam dunked Canadians who do not belong to the group which they say they represent, the grassroots.
It offends me, Madam Speaker, to have to stand here to debate a motion that is so fundamentally retrogressive and so distasteful.
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I did not mean to call you Madam Speaker, but I did not notice that you had come into the Chamber.