And, Madam Speaker, I have another 20 minutes.
It is a terrific picture with a number of dimensions. I do not consider this an issue of whether or not we should change the definition of marriage to allow a few gay couples to be married. In our society we have had some changes. We have had changes, for instance, in the rising number of common law relationships that are outside of the marriage bond, the licensed and registered marriage. There is a growing class of people who for their own reasons decide that they do not want to consummate a marriage in the same way that others do.
So the question really gets down to why we are making a big deal of it, because it is only a few people. It shows that there is a difference. Our statistical analyses of a broad range of problems has shown that there is a big difference between the value system of each of the groups as they evolve.
The breakdown and divorce rate of married couples is at about 40% in Canada. Common law couples split up 50% more often. Gay couples split up even more frequently than that. I do not have the numbers, but I know from businesses that provide benefits to declared same sex couples that they have to wait one year before they are eligible for those benefits, the reason being that the likelihood of a relationship lasting more than a year is very low. If it lasts a little more than a year, chances are that the relationship will be there for a little bit longer. In comparison to the lifestyle choices and the value choices, there is the longevity of the relationship.
Then we can look at domestic violence. The statistics tell us that numbers of people who experience domestic violence are highest in common law relationships and very low in married relationships. It is really interesting. It is almost like the commitment to the relationship is much stronger at the marriage end of the scale, it dilutes somewhat in the common law and then in the same sex partnerships there is less cultural commitment to long lasting relationships. The strength of the commitment is in direct correlation to the degree of difficulty and, even within the gay population, abuse. We get statistics there.
The other part is with regard to children. The common law relationship emulates the married relationship because it is a heterosexual union and procreation is part of the relationship. The only thing it really does not have is the formality of the registration and the licensing of that marriage. Again, some aspects of the benefits to those families are delayed for a year. Common law relationships and same sex relationships have to wait for a certain period before they qualify for certain benefits, whereas married couples immediately qualify. There is no question that in our laws we discriminate in favour of married couples because we recognize that commitment.
I would argue that what really matters, why we would not want to open it up and reduce it all to the lowest common denominator as just two people who love and care for each other, is that there are other differences in terms of the commitment to the relationship, the lifestyle description or the way those lifestyles are demonstrated. A married relationship, I think, is different in an historic sense. Had common law relationships continued to rise and married relationships seemed somehow to peter away over time, it would be different. However, that is not the case. Married relationships have stabilized. People are going back to getting married because they have found out that there is security and comfort in knowing that there is a relationship in which there is a commitment.
Let me leave the House with what I had written in a book on the definition of real love. This is kind of interesting. I thought real love, or some would say true love, was a situation where one puts the interests of the other ahead of one's own. It is an unselfish commitment in an unselfish relationship.
I found out that the biggest reason common law relationships were entered into so much more frequently than marriage was that they were easier to get out of than being married. If that is the reason then obviously the best interests of the other is not ahead of one's own. Therefore I tried to argue in this monograph that the quality or the degree of real love was less strong in a common law relationship than a married relationship because of the degree to which one puts the interests of the other ahead of one's own.
We could have a lot of discussion on this but if we were to look at the demographics in our society and the statistics on social problems we would see that married relationships are the healthiest places in which to raise children and the healthiest and safest places for women. Marriages contribute the most stability to a society, which we enjoy in Canada.