Madam Speaker, I am glad to rise today to bring the attention of the people across the land and the attention of Parliament to the need to stand and be counted against the decisions that are being made across the land in our courts that bring a threat to certain things. These are things like the definition of marriage, like making it easier for child predators to produce pornographic materials, like granting prisoners the right to vote, and one other which I might mention.
Judges are extremely important public servants and are well paid for their competence in the business of making decisions that affect the lives of individuals and families. However, interestingly enough over recent years judges increasingly and purposefully are influencing public policy through their edicts. At times they seem to be dictating to Parliament on what public policy should be and what are the best interests of the general public. Often decisions by the judiciary reflect the judiciary's own personal views of the will of society rather than a more accurate application of the law.
Only elected officials and Parliament have the authority and the role to establish public policy. This is supposed to be done through the passage of legislation in what we all want to be a democratic system of government. The role of judges is to apply the law, but it is not the role of the judiciary to create the law. Elected officials can be removed from office if they do not represent fairly the views of the people. They can also be defeated even if they are doing an outstanding job of representing their constituents.
That having been said, judges are both unelected and unaccountable to the people for the decisions they render. Therefore, judges' decisions must always be subject to the laws established by our elected representatives. Elected officials should bear the responsibility of demanding more effective accountability of the judiciary. In a government of the people, by the people and for the people, there must be a strong system of accountability built into each branch of the government.
There are hundreds of stories in this country of judges making decisions that are not mandated by the laws that they are to administer. There is definitely a problem within the realm of family law, for instance. In family courts many times the decision favours one party or the other without real justification. Time and again, husbands and wives going through personal divorce are then divorced from their own children by the decision of the court. In most cases this means that the father is no longer allowed to have adequate parental involvement with his own children. He effectively becomes divorced from his own children.
Rulings handed down by these activist judges likely would never be found to be charter-proof if they were written in law by Parliament. Both the judiciary and the Liberal government have turned a blind eye to this travesty of justice. They have both failed the families of this nation.
Controversial decisions or bad decisions are met with little or no public scrutiny. Is this fair? Now more than ever our country is in need of fundamental legal reform. These changes must be made through Parliament and not dictated by appointed judges.
Recently an Ontario court ruled that the definition of marriage, defined in tradition and in Parliament as being exclusively between one man and one woman, was unconstitutional because it excluded same sex marriages. The ruling shocked Canadians across the country who have for decades supported the traditional definition of marriage and valued the institution of marriage on religious and societal grounds. The ruling also shocked many federal representatives who only three years ago voted overwhelmingly in the House of Commons to uphold the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman.
Following the Ontario court ruling, I joined with Canadians across the country in calling upon the federal government to appeal the Ontario decision and to defend the traditional definition of marriage. In addition, my office received a great number of phone calls, e-mails and letters from across the country and from residents of my riding.
Regrettably the Canadian Alliance was the only party actively working to encourage the government to appeal that decision. Elected members of the federal Progressive Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party remained strangely silent on the subject despite the number of Canadians who were calling for an appeal. The federal government struggled with its decision waiting until the last day to finally make the right decision and launch an appeal.
Just this month the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned a lower court decision and said that laws prohibiting same sex marriage are discriminatory. The ruling gave Parliament until July 12, 2004 to change Canada's marriage laws and is similar to other rulings in Ontario and Quebec. The minister is again hesitating to appeal this court decision, this in spite of his vote in favour of the 1999 resolution which was overwhelmingly passed in the House of Commons and which stated in part, “that marriage is and should remain the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, and that Parliament will take all necessary steps to preserve this definition of marriage in Canada”.
The Minister of Justice is not following the will of Parliament's resolution. Interestingly enough, the current Prime Minister, the current Deputy Prime Minister and the wannabe prime minister all voted in favour of the resolution. It remains to be seen if the Liberal government will ever have the backbone to follow through on its commitment to take all necessary steps to preserve the institution of marriage.
The Canadian Alliance supports the definition of marriage as it currently stands. We believe that the government has an obligation to defend the longstanding application of the definition of marriage as was affirmed in the House by that overwhelming vote. An issue as important as the definition of marriage must be ultimately decided by elected representatives who can reflect the wishes of Canadians. It must not be left to unaccountable judges.
The John Robin Sharpe case brought out a very imaginative ruling. It ruled that the child pornography produced by John Robin Sharpe had artistic merit and was therefore legal to be possessed by that convicted pedophile. Decisions continue to lean toward protecting the criminal rather than children and families.
Yet another example of judicial activism was apparent when the Supreme Court recently allowed prisoners, including murderers and pedophiles, the right to vote. We in the Canadian Alliance believe that this court decision is fundamentally flawed. We contend that this court ruling is nothing more than a slap in the face to the ordinary law-abiding citizen.
In her decision the chief justice stated that the right to vote is fundamental to our democracy. I agree. However, is not the obligation to obey the law equally fundamental? If there is no respect for the rule of law, both our society and our institutions will deteriorate into a state of chaos. It seems absolutely ridiculous to me that we would give prisoners the right to continue to vote so that lawbreakers then have the right to select those who make the laws and write out the pardons.
I also believe that this decision is in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The charter does state that reasonable limits may be placed on fundamental rights. It is ridiculous to say that we cannot interfere with the rights of a prisoner. What is incarceration? Incarceration is all about limiting a prisoner's rights. The charter says that we can do that so we cannot hide behind that excuse.
Political scientists have failed to see the importance of this Supreme Court ruling. They claim that the 12,000 prisoners to whom this decision will give the right to vote is too small a number to influence the outcome of the election. That is not the point. It is a matter of principle.
What has the court done by giving prisoners the right to vote? The easy answer would be that the court has diminished the value of citizenship and it has harmed the integrity of the democratic system. Perhaps the court should reconsider its actions. Most of all, perhaps the government should reconsider, step up to the plate and deliver legislation to reclaim the rightful place of this the people's House.
Canadians expect their elected representatives to have the courage to make important decisions even if it means tackling divisive questions head on. For too long the Government of Canada has stood back and let the Supreme Court usurp Parliament's role as legislator. It is time for Parliament to take responsibility and protect and reassert its will and right to be the lawmaker of this land.