Mr. Speaker, I would like to present petitions from the Canadian Alliance For Social Justice and Family Values Association which contain over 22,000 signatures. This is the largest petition I have delivered in my 10 and a half years as a member of Parliament.
The association has a large and growing membership whose principal purpose is to redress social injustice, protect constitutional charter and social rights, traditional family values and parental rights and to promote the establishment of traditional schools. This group, based in Vancouver, is 80% Canadian Chinese and has worked tirelessly on important family and social issues in British Columbia and nationally.
The petitioners ask Parliament to preserve the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. The petitioners also ask Parliament to acknowledge their opposition to the incorporation of the wording “sexual orientation” in the Criminal Code of Canada for several reasons. In particular the charter rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion will be significantly eroded once the bill becomes law. Sexual orientation is a vague term as it could include all conceivable types of sexual gratification.