Mr. Speaker, they can duke it out over there if they want to. It is kind of fun.
The member from Burnaby put his finger on it. The problem existed in the country that there were many heterosexual people who were living in relationships that were not protected by the law. They were not married and the courts and we as legislators both in the provinces and the federal government said this was not fair. Women were being discriminated against. We assimilated a common law relationship to that of a matrimonial relationship.
I am a married person in the province of Ontario. The whole of the Family Law Reform Act was introduced after my wife and I had been married for 20 years. It completely changed the nature of family law as it applied to us as couples, our children and everything else. That is what we did in our society. All this is doing is moving couples of the same sex into the exact same category.
What they want to do is turn back the clock. They want to say that we cannot have any common law relationship because they are not registered. They have the same problem that the member raises.
If it is not a problem for common law relations, it cannot be a problem for the bill. If it is a problem for the bill then it is a problem for common law relationships. I suggest that the member and his party go to the Canadian public and say that they intend to turn back the clock 25 years and get rid of all forms of common law relationships.