Madam Speaker, for the member's benefit, what he heard this morning from our side of the House was not rhetoric. It was an unveiling of Reform's true intentions with this motion and a deserved reaction of anger, disappointment and hurt that the Reform Party would be attempting to promote discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and on the basis of pretending to make our judiciary more accountable and more democratic.
The judiciary, the supreme court and our court system interpret law and apply longstanding statutes. In this case we are dealing with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and with the Canadian Human Rights Act. Both of these are very clear regarding equality rights and both are very clear about not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
We have with the Rosenberg case a clear application of longstanding statutes that reflects the sentiment and feelings of Canadians right across the country.
Let me remind members of the Reform Party that judicial rulings are used to overturn or redefine the law when that law is judged to be unfair. There was a time when battered women were sent to hospitals with broken bones. They were raped repeatedly. Their children's lives and their lives were threatened and they were jailed for defending themselves.
There was a time when the police could not or would not help these women. If the women killed their abusive husbands in self-defence they were jailed for life. The courts expanded our views of self-defence to include battered women syndrome so that women who were beaten, abused and in fear for their lives were not further punished by the judicial system.