Mr. Speaker, this is another occasion where I was not on any speaker's list, but listening to the debate I have become rather interested in what is going on here. I have some comments I would like to add to this particular debate.
First, I would like to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether you can accurately predict what will happen 22 years from now? In what state will the country of Canada be in? What will the world be like? Can you predict that? I venture to guess that you cannot and I would certainly confess quickly that I cannot.
If we look back at 1982 when the charter was put together, I believe that, with some wisdom, those people also said that they could not predict everything and anything that would be in place 22 years from then, in the year 2004.
There were some who recognized that giving unfettered power to the courts without any balance would be an error. Consequently, a section was put into the charter that said notwithstanding, which has come to be known as the notwithstanding clause. Notwithstanding what the charter says, we can do other things.
We do this regularly in this country. We have a law that says we cannot discriminate against a person with respect to race. It says that right in the charter. Yet, we have people, for example, in the Westbank in Kelowna living in a certain territory called the Westbank reserve who, because of their race, are not permitted to vote in the elections of the territory in which they live. There is a difference made based on race. In fact, the government quite happily approved that bill not long ago. It happened last week, I believe. That is considered to be okay, notwithstanding that the charter says otherwise.
I believe that the framers of the charter some 22 years ago, recognizing that there should not be unfettered power given to the courts without some kind of balance, put this notwithstanding clause into the charter.
I can think of another example. We have had quite a bit of debate lately about child pornography. There are some who claim that this comes under freedom of expression. I believe not. Even though the charter guarantees us freedom of expression, there are some limitations to it.
The very common one is that we cannot, in a crowded theatre, yell “fire”, because that would put other people in danger. We can actually be charged if we were to do that because we could cause the death of some people if they were to crowd each other out and trample each other on the way out. We have limitations to every one of the freedoms which is given in the charter.
The bill before us today, as I understand it, simply states that in no way did the framers of the charter, by talking about equality, say that the courts could arbitrarily change the definition of marriage. I agree wholly with my colleague who spoke earlier. He said that this should be a decision of Parliament. It should be done democratically, not by an unelected court. It should be done by the people through their elected parliamentarians.
Since the courts are proceeding in this direction--and, in my view, in a direction which was certainly not envisioned as something which the original framers of the charter wanted to include--I believe that it would be totally appropriate for the Parliament of Canada to say that notwithstanding these court decisions, it wants to respect democracy.
We want to respect the historical meaning of the English word marriage and its equivalent in all the other languages. Notwithstanding that the court has done this, we would like to maintain the definition of marriage.
We are a bit shortsighted when we say that permitting the marriage of any two persons has no ramifications. What happens if someone wants to marry a 10 year old? The charter says we cannot discriminate based on age, but I think we should object to that. I am not sure that will ever be the case, but if the definition of marriage is between any two persons, then that is a possibility.
There is nothing wrong with having restrictions on who can marry. What happens if a man wants to marry someone, notwithstanding that he may already be married to someone else? How can we tell that person that he cannot marry the second woman, or the third, or the fourth? That is a violation of that freedom under the charter. We are going on a very dangerous path.
What societal benefit is there by changing the definition of marriage which promotes the union of a man and a woman? One of the obvious outcomes of that is the production of children and family. I am not denying the fact that there are other arrangements in which families are together. Why should we as a society, as a country, and as a government deviate from that?
I would like to come back to the issue of democracy. We have been deluged with petitions from Canadians. Many people have contacted every one of our offices with many petitions which have been tabled in the House. The petitioners ask that Parliament take all steps necessary to preserve the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. These petitions are not just from one religious group but from many, and they also come from non-religious persons.
There is another issue that we ought to take into account as well. When we propose to change the definition of marriage, we ought to look carefully at what the ramifications would be. One of them is the trampling of people's rights. I will give the House an example.
The British Columbia government has given a directive to all of its justices of the peace that they will either, when asked, perform same sex marriages or else resign. I find it difficult to believe that, without exception, every justice of the peace in that province would be comfortable doing that. There must be undoubtedly some people who, because of religious or other reasons, would not want to do it.
What we are proposing is that only people who have a so-called religious attachment have the right to make that choice. What about non-religious people? Will we trample on their freedom to make this choice? This has already occurred in the Province of British Columbia. People have been told to either do it or resign.
What we have here is a collision of competing ideas and forces. I would like to appeal to the House and to all Canadians to go slowly on this issue. Let us use our common sense and ensure that we do the right thing.