Madam Speaker, first, in connection with what the Prime Minister has said, I cannot say that in this debate, as in many others, the Prime Minister has been exceptionally consistent. This is not the first time he has come out with things that are anything but clear.
That said, I would invite my colleague to read not only the Supreme Court ruling, but also those of the BC appeal court—from which I read excerpts—the Ontario appeal court and the decision by Justice Lemay of the Quebec superior court. The latter was, moreover, just recently confirmed by the Quebec appeal court. All three have stated in black and white that freedom of religion was not at any risk.
That said, my colleague who spoke Friday raised the possibility that civil registrars could be called upon to marry same sex couples and wondered if they should be given the opportunity to refuse to do so. I would be curious to see anyone get up to defend the right of a civil registrar to refuse to marry a black man and a white woman because of religious convictions. No one in this place would do such a thing.
Why would this be unacceptable in one case and not in the other? If a person is a civil registrar, he is an agent of a lay or secular state, and so must apply the law as it exists. This means that in Quebec, in British Columbia, in Ontario and I hope in all of Canada, very soon, same sex couples will have access to civil marriage and that civil registrars will be required to marry them.