Madam Speaker, the hon. member's question is important for the many people who observe our process to understand what is about to transpire.
Once the debate concludes, a vote takes place and, if the bill passes, it goes to a legislative committee. A legislative committee is a committee of the rules of this place where whips from all parties have an opportunity to select their own members and to bring forward the members they would like to present.
One of the realities also in the House, as we have learned, is that this is a minority Parliament and the way in which the committees are set up the government will not be able to maintain a majority vote on these committees. The public needs to know that the committee will be representative of the way in which the House is constituted and, in fairness, will deal with it as best it can, again representing all of the parties in the House and dealing with it in a full and democratic way.
The second point the hon. member raised goes back to the vote in 1999. As the hon. member may know, I was not a member of Parliament at that time, but as an observer it was a situation where one was able to sit back and look at the changes that have occurred in the House over time. I recited a number of changes to the marriage law that have occurred over the years and also to the divorce law. As time passes, the way in which we look at issues changes as well.
In particular, what we have to look at in our case is the evolution from a parliamentary democracy to a constitutional democracy. When in 1982 we entrenched in our Constitution a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that was the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that was chosen by the House. In so doing, we set a standard. We established a set of rules to be applied against all of our laws in this country. That is very important. Many people do not realize that we put that in place as a guide, a sense of direction and a sense of our values being presented in a meaningful way so that it could be judged against all of our laws that come before the courts.
What is the position of our courts? The courts then become the guarantors for each and every one of us. As a law is brought forward and challenged based on the charter, the courts have to look at that law and see if it measures up to the values that we entrenched in 1982. If it does, then they leave it alone. If it does not, then they are our guarantors and have every right to strike down a law of that nature.
I suggest that there is a significant change that has occurred over the last 20-plus years.