Madam Speaker, I realize this has become a bit of a grey area. I would ask the member why we would defer to the courts in the first place. We are the supreme court of the land, in this building, in this chamber. We are the ones who answer to the people in the way that we are elected.
The Supreme Court answers basically to the laws that are made. It takes a look at them. It judges on them. It makes appeals and it makes rulings. There is not a lawyer who will not bring something to the Supreme Court if it is a juicy enough subject, the money is right and so on. That is the nature of our civil society. That is the way it is done.
However, I do not for the life of me understand why we, as the Parliament of the country, who basically write the rules and set them into play, would allow the courts to rewrite something that we really have not had a chance to work on ourselves.
I guess by ignoring it to this extent, the courts have gone ahead, moved into that vacuum and made some rulings with which the vast majority of Canadians do not agree. In fact, there is a lot of talk about judicial activism, that the judges have gone too far in certain areas and perhaps not far enough in other areas. There are loopholes and grey areas. We seem to write laws for lawyers and they will always be challenged.
Bill C-38 if and when we pass it in the form it is in will be challenged. There is no doubt in my mind. Arguments will go on for decades on either side of the issue.
Therefore, we are not really finishing anything here. This is the beginning, as I said, the thin edge of the wedge. We will see arguments go on into the next millennium over this issue. We will get into family situations. We will get into adoption. We will get into all sorts of things of which this is just the beginning.
Many people are saying that it is a rights issue, that somehow some rights are being denied. However, in our Constitution and in some decisions that were made in the late eighties any same sex couple has access to the rights and privileges of any opposite gender couple.
Really I cannot for the life of me understand what it is that they are missing out on at this point, and somehow Bill C-38 is going to be the panacea and make all of that right.