Debates of Sept. 16th, 2003

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there has been unanimous consent for the following:

That, during debate on Bill C-421, the Speaker shall not receive any quorum calls, dilatory motions or requests for unanimous consent and when debate concludes, a division shall be deemed to have been requested and deferred to Wednesday, September 17, 2003 at 5:30 p.m.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find unanimous consent for the following:

That Motion No. 200 be withdrawn from the Order Paper.

This is at the request of the hon. member for Beaches--East York, in whose name the motion stands.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the House that I shall be proposing that Bill C-49 be referred to committee before second reading.

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Supply

[Betty Hinton, Canadian Alliance, Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the last speaker and I have two questions I would like to ask him.

Would he agree that the majority of Canadians who agree with the change to the definition of marriage are actually unaware that same sex couples already enjoy the rights and privileges of common law couples?

I have to tell him that in my own riding three mainstream ministers have told me that they will no longer marry anyone of either persuasion if this is upheld in the House of Commons. Does the member think there would be any valid reason for people to feel that uncomfortable that they are going to refuse to marry any couples?

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the answer to both questions is no.

[Grant McNally, Canadian Alliance, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague for his well-reasoned speech. I do not agree with everything he said but I do agree with the way he laid it out in the recent debate that he made.

I want to say that for some of the same reasons he is going to support the change to the definition of marriage, I am not going to support the change to the definition of marriage. The vast number of constituents who have contacted me by phone, e-mail or letter or who have dropped by the office to have personal conversations have overwhelmingly supported the traditional definition of marriage, unlike the constituents in his riding.

I want to make one point that was alluded to by my friend's colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis. He touched on a very important philosophical point which really has not been mentioned by anybody else and has not been expounded on. It has to do with the intrinsic value of marriage.

He talked about the Ontario court decision laying out the analogy of marriage being the same as criminal law or banking, almost as though he were comparing marriage to the colour of the carpet that we would choose in this chamber. It is very much different from that and my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis was alluding to that, that there is intrinsic value in marriage itself and that by changing the definition of marriage, we do not actually recognize those intrinsic values, the bedrock of marriage as the foundation of our society. I want to quickly quote from the Ontario court decision. At point 129 it states:

The difficulty with the Attorney General of Canada's submission is its focus. It is not disputed that marriage has been a stabilizing and effective societal institution. The couples are not seeking to abolish the institution of marriage; they are seeking access to it. Thus, the task of the Attorney General of Canada is not to show how marriage has benefited society as a whole, which we agree is self-evident, but to demonstrate that maintaining marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution is rationally connected to the objectives of marriage, which in our view is not self-evident. What is self-evident is that marriage is intrinsically good and has provided the bedrock of our society.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is a contradiction in what the member has said and what I have said. I believe that indeed marriage as we have known it will continue to exist for an overwhelming majority of the population.

The question is, as legislators we have a duty on the civil side of this, the meaning of the word marriage in terms of its contractual arrangements. In that sense, the charter is quite clear and tribunals whose job it is to interpret the laws we set, such as the charter, have made it quite clear that we cannot discriminate unless we wish to invoke the notwithstanding clause, which is another debate that we probably will have at some point.

In terms of having a pluralistic society, I see no contradiction in the majority of people wishing to engage in remaining in a heterosexual marriage and some living in a homosexual marriage. I think the laws of Canada can accommodate that, as well as protect the ability of the church, of the religious organizations, to discriminate. I think that we as legislators can accomplish that so that this country can carry on being the great institution that it is.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly had a tumultuous summer on this subject. I do not know whether my constituents are more irritated by the decision itself or the fact of the irrelevancy of Parliament to this debate.

Parliament has spoken at least three times on this subject in the last few years: once in a free vote in 1999 in an overwhelming vote of 216 to 55 in favour of the traditional definition; in 2000 on Bill C-23 and again on a harmonization bill and both of those were whipped votes.

The courts have felt perfectly free to ignore everything that Parliament has said to date. I dare say that pretty well everything that is said today will be ignored as well.

Parliament is irrelevant to this debate because it allows itself to be irrelevant. Power abhors a vacuum. Parliament gave the charter to the people of Canada yet the judges have not at all been shy about using that power to the maximum.

This is not a dialogue between Parliament and the judiciary. This has become a monologue in which Parliament is afraid to speak with any authority.

I sit on the justice committee. We spent six months travelling the country going to 13 separate communities. Well over 200 briefs were directly submitted to us. There were over 450 written submissions. Regardless of the views, I thought it was an excellent exercise in democracy. Everyone got their say and just possibly there may have been some meaningful exchanges among the participants. When the people are given an opportunity to speak they usually have some wisdom to share.

Not only were the members of the justice committee ignored, so also were the hundreds and thousands of people who made an effort to participate in the process. In one fell swoop the Court of Appeal of Ontario trashed the efforts of the committee and devalued all those who chose to participate, making any report that we would like to make utterly and completely irrelevant.

Those who think the decision of the Court of Appeal is a good decision should think carefully about any future participation of Canadians in the democratic process. Why would anyone really bother? Why would they let themselves be humiliated? Indeed, why bother to vote?

There will be those who argue that this is in fact a free vote. For an observer from Mars, that might appear to be a free vote, but let not the rest of us be so naive. The government has chosen not to appeal this decision and ask for a stay in that decision and is therefore creating facts on the ground.

In early June the government's official position was to support the traditional definition of marriage. By the end of the month the government had turned 180 degrees in the opposite direction and proposed a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada to which any first year law student already knows the answer, and drafted a bill which allows for no other alternatives whatsoever. In addition, the Prime Minister has signalled to members of the cabinet and therefore his parliamentary secretaries that they will not be free to vote as they see fit. The Minister of Justice has been travelling the country to argue with the provinces to just treat the bill as if it had already passed.

The contempt for Parliament and by extension its MPs as representatives of the people is breathtaking. We will collectively bear witness to MPs and cabinet ministers swallowing themselves whole in this so-called free vote.

For those who generally accept the deconstruction of the institution of marriage in the name of equality, I say good for you. Vote as you see fit. I profoundly disagree with you.

Having now commented on the process by which we get here, I would like to talk about the issue itself. Professor Daniel Cere of McGill University has analogized heterosexual marriage to a web with a variety of strands which underpin the very existence of our society and our nation. Among the variety of strands are sociological, anthropological, legal, theological and generational.

The courts in their deconstruction have said that all these strands are non-essential to the core meaning of marriage. Marriage according to the Court of Appeals is merely a love institution, two persons with a pulse having sex.

The conventional relationship between opposite gender people reaching generationally backwards and forwards is an incident of a marriage, not its core element. The Court of Appeal has literally bombed the intergenerational bridge both front and back.

Heterosexuals reach back to previous generations and forward to future generations. The Court of Appeal has said in effect “So what? It's not a core feature of marriage”. Inherent capacity of heterosexual couples to procreate is nice but it is not a necessity.

The court has said that the way in which heterosexuals reach out to a larger society and say in effect “we will perpetuate you” is a novelty, but it is not a core element. And forget all that religious nonsense. It is just a collection of myths anyway. We are a secular society and we have no space in our one size fits all pluralism to buy into anyone's ancient myths. It is really a conceit to equate equality with sameness.

Pluralism should respect diversity. People come in all shapes, sizes and orientations. They are not the same, but this crude deference to equality has convinced us that the same is equal and equal is the same. This is intellectual nonsense. A just society treats its citizens with equality before the law. It does not jam each and every citizen and each and every relationship into identical boxes.

The courts have bought this crude idea because Parliament is AWOL on this issue. We have deferred to the legal equality claims in deference to all else. We have bought the notion that if it is not exactly the same, then it is not equal. In the marriage debate that works itself out to say that homosexual relationships must be equal to heterosexual relationships, therefore, marriage must be reshaped and redefined to accommodate the equality claims so that they are the same thing. This is nonsense in life, but apparently not nonsense in law.

Mr. Justice Charles Gonthier is quoted as saying, “To permit the courts to wade into this debate risks seeing Section 15 (equality) protection against discrimination based upon sexual orientation being employed aggressively to trump Section 2(a), protection of the freedom of religion and conscience”.

Apparently nothing short of marriage is good enough. We get into this foolishness about separate but equal. All of those in the 1960s school busing debates start playing tapes in their heads. Heterosexual couples are different from homosexual couples for one very obvious reason: gender. They are equal for the purposes of law, but they are not the same. Same is not equal and equal is not the same. The issue is to achieve legal equality, not sameness. A principled view of pluralism would respect not only the need for the freedom of the individual but also the cooperation that is required to create conditions of common good.

Our charter is an important statement of rights and freedoms, but it is silent on the conditions necessary to create common good. When we let the lawyers run away with the debate and give undue deference to judicial pronouncements, we erode the conditions for the common good. It is rights without responsibilities.

By dumbing down marriage to two persons with a pulse having sex, we have destroyed the conventional and replaced it with the contractual. The law of contract serves us very well in the exchange of goods and services but is supremely inadequate to express the complexity of opposite gender relationships. Marriage is or has become a contract, nothing more, nothing less. All those strands to which Professor Cere referred, which feed that web, are charming but not necessary, are mere mythologies.

At the justice committee, we were repeatedly cautioned not to mess with marriage. The example frequently quoted was the change to the Divorce Act, which created no fault divorce. It was argued that this was a tiny change affecting an insignificant number of people and would alleviate genuine hardships. Who today can say that their family has not been affected by no fault divorce? It has affected every marriage in the nation and continues to be a national tragedy. We have achieved the distinction of being one of the most divorcing nations in the world.

Today we are invited to make a minor change to the definition of marriage, which will affect a small number of people and alleviate an injustice. Do not be naive: this will affect how everyone regards marriage and will have consequences for the heterosexual community far beyond those apparently minor inconsequential changes.

Caution is the operative word. There are alternatives available and I would, if I may, urge everyone to support the motion.

[Larry Spencer, Canadian Alliance, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, providing strong marriages is one of the best things we can do for our children. It is there that they experience love and it is there that they see and experience commitment and develop their character. We only have to listen to children in classrooms or observe them on playgrounds to discover that there is something happening which they are missing out on in some homes where there is not a mother and a father.

I would like to ask the hon. member, whose speech I really appreciated and who has made some excellent points, if he would elaborate a little. Does he believe that this would lead to more harmful settings for the children of this nation?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think in all candour I will refer to a presentation at the justice committee by Professor Allen, from the University of British Columbia, I think it was. He read Hansard after the debates on no fault divorce. His comment was that pretty well no one in the House, either ministers or MPs, actually predicted the consequences of this small change to the Divorce Act.

So in all candour, I do not know how this small change to the definition of marriage will affect our society. I do not really think it will affect me and my generation. I think it will, however, play out over the generations and I do not see that as a good thing.

Heterosexual marriage as it presently exists is easily the best way in which men relate to women, it is easily the best way in which women relate to men and it is easily the best way in which children relate to their parents. That is a socially incontrovertible fact. All other forms of relationships are inferior to that and it is statistically verifiable that a common law relationship is far less stable than a heterosexual marriage relationship.

I say to the hon. member, who raises a valid point, that I cannot say with any precision how this will roll out. I do have some legitimate concerns. As I expressed, the issue of caution here is operative. There are other alternatives.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member very much for his presentation, but my question has to do with the polls. I have in my office, and I would be happy to bring them over, letters that stack so high.

[An hon. member]

How high?

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

I will bring them here for the hon. member to see. They come from British Columbia right through to Newfoundland, and the people are begging us not to redefine marriage. The other way, I have only so many. That is exactly the way it is. Here is what I want to know from the hon. member. The polls say 48% are for and 43% against, and then the next day it is even. I can tell the House that it is not. In my opinion, 28 million people across this country are for the traditional family, and maybe there are 2 million the other way. I would like the hon. member to tell me how he feels about it.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

First, Mr. Speaker, I think decisions should be made on principles rather than polls. I share with the hon. member the overwhelming number of people who have written to us in a particular way. Today I had 400 e-mails in my office alone, so I understand the dynamic and I understand what is involved here.

We hear the argument that we do not do rights by way of popularity contests. What members need to think about carefully is that the rights component of this debate is significant, but it is not overwhelming. There are all kinds of other components to this debate, which I would submit far exceed the potentially discriminatory effect of the same sex marriage debate.

The issue for me is that we have to balance the rights issue with the multitude of other issues that come in. That is why I think Professor Cere's analogy to the complexity of a web is probably as good an analogy as I have seen.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to participate in the debate on the Canadian Alliance motion reaffirming the traditional definition of marriage. I will try to be very brief so that my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan can share the time with me.

In June 1999, I rose in this very chamber to debate the same motion, quite aware of the future court challenges to the definition of marriage. On that day, parliamentarians sent a powerful message to the judiciary, making it clear where we stood on this issue. An overwhelming majority of members, 216 to 55, on both sides of the House rose to support our motion reaffirming the definition of marriage. By the way, only 11 Liberal members opposed the motion that day.

As it turns out, however, the courts did not care what legislators had to say on the issue. When the Ontario Court of Appeal challenged Parliament by arbitrarily redefining marriage, the Liberals' true agenda came out. The government refused to appeal the Ontario ruling, deliberately undermining Parliament's clear position. After campaigning on their promise, one by one the member for LaSalle—Émard and others are abandoning the public vote they cast in 1999 in favour of marriage and in favour of Parliament's democratic authority on this issue.

The justice minister has referred an amended definition of marriage to the Supreme Court of Canada as a result of three provincial court decisions striking down the definition of marriage as unconstitutional. Once these judges, most appointed by the Prime Minister, have ruled on the issue, the Liberals will demand that a democratically elected Parliament simply rubber stamp the bill.

It is bad enough in this era of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that the judiciary has not only assumed the power to strike down laws but also to read into laws things that are simply not there. It is a wrong precedent and absolutely a slap in the face of democracy.

The government's actions will draw the Supreme Court even further into politics and take away even more power from Parliament. The anointed Liberal leader and next prime minister will have a larger democratic deficit on his hands.

I have attended about 20 wedding ceremonies during the break where people have asked me to keep the traditional definition of marriage. Canadians, irrespective of religion or ethnic background, are disappointed by the Liberal government for their flip flopping in the last four years and for being proactive in changing the definition of marriage, which is the core of family values.

During the summer break, I held very successful town hall meetings on family values in Cloverdale, Fleetwood, and Newton in Surrey Central. My constituents have had a free and fair opportunity to express their views. My office has received a tremendous amount of correspondence on this issue and on religious freedom and family values.

The issue of marriage is at the core of family values. My constituents have told me that family values are important because they value our families. Families are the building blocks and foundation of society. The stronger the families the stronger the communities, and the stronger the communities the stronger our nation will be.

The family is a fact of life. It is not an option but a need of our society. The family is the reason that society exists. The family provides the loving, caring and supportive relationships. Because of families, we are able to nurture, develop and protect our children.

Therefore, federal laws should uphold our family and social values. The Liberals have offered a bundle of anti-family values since 1993. The Liberals have refused to protect the institution of family by not standing up to the challenges to marriage, spouses, family status and structure. Issues like divorce, shared parenting, custody and access and adoption are issues where they have shown weakness, and they refuse to protect children from sexual predators and child pornography, prostitution and abuse.

We know about the sex books for the kindergarten students in Surrey and the films and Internet to which children are being exposed.

The Liberals have refused to raise the age of consent from 14 to at least 16 for an adult to have sex with a child.

The Liberals have refused to crack down on sexual abusers and to put in place an effective sex offender registry. They have also failed to make tougher laws against violent crime and to put in place minimum sentences or other deterrents and prevention. We know the criminal justice system works for criminals, not for the victims.

The Liberals have failed to respect life in assisted human reproductive technology.

We all know about religious freedom in this place. We know about Bill C-250, which is the other side of the coin that is causing serious disturbance in society for religious freedom.

The Liberals have failed to offer equal opportunities to all citizens. They have failed to uphold social safety nets and benefit programs for families: security, CPP, retirement savings and medicare. They have failed to produce a family friendly income tax system that would not discriminate against stay at home parents. Two families in the same circumstances with the same total family income should not have different tax structures or tax bills.

I believe that Canadian law should be pro-family. Families are constituted by marriage, blood relation or by adoption. Marriage is a social institution. Marriage is not an option. It is a precondition for social survival. Threats to marriage and family poses counterfeit moral standards. Redefining marriage will no longer be a carrier of the message that children need mothers and fathers.

Where would the line be drawn on what would constitute a marriage. How about polygamy, age, blood relations? There would be no end to the litigation if this were opened.

Marriage is not only under attack by the courts but also by the ruling Liberal government. The federal government is making a grave error in judgment by not appealing the lower court decision to the Supreme Court of Canada and correcting the lower courts for overstepping their jurisdictions and then leave the decision to Parliament.

It is the role of Parliament, not the courts, to debate balancing conflicting rights in developing public policy and the laws of the land. Judges have the responsibility of finding the law as it exists, as it is made in this place.

Parliament has already given homosexual couples the same social and tax benefits as heterosexual couples in common law relationships. The definition of marriage and spouse were untouched but the definition of common law relationship was expanded to include same sex couples.

Some people say that this is an issue of equality. Marriage is the union of a man and a woman. How can it be equal to a union of two men or two women? I see something wrong with this equation. Moreover, some people say that it is an issue of human rights. I believe that it is an issue of moral values. I believe that the unique character and institution of marriage should be strongly respected and legally recognized.

I will therefore be voting to retain the traditional definition of marriage because it is what I believe in, what my constituents have told me, it is our party policy and I believe it is the right thing to do.

We will continue to defend democracy and the traditional definition of marriage, and the overall package of family values which the Liberals have polluted and not offered in a real sense to the Canadian people.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech and he used some language that was hard, polluted and everything else, and that is fine and fair. That is what democracy is all about. Everybody can come in the House and voice an opinion.

Parliamentary democracy, as we know it, has been here for something like 25 centuries. On the same token, the privilege of being married, the institution of marriage, of having someone to call a partner, a wife, a spouse, is something that has come down over the centuries.

As we respect democracy and as we respect other's opinions, we also have to respect the opinions of our constituents. When we run for election we say what we stand for and we make it clear if we have a personal vision. I did not tell my constituents my vision on this particular item but I listened very carefully over the summer as to where they wanted me to take this. I received close to 1,500 unsolicited phone calls, e-mails and letters from people who told me they were opposed to same sex marriage. On the same token, I received very few, close to 20 or 25, from people saying they were in support of same sex marriage.

As a matter of fact today I had an e-mail from a couple, two mothers, with a 10 year old son. They told me there was another point of view. They said that they did not intend to get married and I value their opinions.

In 1999 the House overwhelmingly said that a union is between a man and a woman and this House should do whatever it can to protect those basic words.

We are here today to exercise democracy. We are here today to join in this debate. We are here today to take a vote on where the House will go. I will have to listen to the voice of my constituents and vote in the way they want me to.

Therefore I take exception when the member across says that the Liberal members have polluted. I disagree with him and I urge him to rethink his statement.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not say it was the member. I said that it was the party. I and my colleagues have given many examples throughout the time we have been debating this issue.

Let me make one thing clear. I took a position, along with my colleagues, early on in the debate. I advertised it in my local newspaper. I wrote articles inviting the public's opinion. The people in my constituency get what they see. I have backbone and I stand with it. When I put my name on the ballot, people will vote for who I am. I will not be changing my opinion after four years like those members have done on their side.

There are 301 members in this Chamber who represent 301 different communities. Leadership is not about looking at the polls and then making a decision. Leadership is about taking a principled position, standing behind it and then developing a consensus based on that.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It being 5:15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.