Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's premise with respect to the analysis of M. v H. is completely false. M. v H. did not deal with marriage. M. v H. dealt with section 29 of the family law legislation of the province of Ontario, and it dealt with that legislation in section 29. Section 1 concerns the definition of marriage. Section 29 concerns spousal rights; that is, what we would consider to be common law spousal rights. The court analogized that common law heterosexual spousal rights are equivalent to common law homosexual spousal rights, and that is where it left it.
As to the issue that is on the floor, it has nothing to do with marriage, as M. v H. had nothing to do with marriage. In fact, the courts in Egan, Rosenberg and M. v H. all said the same thing. They were not dealing with marriage; they were dealing with rights and benefits that may accrue by virtue of a relationship.
The next step is to de-conjugalize the issue. If we do that we have taken the steam right out of the debate.