Madam Speaker, I will answer that question by pointing out the bigger picture rather than addressing a specific issue.
The ever expanding authority that the charter is conferring on the courts, because Parliament refuses to reassert itself, has contributed to a fundamental shift. Whether we think that the authority of the charter has been used by the judiciary in a positive way or not, the fact is that there is a fundamental shift. Decisions with the legislative expression of the democratic institutions are discarded by the court and have lead to the conclusion that the judiciary is now exercising substantial political power, once vested only in the hands of elected officials.
Some, like the former Chief Justice of Canada, do not deny that this shift in political power is taking place, but simply say that this what politicians must have wanted when they passed the charter.
Other members of the judiciary are more willing to recognize that much of the current utilization of the charter is a political rather than a judicial exercise and caution constraint. However, the interpretation of the charter, as my colleague mentioned as it applies to the definition of marriage, to whether one may own child pornography or whether a law-breaker can vote in federal and democratic elections, any of those issues and more, is now allowed to be taken out of the hands of the people through their representatives and put into the hands of the judiciary. I do not agree with the Supreme Court Justice who says that this is what politicians wanted. I do not believe the people wanted that.
Our commitment to democracy is too strong and too much of a tradition for us to have knowingly just flung it off on a small group of appointed people. That was never intended.
To answer my colleague, if the people of the country, through their elective representatives, do not want to have the charter interpreted in a way that interferes with traditional institutions of our country, then there is one way for that to be stopped and that is for this House to use its legal power to reassert the supremacy of members of Parliament, and therefore the people of Canada and the democratic rights of the country.