Madam Speaker, I listened intently with the good work of our interpreters to the words spoken by my colleague from the Bloc. I always say that I appreciate the work of the interpreters because being a unilingual Canadian I can only communicate to those hon. members via the work of the interpreters.
My question for the member has to do with the framing of this debate on an issue of equality, which is the only argument I have heard from the other side that bears any weight at all, and yet the issue of equality has not been addressed since it is only equality for homosexuals engaged in conjugal activity. All others are excluded. Therefore the whole argument of equality falls somewhat short of the mark.
Furthermore, when one compares the struggles for equality in past history with this one, there is a missing link of great significance. There was a time in the United States when people of colour, as they are now called, were struggling for equality. It was a worthy fight and, thankfully, they eventually won it. However the blacks in the United States never asked to be called white. They just wanted the same rights. Similarly in this country and in others, we have had to struggle for women's rights. Thankfully, there have been some large gains made in this.
I think in Canada now there are many fewer areas in which women are discriminated against and yet never have I heard women saying that they want equal rights with men and therefore they want to be called men. They do not. They just want equal rights.
In this struggle for so-called equality for same sex couples, why do they want to use the same word as describes heterosexual marriage and has for millennia? Why not just go for the equality, which I and my party support, and let us not play the semantics game of changing the dictionary and using words that mean other things?