Mr. Speaker, it is important that we be here today to debate this issue. I am here to speak for hundreds of my constituents who have phoned, faxed and e-mailed me. Hundreds more have filled out petitions which I have tabled in the House. They contained thousands of signatures asking the government to repeal the bill.
I want to approach the issue in two separate ways. The proposed bill has not received wide public debate. I think a bill of this importance should be subjected to that. A number of questions have been raised and I would like to get to some of the ones people have asked. Then I will get into the record of the Liberal government on family issues and its lack of support for families. I will also deal with some of the things it has put in place, and some it has not, which affect families and undermine their importance.
The first issue is the fiscal impact of the bill. The Liberals have not put out any dollar figures as to what it might cost the Canadian taxpayer. The finance minister when referring to the bill and some of the amendments said that the fiscal impact of these amendments would be minimal if anything at all and that it was not a cost issue.
It is a cost issue. We should know how many people will be affected. We should know the cost it will have on the treasury, on the taxpayers of the country. We do not know that. Bill C-23 purports to give benefits to people who have never received them, which will be an additional cost.
The whole idea of conjugality has been the subject of much debate and many questions. Bill C-23 defines in statute that a common law partner is any individual person who is cohabiting with another individual in a conjugal relationship for a minimum of one year. Who defines a conjugal relationship? The dictionary says that it is of or relating to the married state or to married persons in the relationships.
Does this mean that we are equating a conjugal relationship with a married relationship? Is that what we are saying? Is that what the bill means? Does it mean that these relationships will be forced to incur the same responsibilities as married couples? Is there that aspect of responsibility? Or, does it mean that these relationships have a societal contribution equal to a marriage relationship? How will the government prove the conjugality of a relationship? I suppose the real question has been how we will prove conjugality. As a previous Liberal prime minister said, I agree that the government does not have any place in the bedrooms of the nation. Why has the government refused to clearly define it in the legislation? Where is the definition? Will there be any methods to stop people from abusing the bill by saying they are in a relationship when they are not? How are we ever going to pull that out?
The bill should clearly define a conjugal relationship but it does not. It should outline the rights and responsibilities associated with that definition. Are there additional responsibilities if one falls under the bill? What change will that have for society as a whole? I want to mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Dewdney—Alouette.
Let us look at the relationships that are not included, the other dependent relationships that exist in society. We all know of such relationships. It could be a daughter taking care of an elderly mom, or a couple of elderly brothers who live together to help each other out. Whatever the situation, these situations are not addressed because they are not based on conjugality.
There is a lack of public input. Time and time again people have said the issue is of such importance that they need a debate on the national stage. It has to go across the country to give everybody an opportunity to debate both sides of the issue in a very broad manner. We have not seen that happen. As a matter of fact closure has been brought in on a number of occasions in parliament and certainly on this bill.
We talk about marriage. Is the bill about marriage? Is it about the definition of marriage? People have said that the definition of marriage needs to be reaffirmed. We did that last June in the House. A motion was put forward and passed that the definition of marriage is and should remain the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, and that parliament would take all necessary steps within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada to preserve this definition of marriage in Canada. It is simple. The motion passed. The people have spoken.
However, the bill was brought forward without a definition of marriage. The justice minister made an attempt to include a definition but only in a way that legal advice has told us could be struck down. The definition of marriage needs to be implanted in all of the 68 statutes affected by the bill; it should be embedded right in the text.
One key issue people have brought to my attention is that the definition is important to them. They would like to see it embedded in the bill, as witnessed by the thousands and thousands of signatures tabled in the House asking for the definition of marriage to be included in the bill and, if not, for the bill to be pulled in its entirety. Yesterday we put forward some amendments to do so but they were voted down. We have tried to include that definition through amendments to the bill, but the House chose to vote them down.
I want to speak a bit about the family as a whole in society and some of the things we have seen which are detrimental to strong families. One is the tax system which is unfair to families where one parent chooses to stay at home. We think tax breaks and lower taxes are essential in helping to create stronger families.
Another is the child pornography issue. The notwithstanding clause was not implemented to protect our children from people who use, sell and collect child pornography. In the B.C. case we asked members of the government to use the notwithstanding clause to keep that law in effect while the challenge went through the courts. It chose not to do so. It has been going on for a year and a half to two years now and it is still in abeyance.
The whole child pornography issue has affected my work as well. I brought forward private member's Bill C-321 to amend the criminal code to allow equipment used in the production of child pornography to be seized by the courts and taken away from the people who use it. In many cases in the criminal code this is allowed to happen and in the case of the production of child pornography it is not. Hopefully one day that bill will be drawn and debated. In the meantime I am pursuing the justice minister to have that change made in the laws.
Another issue we deal with on a daily basis when we watch the erosion of families is that of sex offenders. We wanted to have a registry of sex offenders. If we add up all the issues, it comes back to what we think. We need a definition of marriage in the act. We need a definition of conjugality. We need support for families. We need to strengthen families.
We do not need attack after attack on the family unit to try to take away its authority. Members of all parties have gone to world conferences where there has been an attack on families. We as a country should recognize the importance of families and do things to strengthen them, not to undermine them.