Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure I suppose to speak to Bill C-23, the modernization of benefits and obligations act.
I am opposed to this not only like my colleague on the Liberal side who spoke just a moment ago, because I think there are major flaws in the legislation, but I am also opposed to it because many people in my constituency of Langley—Abbotsford have expressed their absolute opposition to such a bill. Not only have they expressed their opposition but they have asked me why this omnibus bill is going through the House of Commons already when practically nobody has heard much about it in terms of talking to the people of the land.
I know for a fact having been in the House for almost seven years, that omnibus bills are creatures of confusion. We have seen many omnibus bills go through the House. I can recall one which was a justice bill. It took us literally months to figure out what was in the darned thing before we could even make decisions on it.
Now that we have looked at Bill C-23 we see major flaws with which the government will not deal. Unfortunately it will deal with them by leaving it up to the courts of the land.
I do not want to get into a large discussion about my confidence in letting the courts of the land deal with legislation or we would be here for a long time. I do not think legislation on issues such as these, benefits under the Income Tax Act or the Pensions Act, should be decided upon by the legal industry. That is where we continually go wrong. We develop an omnibus bill, make it law and throw it to the courts when it does not fit. We are already telling the government it does not fit and members of the government are saying it is flawed.
Why on earth the government wants to continue to push this I could say is beyond me, but it is not. It is typical. Lo and behold, once the government gets it through the Senate and royal assent, people will be asking a lot of questions. They will be saying “Gee, I did not know it was going to affect me this way”.
That is what is wrong here. We are trying to head this off already and the government is saying, “It is going through anyway on time allocation. Cut your speeches short. You have only got 10 minutes, no questions. Let it go”.
I want to address some of the things that concern me. I know it has been mentioned but I am going to change my approach a little.
I had the occasion not too long ago to talk to four young fellows. I knew them all. They were sitting around and I asked them about Bill C-23. First of all they did not know much about it. They said, “On this conjugal relations stuff, you can say whatever you want about it, but if the benefit befits us, if it is good for us, we will say whatever it takes. We will do it”.
That may sound a little funny but the reality out there is that when someone wants to take advantage of a piece of legislation, within the parameters of law they will do so. They will do so regardless of what we call their relationship. They will just say, “Yes, that fits me and this person and that is what we are going to do”.
The government should know that just by defining things based on a conjugal relationship which is undefined, many people frankly will use that terminology and say, “Yes, that befits me, so where is my benefit?” That is what many people are trying to say. We just cannot rewrite society's rules to fit a piece of legislation.
Bill C-23 introduces the term “common law partner” which is defined as a person cohabitating with another person in a conjugal relationship for a year. For pension benefits Bill C-23 uses the term “survivor” instead of words like “spouse”.
The government refuses to define conjugal relationship, so again who actually qualifies under that terminology is going to be left to the courts, if we can imagine that. It will not just be one court case that is going to cost someone a lot of money. It will be case after case after case.
I have been in enough court cases in the land; I am not a lawyer but I have been through them. What happens in the court situations is that decisions by the judiciary will tend to go for the lowest common result. Once it is established that a conjugal relationship exists in one decision, someone else will come in and say if it fits there, it should fit for them and it will go to that level. The next person will say, “Conjugal relationship, yes, under the Income Tax Act that is me”. They will go to the next level and on and on it will go.
This is an expensive, undefined category. It should not be in legislation unless it is clearly understood, clearly defined and clearly agreed to by the majority of Canadians. It is as simple as that. I have heard my colleagues say this for months now. But there is still a majority situation in the House of Commons where a government with a slim majority says, “We stand here and tell our people how to vote and that is the way it is going to be. All of you people who do not like this, that is just too darn bad”.
The justice minister indicated that only those engaged in a sexual relationship would qualify under the bill. However this was not so clear from testimony before the justice committee. As a result there is much uncertainty about what conjugal means. How on earth did we ever get to defining what benefits are allowable to individuals under any act based on sexual activity? Where are we coming from?