Mr. Speaker, let me say two things. I think the member implied that he agreed this bill was about fairness because he said that if this bill was about fairness, then we need fairness in the procedure by which we implement it. He did not like the idea that we had brought in closure on this bill.
This issue has been before the House for a very long time. I would simply remind him that the Tory Government of Ontario, indeed the Tory Party of Ontario, with which his party wants to form a union, had this before the legislature for a total of five days. This has been before the House for a much longer time.
Let us look at what has happened in terms of the evolution of the law.
It was not long ago that there were rights and obligations attached only to marriage, but then they were extended by virtue of the law to common law relationships. Heaven forbid, but it was progress. What is happening here is that those rights are being extended to same sex couples.
I understand that this takes on the aura of something beyond the moral code of so very many, but the role of government is not necessarily to recognize simply the moral code of some people. The constitution says that our role is to go beyond that to extending equality and fairness to as broad a section of Canadians as possible. Therefore the question of dependency will be a further evolution of this law as we move forward.