Debates of May 13th, 1999

Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those in favour will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Division No. 425

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I declare the motion carried.

The House resumed from May 11 consideration of Bill C-78, an act to establish the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, to amend the Public Service Superannuation Act, the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, the Defence Services Pension Continuation Act, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pension Continuation Act, the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act and the Canada Post Corporation Act and to make a consequential amendment to another act, as reported (with amendments) from the committee; and of Group No. 2.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Before we get into debate I would like to read this into the record.

I wish to advise the House that an error has been found in the research underlying the ruling on the report stage amendments proposed for Bill C-78.

As usual, when we considered the report stage amendments being proposed, we relied on the printed copy of the bill to provide the context for that study. In this particular case the first reading copy of Bill C-78 dated April 15, 1999 mistakenly omits the royal recommendation which accompanies the bill. Yesterday we noticed a discrepancy between the printed Bill C-78 and its listing on the Order Paper that correctly shows the bill accompanied by a royal recommendation.

Since the record shows that a royal recommendation is attached to the bill and this is invariably a key factor in considering the admissibility of amendments, I asked that my original ruling be reviewed.

Citation 596 found on page 183 of Beauchesne's sixth edition states that the royal recommendation lays down:

—once for all...not only the amount of the charge, but also its objects, purposes, conditions and qualifications.

Citation 698 found on page 207 of the same work states:

An amendment is out of order...if it extends the objects and purposes...in the Royal Recommendation.

Thus, because of well established precedents I have concluded that Motions Nos. 24, 25, 27 and 29 standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough Southwest and seconded by the hon. member for Calgary Centre are not in order and will be dropped from the order paper.

I regret this confusion and I wish to apologize to the House and particularly to the hon. members for Scarborough Southwest and Calgary Centre for this unfortunate situation.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I find it rather distressing that you would seek to rule out of order several motions that have been made to amend this bill because it did not carry the royal recommendation at the very beginning. Yet you have allowed the bill to stand because the royal recommendation has been added at a later date.

Mr. Speaker, you mentioned that when the bill was first tabled it did not carry a royal recommendation but that was added at a subsequent point after these amendments were tabled, by the way I understand your ruling. Therefore, I think—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

If I may interrupt, no, that is definitely not the case. I hope that was not the impression made when I read the ruling.

The royal recommendation was in place. It was our error in not picking that up later that allowed the amendments to stand. The amendments should not have been accepted because the royal recommendation was attached to the bill from the very beginning. The error rests with the Speaker.

We will now proceed to debate.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I stand here to finish my speech which I started the other day.

Of course, now the heat has been really turned up. What is happening is absolutely shameful. The government is ramming through legislation which does not bear the support of members of the public. It does not bear the support of the members most affected by this. The government is just shamefully using time allocation so that there will be no time for people to even talk about it.

Sure, we can talk about it here, but those blinking Liberals over there—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Yes, blinking. I just called them blinking Liberals, that is all I said. There is nothing bad about that. It is as bad as I can get under the rules of the House.

We have all of those members standing up on command today, except for one, saying, “I do not want to disobey my party orders. I'll just vote for it”.

I have come to the conclusion that these members do that because their own pensions depend on this. Let us stop and think about this. If a member wants to be eligible for that gold-plated MP pension plan, which past Conservative, Liberal, NDP and Bloc parties set up, voted for and accepted, the member must serve for six years. If members disobey party orders in their first term, the Prime Minister, in exercising discipline, could simply say that he will not sign their nomination forms. This basically means that they would not get re-elected. They could also put their own MP pension plan at risk if they disobey the party orders. Consequently, because we have a majority government, we have absolutely no way of stopping legislation which is clearly bad.

In this particular bill we have motions brought forward in part of the MP pension plan and other plans that say that the government will just simply take the money back.

I know why the Liberals want time allocation. I know why they want to jam this through by the end of the week. I know why they do not want anyone to talk about it too much. It is because of all the seniors who are affected, all the civil servants who are affected and all the taxpayers who are affected by this. None of them will have an opportunity to actually organize and get their opposition to the bill heard here before it is a fait accompli. That is absolutely shameful.

I am not surprised that the Liberals are doing it. I remember a bank robbery in Edmonton not long ago. They had a getaway car because when people take money that does not belong to them, they do not want to hang around too long. Obviously these guys want to grab the money and run, otherwise someone might catch on to it. It is absolutely ridiculous what the Liberals are doing. If I were a Liberal I would be hanging my head in shame at this stage.

We are debating the motions in Group No. 2. A lot of people do not realize that the motions in Group No. 2 are meant to sustain the current definition of family and marriage as it has long been held through centuries.

The Liberal government has presented a bill which takes away $30 billion from the people to whom it belongs and is also sneaking a revision into the bill of the definition of spouse. Instead of calling it a surviving spouse, the government has subtly changed it to survivor. The survivor of course is whoever one chooses, but the bill attempts to jam through that partners in a conjugal relationship can also be survivors.

How the dickens are the Liberals going to find out who is in a conjugal relationship? I will give members an example. It just so happens that my son, when he was at university for three years, shared housing costs with another young lad. They cared for each other and shared expenses, but I absolutely and positively assure members that there was no conjugal relationship.

What if one of them had died during the time when they were sharing this apartment? There could have been a benefit involved, but not in this particular case because this involves pensions. However, now that I think about it, I guess my son did have some credits under the Canada pension which this could apply to. He could say that they were in a conjugal relationship. How would anyone be able to prove otherwise? Will the Liberals stand on command next week if a motion is put to the House to install video cameras in everyone's bedroom so we can see if they are conjugating. This is so ridiculous and offensive. Furthermore, it is in opposition to what almost every MP in the House voted against.

In the six years since we have been here we have had a number of occasions when these exact questions on same sex benefits have been asked. I remember way back when one of the Bloc members had such a motion, 10 Liberals stood in favour of it while everyone else was either against it or absent. Only 10 Liberals voted for it. Why are they now for it? It is because their pension plan depends on them voting for this one. They are told how to vote and they simply comply.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Elk Island was getting quite vociferous, and rightly so. He was trying to point out that the government, through Bill C-78, is overturning all the norms of society. It is allowing through the back door changes affecting same sex marriages and so on. It is becoming a term that is used in society every day.

When I arrived at my desk this morning I had a government response to a petition that I tabled in the House some time ago regarding marriage and so on. Let me read the government's response. It states:

The term “marriage” in Canada is clear in law and is defined as “the union of one man and one women to the exclusion of all others”. There is no need to either enact this definition in legislation or to amend any existing legislation. The definition of marriage in federal law is not in a statute passed by Parliament, but is found in what is called the federal common law dating from 1866 British case of Hyde and Hyde v. Woodmansee , L.R. l P. & D. 130. This case has been applied consistently in Canada and states that no marriage can exist between two persons of the same sex, and is void ab initio , similar to “marriages” made within prohibited degrees of consanguinity.

This government remains committed to supporting Canadian families and there are no plans to legislate a change to the definition of the term “marriage”. The definition of marriage is clear in law in Canada and has been successfully defended before the courts as the union of two persons of the opposite sex.

The government says it is committed to maintaining marriage as it is seen in the eyes of the Canadian people, but through the back door it is ignoring marriage and is now into conjugal relationships and cohabitation. What this long sentence means is that any kind of sexual relationship, perverted or otherwise, is now deemed to be the norm and will therefore qualify for survivor benefits under this pension.

I would have thought that the government, which is here to represent the Canadian people and uphold the laws of the land and which tells us that marriage as defined is the law of the land as accepted by all Canadians, is allowing that venerable, holy institution of marriage to be watered down, defiled, changed and become anything whatsoever. That is a serious affront to many Canadians across the land and to the sanctity of their marriage. As it states here, a marriage is the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. However, in the eyes of the government that no longer matters.

We have a serious problem with single parent families in the country. A large percentage of them are poor and rely on some form of government assistance. Research is now telling us that children brought up in a single parent family may not develop as well emotionally as children growing up in a two parent family. We are now being pressured by same sex couples to adopt children. We now have same sex couples demanding the right of marriage. We see the definition here saying that they want the same rights as everybody else.

We have to recognize that people of the same sex form associations and live together as couples, but let us not call it marriage by any stretch of the imagination. The government is failing Canadian society when it allows the encroachment of the idea that any kind of relationship can be called marriage.

We are talking about survivor benefits under pension plans for the civil service. When an employee, who was living with someone or was married, died in his or her old age what would happen to the person's survivor? Our society said that the survivor should be cared for. However, we are now questioning the definition of a survivor. Anybody who has any kind of a relationship with the retired employee seems to be now called a survivor provided there is some kind of conjugal relationship going on.

As the member for Elk Island pointed out, will we be installing video cameras in every bedroom? Are we going to have sex police around to check on whether there is some kind of conjugal relationship going on or not. I do not know. The government has never said and I do not think it intends to say.

When we had the lawyer from the Department of Justice and Treasury Board before committee last week—the bill is being rushed through by the way—I asked about the common law conjugal relationship.

I know this is a sensitive and delicate issue that one does not normally talk about in public, but we do have to get the facts on the table. If two people are living common law and that common law relationship ceases to exist before one of the persons dies then there will be no survivorship entitlement.

I put forth the scenario of a retiree whose health is gone. One person is living in a nursing home and the other person is living at home. They are not cohabiting and they may not cohabit for several years because the health of the retiree is completely gone. One has to assume there is also no conjugal relationship. Therefore, under the law, as proposed by the government, the survivor would not qualify, even if the couple had been living together for 40 years.

I posed that point to the lawyers. They told me that the courts would probably be lenient and recognize it. Again the House is deferring to the courts to write the laws that we know, as we stand and debate the bill, are flawed and deficient. Under the above circumstance, that couple would have no protection at all. The government knows it, we know it and the lawyers know it.

The government does not know how to deal with the issue because it is kind of technical and complex. At the same time, it wants to extend survivor benefits to virtually every kind of relationship we can think of. It wants the courts to figure it out. We complained in the House about the courts dictating to parliament and about abdicating our responsibility to write legislation that is clear, definitive and which makes it obvious what is meant. I think the bill is absolutely terrible.

We will be debating other issues in a few minutes when we move on to the financial side of the bill. However I wanted to put on the record that the government says it is clearly committed to upholding marriage. By its omission and commission it is circumventing the whole institution of marriage. It is not upholding it. It is allowing it to be overwhelmed by people who do not understand the sanctity of marriage. Therefore, we have a problem in the land, led by a government which does not stand up for principles any more.

Our great society was built by people who came here for freedom and opportunity. They have prospered and lived together in the sanctity of marriage. They have raised families. They did a wonderful job of building the country from nothing. Because the government has no desire to uphold the principles people have been living by for generation after generation, we are seeing the erosion of our standards. We see that through its back door attempts at eliminating and undermining the sanctity of marriage. That is why we are opposed to it.

I am very disappointed in your ruling a few minutes ago, Mr. Speaker, on the disallowance of the motions. I understand the point you are coming from; it is just rather unfortunate that the wrong bill was used. In closing, I hope the government would withdraw the bill and rethink the whole issue.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, in the next few moments I will express my concern as well with this group of amendments.

The government is bringing in through the back door what it does not have the courage to do openly. It is becoming more and more obvious as we look at this group of amendments that there is a real problem. I have a hard time understanding how the Liberals can sit in their seats and calmly observe and accept the whole process that is taking place because of its serious implications. They are faced with the questions we are asking, which I will summarize in a few moments.

I would like to defend the definitions of marriage, spouse and the traditional family. Unfortunately the Liberal government says one thing and does the opposite. I have listened to what government members have said. They have used the excuse that the courts made them do it.

Who makes the laws in the country? Is it not supposed to be parliament? If it is not the people through their elected representatives making the laws in the country, we have a problem and we had better change the system.

The Liberals say that they are defending the family, except when they will not fight court cases that undermine it. That is at the root of this problem. The Liberals say that they are all for strengthening the family, except when they bring in laws to redefine it. I say that facetiously because they say one thing and do another.

Bill C-78 is yet another example of the Liberal government redefining marriage and spouse in federal legislation, thereby undermining the definition of the family which has served society so well for thousands of years.

Bill C-78 would not only extend survivor benefits to married couples, as it should be, but survivor has been redefined to include couples who cohabited in a relationship of a conjugal nature for at least a year before the death of the pension plan contributor. I found the word conjugal 19 different times in Bill C-78.

According to the government it does not matter whether one is a husband or a wife of a pensioner. If one is having sex with a government employee over a period of a year and that person dies, one is entitled to his or her pension benefits. That is what the legislation clearly says. That is what we will be approving in the House when we vote this evening on these amendments.

The Liberals are promoting a system whereby government benefits will be allotted on one's sexual relationships, and not on whether or not one is married. Is not ironic that the party of Pierre Trudeau who said that the government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation, is now willing to extend benefits because of what happens in the bedroom? What has happened in the last 20 or 30 years?

The Reform Party believes in the institution of marriage and would vigorously defend it in Canadian law. Reform policy defines marriage as:

—the union of a man and a woman as recognized by the state, and this definition will be used in the provision of spousal benefits for any program funded and administered by the federal government.

That is what we stand for and that is what we believe in. Opening up public benefits to conjugal relationship will create a nightmare. I want to conclude with four questions which must be answered by the government before it passes the legislation.

First, how will the government determine if a relationship is conjugal in nature? My colleagues have asked questions about whether it will put a camera in the bedroom.

Second, how will a survivor prove that his or her relationship with the dead pensioner was indeed of a conjugal nature? How will the survivor prove that when it comes to a court case or to claiming the benefits? What will the survivor do? Will our government now go into the bedrooms of the nation to determine whether or not there has been a conjugal relationship?

Third, why has the government shifted from a clearly defined test of legal marriage to a relationship that is open to anyone's definition and therefore abuse? We now have a clearly defined definition of marriage. Now it will do away with that and go to anyone's definition of it. This will open the door to tremendous abuse.

Fourth, and maybe the Liberals never even thought of it, how many survivors will there be? The spouse and one, two, three or more lovers who claim to have had a conjugal relationship with the pensioner? How many people will start claiming after the death of someone that they have had a relationship of a sexual nature with that person?

It will be a dream world for lawyers. I can just see the court cases coming forth as all these people claim that they slept with a person for a year. Another person will say “so did I”, and so on. It is absolutely ridiculous what the legislation does and what it creates. Before we go any further I call upon the government to answer those four questions.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The question is on Motion No. 15. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.