Mr. Speaker, the member should be very careful about attributing information that is not quite right. He mentioned that the amendments being put forward here were somehow by government members. In fact, out of the seven motions to amend at report stage, five of them are by his own party, one is by an independent and the other one is by me to withdraw a clause, not to add anything. The member should be very careful about his facts on this matter.
He further suggests that somehow people are being coerced. I have spoken out on behalf of the family and defended marriage and will vote against Bill C-38 for a third time. However in all honesty I have never heard or felt any pressure by anyone. In fact, the member well knows that it is against the rules of Parliament to try to influence a member's vote, and that would be under a matter of privilege.
The member reacted to something I said in an earlier question and I think we should let this debate go a little bit further. If Bill C-38 did not exist and the other two provinces and two territories just made their copycat decisions, the common law would be across Canada and the definition of marriage would be any two persons to the exclusion of all others. There is no difference between that and Bill C-38 passing.
The question really comes down to what the resolution is. We have the courts changing it but we know there should have been appeals. At the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Halpern decision trashed marriage. We did not appeal that and I want to know why we did not do it? How will we ensure that the line in the sand, being the protection of religious rights and freedoms, will not be subject to the same kind of attack by the courts?