Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your intervention.
I cannot force the government to do anything. It will simply invoke closure on a bill and will ram it through. The power will rest with the people. We can be sure that if all the amendments we are proposing are not made, those people will render their verdict.
I have one more point. With all the interruptions I have had, I did not get through my speech. I would like to read a quotation from barrister and solicitor, Iain Benson. I think he said it best on March 21, 2000 when he testified before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
“What the gay rights approach has done is struck an arrangement with Ottawa that divides people into the sexual and non-sexual, in which only the sexual is recognized outside of marriage. Yet this is an unfair attack both on the primacy and genuine social importance of heterosexual marriage and to all those who are in dependency relationships of whatever sort, sick, single or same sex where sexual activity is not present or permissible. Other jurisdictions such as Hawaii in the United States have determined that other categories need to be created such as reciprocal beneficiaries or registered domestic partnerships where the focus is not so, to be blunt, genital”.
I cannot finish the rest. Maybe I will be able to finish it at a later time.
The Montreal Gazette agreed. The editor wrote:
And when did a sexual relationship become a new standard by which a relationship of dependency is measured? It is worth remembering that the existing laws surrounding benefits and obligations for dependent spouses were designed to support traditional marriage and, by extension, the raising of children.