Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on this bill at report stage. I regret the use of time allocation, closure and all of the usual heavy-handed, undemocratic tactics employed by the government, as this has been my first opportunity to attempt to articulate the overwhelming consensus of my constituents on this matter.
I believe it would be accurate to say that I have received more unsolicited constituent feedback on this issue than on any other issue in my time in this place. I find it very disturbing that the government has become so inured to using the hammer of the closure motion that members like myself have effectively been unable to substantially address this bill and our constituents' concerns.
The treatment of this bill by the government, the House leader and the cabinet reflects, more than perhaps anything else I have experienced in this place, the growing arrogance and abuse of parliamentary power by the government, which I honestly find disturbing.
I would like to say on behalf of my constituents that hundreds of working people have written to me, faxed me and e-mailed me, as their representative, opposing Bill C-23. Notwithstanding what members opposite say, these people are not bigots. They are not advocates of discrimination and intolerance. They are normal working Canadians. I know that members opposite have heard from like-minded constituents.
Perhaps the member for Parkdale—High Park regards as intolerant the members of her constituency who oppose the effective diminishment of the legal recognition of marriage. I do not. I think that her constituents and mine, who have serious heartfelt and conscientious objections to this legislation, are tolerant Canadians. They ought to be heard. If there is anyone intolerant, it is those who stand in this place to castigate Canadians who sincerely believe that there ought to be in law a preferential option given to marriage as the cradle of the family and the family as the cradle of human life.
I would like to register my serious dismay with the kind of inflammatory rhetoric employed by some members of the government and other opposition parties in characterizing as intolerant those Canadians who, in good conscience, object to this incredibly significant piece of legislation.
Why do Canadians raise those objections? They actually believe that the institution of marriage is central to any civilized and healthy society. I find it utterly remarkable that in the year 2000 members have to stand in parliament to articulate the reasons for which marriage ought to be given a preferential option in law. It truly is remarkable. It is a very basic natural fact that children are born and raised in the context of heterosexual relationships. Is that an intolerant statement? No, it is a statement of natural fact.
It may be that non-heterosexual couples would like to have that capacity, but nature has not so graced them. Every civilization throughout history has recognized that the procreative capacity, what the philosophers would call a radical capacity to procreate, is something that is of great importance and ought to be protected and promoted.
We can go back to the beginning of political philosophy and read Plato's musings about taking children from families, putting them in government run day care camps and trying to create the perfect human being. The effort to remove children from the cradle of the family has been the nightmarish vision of utopians throughout history. Civilized societies, societies which understand there is a basic ontological nature of the human person which dictates that children of human beings are best raised in a stable two-parent heterosexual family, know that special privileges, special legal protections and special legal obligations must be accorded to those who enter the very solemn legal and contractual obligation of marriage.
What Bill C-23 seeks to do is to take that very solemn legal privilege and obligation and turn it on its head, essentially saying that any two people who have the desire to live together in a conjugal relationship will, for all intents and purposes, be given precisely the same advantages, rights and privileges as married heterosexual couples without the attendant responsibilities. In fact, the Minister of Justice even admitted at committee that the only place where marriage is really an operative term in federal legislation, which would not apply to the same sex beneficiaries contemplated in Bill C-23, is in the Divorce Act.
What we are doing is taking these unique legal privileges, this preferential option for the family, and giving that to anyone, regardless of their capacity or lack thereof to procreate children and raise the next generation. In so doing, we are diminishing the distinctive legal, cultural and social value of the marital relationship, but we continue, and quite appropriately, to impose legal obligations on married couples through the Divorce Act, obligations which do not adhere to the same sex couples who will receive these marital benefits under the bill. It seems to me that this is a radical piece of legislation which undermines an institution central to any civilized society.
The Minister of Justice, under the enormous pressure of public opinion, even from her own caucus, decided that something had to be done to cloak this bill in the appearance of being somehow defensive of the institution of marriage, because, after all, due to the diligent work of my colleague from Calgary Centre, the House passed a motion on June 8 of last year declaring that the government should take “all necessary steps” to preserve the definition of marriage as “the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”. That shocking, intolerant, discriminatory motion passed by a vote of 216 to 55, with the entire federal cabinet voting in favour.
The Minister of Justice was required by political pressure, by all those millions of intolerant, bigoted Canadians that we keep hearing about from some members of the government, to do something to protect the institution of marriage. Therefore, she had her officials in the Department of Justice, which we all know is a haven of defence of the natural family, insert in the preamble to the bill some meaningless, rhetorical reference to the definition of marriage.
At committee it has been absolutely evident that the preambular definition of marriage included in this enormous, sweeping omnibus bill has effectively no meaning in law. It will not be used as a reference by the courts. It will not apply as a definition in the various statutes amended by this bill. It is a meaningless, token gesture that the Minister of Justice is giving to some of her backbenchers, who can then go back to their constituents and disingenuously claim that they stood in the House and voted for the traditional definition of marriage.
I put those members who intend to use that Trojan horse on notice that we will not allow them to mislead their constituents should they intend to do so at the next election. We will remind their constituents who stood in the House, took the responsibility and defended with their vote the basic institution of civil society, marriage, that little platoon of society to which Edmund Burke referred, upon which our culture depends.
I implore my colleagues opposite, do not let this be a whipped vote. Do not let it be a partisan vote. Let it be a vote of representation of our constituents, a vote that speaks for the value of marriage and family in our society. Do not be cowed by the voices of intolerance. Vote for the amendments to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman.