Madam Speaker, the pressure was coming from the courts. Parliament simply had to act. I do not know about the members on the opposite side, but many of us on this side were getting very, very panicky because the supreme court and other levels of courts were more and more interfering or directing the definition of spouse, and not so much the definition of marriage. They were more and more inclining toward defining spouse as a same sex relationship.
What this bill does is that it cuts supreme court off at the pass. It stops the courts from defining a spouse or marriage in a way that the vast majority of Canadians would find unacceptable. However it is true that the bill does not go far enough. The reason it does not fully explore the idea of dependent partnerships—and I have to take the minister at her word—is that she feels there are implications to dependent partnerships that may have adverse consequences.
On the one hand we solve a problem that is current, which is what we should doing. We should fix the problem that is current, but as far as I am concerned this is only a interim fix. The real answer will be when we can extend this kind of thing to all dependent relationships and take sex out of it.