Mr. Speaker, Bill C-447 is a bill that it is suggested we should debate around the protection of the institution of marriage. It is a very short bill. It has at its beginning several points that begin with whereas, the first one of which is, “Whereas marriage has from time immemorial been recognized as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”.
That in fact is false. Let us go back historically to the Christian period and the start of Christianity when Christ himself was alive on this earth, to the region he came from. The reality at that time was that polygamy was more common than a single relationship between one man and one woman. At the same period of time, and we could go back even further, the influence from Greece was still very prominent in Rome, in the modern world as they saw it at that time.
We know, if we look at history at all, that during the period of Greece's dominance of the world at that time, if I can put it that way, a number of the city states in fact recognized same sex relationships that were in the form of a union recognized both by the state and by religions of that period.
Therefore, as I have said, that initial whereas is not based on historical fact. Quite frankly, we can come down from that period through history to any number of other times, including times within the Catholic church where the Catholic church recognized same sex relationships and certified them within the structure of the Catholic church.
The second whereas reads that “because of certain court decisions, it is now necessary to clarify the meaning of marriage”. The bill goes on in the third whereas to say that “the Parliament of Canada, representing all Canadians, must be the final authority with respect to social policy decisions”.
In effect, these two points set up a conflict. I think it is accurate to say they reflect the reality of that conflict in our society, but what they do not reflect, and what they ignore or perhaps do not comprehend, is that in 1982 this country made a decision that when those conflicts existed between elements of society and government, this society, the Canadian society, the Canadian constitutional framework, would allow and authorize our court system to make a determination as to who was right in that conflict. That is the issue we are confronted with today and have been confronted with for a good number of years now.
We have had members of the gay and lesbian community saying that this is an equality issue, an issue that they see as a basic human right, and we have had the state in the form of legislation say no, they are wrong and this is the way it will be defined. We have that conflict.
Again, though, in 1982 this country and this Parliament adopted changes to the constitutional framework and adopted a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At that time, they handed over to our courts the decision making power to deal with this type of conflict. We had the state on one side saying one thing and an individual group, in this case a minority group, claiming another. When we did that we did it consciously. We cannot go back at this point and say we did not understand it. Any parliamentarian elected to this House should have understood that. That is the system we function under.
Ultimately we have to allow this issue to go to the Supreme Court of Canada, as the government has now done. Lower courts have ruled on it, but the decision has to be made there. In effect, that is what is underway at this point. Until that happens, until we know what the ruling is on this issue from the highest court in the land, this legislation we have before us will have to wait.
I have to say that in terms of my reading of the law and my expectation of what the Supreme Court is going to do, it will rule on the charter and on equality rights in favour of the claim that is being made by the gay and lesbian community in the country. I will say that the Supreme Court is going to allow it and in fact mandate that this legislature recognize those relationships as full marriages.
I want to cover a couple of other points. There has been a great deal of criticism, and I think we have heard it in some of the speeches, about the way we are going about this. There has been criticism that the courts are unelected and that somehow this is anti-democratic and it is going to impinge on other people's rights, specifically within the religious community. There has been criticism that certain churches are going to be forced, against their principles, to marry same sex couples.
Anyone who has studied the law in this country will know that this argument is without merit. I will address my church specifically. The Catholic church has traditionally to this day refused to marry people who have been divorced. Unless they obtain an annulment within the canon law of that church, they cannot remarry within the church. That has existed for at least 40 or 50 years, since divorce became much more common in this country. There has not been one challenge to the Catholic church saying, “You have to allow me to marry within your church even though I'm divorced”. There has not been one successful case, not even a challenge.
The reason for this is that everybody and every lawyer in the country who knows anything, both about our charter rights and about family law, would tell us that this challenge would be unsuccessful, as it would be if gay couples ultimately are allowed to marry. The courts would be saying the same thing, which is that if these couples want to be married within the Catholic church and the Catholic church continues to prohibit those marriages, the courts are not going to force the Catholic church to marry them.
On the other hand, and I think this is often missed in this debate, a number of churches, including Christian churches, now want to allow and are beginning to allow gay couples to be married, that religion sanctifying those relationships, certifying, recognizing and in fact conducting a religious ceremony recognizing the sanctity of that relationship. If we were to prohibit that, if we were to pass this bill and it became law, we would be saying to those churches that they do not have the right to do that. We would be denying them that right. It would not only be a denial of rights to the gay and lesbian community but to the United Church, which has led the way in this regard. It would be told that it cannot conduct those marriages.
The other point I want to raise refers to some of the comments about undermining marriage that were made by the previous speaker from the Progressive Conservative Party. We can look to some examples, because there are two other countries that have moved down this path ahead of us. The Netherlands has had this in place for two years. In those first two years, the rate of marriage among heterosexual couples actually went up. The other argument was that somehow it was going to affect the birthrate. Its birthrate was not affected whatsoever. Belgium is now beginning to follow that example. My understanding is that it is having a similar experience.
I speak strongly against this bill. It is founded on principles or arguments that in fact are generally not accurate. On that basis, I speak very strongly against the bill going through.