Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate the member has insisted on the term clarity in the House at this time. It perhaps might evoke reaction from other parties of the House that have trouble with that concept, but I will leave that aside.
The member is obscuring something here. This is not that complicated. The member knows, as does everyone who knows anything about the way in which society has evolved recently, that at one time the only way in which one got benefits under pensions or many other statutes was if one were married. We moved away from that concept to one where we recognized common law relationships. This was in the law of the provinces. It was recognized that men and women could live together in a relationship that was not blessed by holy matrimony.
All the bill does is assimilate relationships between people who are living together in similar circumstances to that of a heterosexual common law relationship and same sex couples who are living in the same relationship. That is all it does.
The whole business of sex police and everything is some sort of myth. Are there sex police going around now knocking on the doors of heterosexual couples and asking “Are you really sleeping together? You made a declaration that you are common law”.