Mr. Speaker, that man is still around; he stands tall and believes fundamentally in the issue of human rights more than ever. I want to explain my position.
The context of and reason behind what I said in the Quebec National Assembly in 1988 was totally different from the current debate. I could turn the question around and say that, to me, the current definition of marriage, which dates back several thousands of years and was universally accepted by all the major religions and by all the people on Earth as the union between a man and a woman, is a given right that must be defended.
That is why, in the Canadian constitution, in the Charter of Rights, section 1 provides for reasonable limits. Earlier I quoted the Ontario court that said we could not invoke the constitution in matters of marriage, which put the former justice minister in contradiction with the Ontario court since she believed it was a clear and well established constitutional issue. The court ruled that this was not possible, because the constitution has to be flexible since society's traditions and customs constantly evolve. The court gave the areas of banking and criminal law as examples.
Marriage is much more than law. The Ontario court said that it was a legal issue, but it goes beyond the law. It seems to me that traditional marriage, the definition of marriage, is a complex web of natural law and moral, religious, legal and sociological elements—