Mr. Speaker, we have acknowledged that people can have relations with whomever they choose. They have the legal right in practically every province to do that.
The member asked what is there about different types of relationships that will dilute marriage. It is the changing of the definition of marriage that will dilute the notion of the uniqueness of marriage between a man and a woman.
About three years ago we saw a reversal in the somewhat disturbing trend of people abandoning the idea of marriage as a social institution as people once again began to embrace and put faith in the aspect of family and of marriage as defined between a man and a woman. Is it not now ironic that as society moves to embrace the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, the courts and their parliamentary accomplices are about to drive a legal stake through the heart of the definition of marriage? We do not have the mandate to do that. It is not our role to do that.
It is not other relationships that will affect marriage itself. It is we as elected people in conjunction with the courts ending marriage as we know it that will weaken marriage.