Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise to take part in this debate at report stage. I want to point out that this is a bill that I am very happy to support. As the member for Québec knows, my conviction is all the greater for having introduced private member's bills proposing the same debate myself on four occasions since 1994, as is our prerogative.
I believe that report stage should make possible a number of clarifications. The first thing that needs to be clarified is that this bill has nothing to do with marriage, contrary to what members of the Canadian Alliance would have us think. Even the minister, in her evidence before the parliamentary committee when we began consideration of Bill C-23, started out by saying that the bill has nothing to do with marriage.
I will have an opportunity to come back to this during my speech, particularly at third reading, but this is a bill the purpose of which is to do something about the inequities and discrimination faced by members of the gay community, gays and lesbians, in recent years.
An examination of the bill reveals that it contains hundreds of clauses and concerns 68 statutes. That is a lot. In the history of parliament, few bills have had the effect of amending 68 laws applying to various departments at one go.
What does this bill propose? First, it is in line with decisions made by the courts. I think our colleagues in the Canadian Alliance have a bit of a hard time understanding that.
We have a parliamentary system that distinguishes between the executive, judicial and legislative powers. Nevertheless, all are subject to the Canadian charter of human rights. Despite the battle waged at the time by the young member for Burnaby—Douglas to have sexual orientation included in section 15 as a prohibited ground for discrimination, it was not.
The lawmakers did not listen to the member for Burnaby—Douglas, it will be recalled. That is why a number of people had no choice but to turn to the courts.
Along the way, the supreme court handed down decisions providing that we should consider that section 15 provided specific reference to sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for discrimination, but it was not enough to afford full recognition to gays and lesbians.
A coalition was formed at the initiative of the group known as EGALE. It made representations and took the matter of the discriminatory nature of the failure to recognize same sex partners to the various courts of justice. The bill before us, presented by the Minister of Justice, will rectify the situation.
It is hard to imagine the impact of this bill on all aspects of life. It affects employment insurance. The law provides that when one partner in a heterosexual relationship moves the other partner may follow without penalty and without disqualification from receiving employment insurance benefits.
The bill deals, of course, with income tax. It continues the harmonization process undertaken last year, following the Rosenberg case. Members will remember that the court of appeal forced the Minister of Finance to amend the Income Tax Act, because it was discriminatory.
This bill also amends a very important tool, namely the Criminal Code. The Criminal Code defines a number of guarantees that must exist in a common law partnership or in a marriage concerning the provision of essential goods.
Again, Bill C-23 amends 68 different statutes, it concerns 20 departments and it confirms a recognition that parliament should have granted many years ago. Ten years went by between the time the first piece of legislation recognizing same sex spouses was passed and the bill now before us.
There is a problem in how Canadian Alliance members approach this debate. That problem is primarily due to their sterile stubbornness, their narrow-mindedness in that, for the Canadian Alliance, the homosexual reality undermines the family reality.
There can never be too many of us to explain to Canadian Alliance members that the homosexual reality does not in any way undermine the family reality, since we do not choose to become homosexuals. One simply discovers that one is a homosexual and the choice then becomes to either accept it or not. But once a person has discovered and accepted the fact that he or she is a homosexual, there is no reason to say that homosexuals are not part of families, that they cannot build families, or that they cannot enjoy the full protection provided by the legislation as a whole.
Incidentally, this bill has nothing at all to do with marriage. Why? First, because the definition of marriage is not enshrined in an act. The definition of marriage is to be found in the common law, in the rulings made by the courts. What exists regarding marriage are provisions on accepted or prohibited degrees, provisions which specify that this person cannot marry that person, because of the blood relationship that exists between them.
Let us be clear, the bill we have before us not only has nothing to do with marriage, it also has nothing to do with adoption. Why is that? Because adoption does not come under federal jurisdiction, it is provincial. To give the example of my province of birth, the Civil Code sets out the procedures for adoption.
Moreover, in civil law there is no obstacle to adoptions by homosexuals. The only obstacle is that if someone is in a couple relationship, and his or her partner adopts a child, the partner living with the adopting parent will not have parental status, in the eyes of the law, because adoption is on an individual basis.
Let us look briefly at the reality of a conjugal relationship. The bill we have before us today is an omnibus bill. It arises out of the supreme court judgment in M. vs. H, which dates back to May 20, 1999, as hon. members will recall.
As it has been indicated to me that I do not have much time left, I will conclude by saying three things to my colleagues. I trust that, when the bill is voted on at third reading, all hon. members will rise and this bill will be passed as close to unanimously as possible. This is a bill of reparation, a bill that consecrates a fundamental value of our system, namely the equality of all individuals.
It is impossible to make reference in the wording of legislation to individual equality, on the one hand, while continuing, on the other, to call for consistent discrimination by not recognizing same sex partners.
I have strong hopes that parliamentarians will understand that this bill has nothing to do with marriage, but with equality of treatment, and that many of us will support the government in this excellent initiative.