Mr. Speaker, I add my applause for the member who just made a well reasoned argument regarding Bill C-78. He pointed out some very significant shortcomings in this piece of legislation.
I would like to build on some of the points he made this morning. For those listening and those in the House, let us be clear on what we will be voting on later today. The bill talks about changes to who will manage and oversee the pension funds for federal government employees, what will happen to surpluses that may accrue to the fund, and who will be eligible for benefits.
Through Bill C-78 the government will appoint a board which will be removed from the auditor general's oversight and no longer subject to access to information legislation. Bill C-78 will allow the federal government access to any surpluses in the pension plan provided the federal government, that is the taxpayer, commits to making up the shortfall in the pension plan in the future.
In brief, Bill C-78 proposes to remove the funds from public accountability and let the federal government spend the surplus today with the taxpayer guaranteeing to make up future shortfalls in the fund. These are not false accusations. It is the truth. Every Liberal will probably dutifully do as they are told and vote for it. Constituents will not know the reasons and will not understand all the nuances.
I want to address another aspect of the bill before us which deals with expanding the benefits. It is on this aspect that I will direct the remainder of my time for it is here the government has grossly misrepresented its intent.
When a contributor to a pension plan dies the benefits go to his or her surviving husband or wife. The bill proposes to maintain this provision, which is good, but it will extend the benefits beyond this point in a new way. The government has said its intent is to extend the benefits to same sex relationships as well. This is not what it has done.
There are many types of same gender relationships: siblings, friends, roommates, partners, et cetera, but the only relationship the government wants to include is when two people of the same gender are involved in private sexual activity or what is more commonly known as homosexuality. No sex, no benefits, even if everything else is the same.
More important, Bill C-78 benefits will be extended to any person who has had, as the bill says, “a relationship of a conjugal nature with a contributor” regardless of sex, male or female, two males or two females. The bill refers to the phrase “a relationship of a conjugal nature”.
According to Black's Law Dictionary conjugal means sexual activity. That is how every major Canadian dictionary defines it, but the bill does not define it in any way. It has added a new legal expression, a relationship of a conjugal nature with absolutely no definition of what it means. We are left with assuming it means what the Canadians dictionaries mean.
The government seems determined to make private sexual activity between anyone the primary condition for benefits. This is the focus of the substantive section of the bill.
To further illustrate the point, it was interesting to note that during the debates on the bill the Liberal member for Scarborough Southwest realized that the changes to the bill were specifically designed to extend benefits based on the sexual activity between two men or two women. The bill also excludes those without sexual activity but who may still be dependent on each other. He proposed an alternative. The amendment was intended to leave sexual activity out of the benefits equation altogether. Benefits, according to his amendment, would be extended based on dependency relationships and sexual activity would not be a criteria for benefits.
The member's government ruled his amendment out of order and struck it down, effectively insisting that the expanded benefits had to be based on homosexual activity in order to qualify. This is not a same sex benefit bill; it is a sexual activity bill. The new part of the bill extends benefits only when there is sexual activity between two people of the same sex.
I have in my riding an elderly gentleman who has a friend who was down on his luck, a senior who was living on a very meagre pension. The wealthier person took in his friend. They have been sharing accommodation for years. They basically share everything in that household. They have a very deep friendship, but it has never even crossed their minds to have any kind of physical intimacy in a sexual way.
The bill totally excludes that kind of relationship. The only way for the survivor benefit to be extended to the person who otherwise might be dependent on the public purse is for them to enter into some sort of physical intimacy which they do not want to entertain.
The amendment by the member for Scarborough Southwest would have taken sex out of it and based it on dependency, he said. The Liberal government said no. It ruled effectively that private sexual activity between people of the same gender is now the requirement for new benefits within Bill C-78. This is from the same government that said it would not do so.
I will reference some comments made by various cabinet ministers in the government across the way over the past few years. I will start with one from the current justice minister.
On April 24, 1998 in a letter to a constituent she said that she continued to believe it was not necessary to change well understood concepts of spouse and marriage to deal with any fairness consideration the courts and tribunals may find. Yet they have proposed legislation that has removed every reference to spouse, wife, widow, and has gone to new terminology.
The current health minister when he was the justice minister spoke in the House. He said that notwithstanding sexual orientation was a ground within section 15 of the charter on which discrimination was prohibited the benefits did not automatically follow. That was the law.
On January 21, 1999 the Prime Minister said in an editorial in the Lethbridge Herald that it was not on the agenda of the government at the time when he was asked about spousal benefits to same sex couples.
When asked about extending these benefits the member for Scarborough—Rouge River was not convinced that there was either broad based political support or legal justification for major changes in the current paradigm.
They say one thing and yet we are faced with legislation today which seems to contradict exactly what they told the public and what they stated in response to questions on this topic. This is the same government which is now bestowing benefits based on sexual activity between two people of the same gender.
I am attempting not to purposely overstate this and not to be sensational. I am reporting simply on the effects of the change in Bill C-78. If Canadians do not believe me they can contact me and discuss it with me. What I am saying is clear in the legislation and in the actions of the government.
My colleagues in the Liberal government will probably vote later tonight in favour of sexual activity benefits and not same sex benefits. Is this how we serve our constituents? Does this serve the best interest of those who have put us here?
Beyond the invasion of privacy concerns, I have some personal concerns about how the bill violates those who are sent here to serve. Some may not like what I have to say but I think it is the truth. If we cannot state the truth in the House, I do not know where we can do so anywhere in the country.
It is well documented that physical sexual intimacies between persons of the same gender result in much higher rates of serious illness, particularly when two males are involved. Statistics show that people involved in this kind of activity have a life span just slightly over half a normal life span. From a study out of the United States it has been shown that suicide rates are 25 times higher than the norm.
If we really care about people, why are we requiring people in the same gender relationships to be engaged in sexual activities to qualify for benefits? Why are we making benefits contingent upon behaviours that generally speaking have been shown to work against the personal health and best interest of those involved?
I questioned the treasury board minister in committee. He responded that the courts made him do it and lawyers wrote it this way. Does the government serves the people by letting the courts set policy and lawyers draft the legislation? In the whole process people are left out. Is that what members opposite will vote for tonight?
We live in busy times. The bill will be voted on tonight under the cover of the war in Kosovo, Y2K, tax issues and bank mergers. An ever increasing number of issues overwhelm the daily lives of those who are trying to pay the bills, raise the kids and get some R&R. They will not notice all this.
The vote today will very likely go unnoticed. The significance of Bill C-78 will be lost in the flurry of activity of life in the information overload age. The bill will likely go unnoticed by those who put us here to serve them.
I remind members opposite and all other members in the House of something I saw in the Speaker's chambers. I know that every word spoken in the House is recorded and bound in volumes which are kept there. Everything we say and every vote are recorded. In a sense it is our accountability. In a sense we might say it is the legacy we leave to families or those who follow who may want to reference what we said and where we stood on issues.
I ask members to consider their votes tonight on Bill C-78. Surely we can do better than Bill C-78. The bill needs to be sent back for a redraft which puts the needs of all people first and includes respect for the personal privacies of people and their tax dollars.
If the government is intent on drafting legislation to allow benefits to flow to relationships between two people of the same gender, to make benefits contingent upon their having some sort of sexual relationship, it is in my view inappropriate. Is it not more reasonable to focus on demonstrated interdependencies and the social contribution of the relationship when considering benefits rather than the private physical intimacies of the persons being considered? I encourage all members of the House to send Bill C-78 back for an improved redraft.
In summary, the bill has three key strikes against it. First, it removes the management of public pension plans from public accountability with an appointed pension board, no auditor general review and no access to information. Second, it allows the federal government to access any surpluses in the fund with the guarantee that taxpayers will make up the difference if there is a shortfall in the future. Third, it extends survivor benefits outside marriage dependent on private sexuality regardless of gender.
Three strikes. Three strikes and we should send this bill out. Let us send it out and call on the government to bring forward an improved version, an improved version that makes some sense and actually serves the people who worked so hard to put us here.