Mr. Speaker, first, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier, not only for his speech today, but for his leadership since this debate began. He worked extremely hard on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. It was very encouraging to see such leadership from the hon. member.
I want to ask the hon. member to again answer the question asked by my friend from Calgary Southeast. He suggested that the courts handed down rulings that are contrary to the will of members. He spoke of what happened with the Constitution committee in 1980-1981. It is true that I had proposed an amendment to explicitly include sexual orientation in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The members voted it down.
Back then, I asked the Prime Minister, then Minister of Justice, whether he thought that, once the charter was adopted, the courts would interpret it so as to exclude discrimination based on sexual orientation. He said that this was possible, that it was up to the courts to decide and that this issue was not yet resolved. In 1985, a parliamentary committee consisting of five Progressive Conservatives, one Liberal and one New Democrat unanimously decided that the Constitution should be interpreted as including sexual orientation. Such is history.