Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to stand in this House today and state my unequivocal opposition to Bill C-38.
I am in agreement with many of my colleagues on this issue, in that I support the traditional definition of marriage which is the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. I believe that all rights can be granted to same sex couples without the need to change this common law definition that stretches back to before Confederation and has helped define this great country for almost 138 years.
The definition of marriage which has been consistently applied in Canada comes from an 1866 British case which holds that marriage is the union of one woman and one man to the exclusion of all others. I believe what the Conservative Party of Canada offers on this issue is a reasonable compromise.
My arguments will not concentrate on these issues. I merely wish to put it into perspective, so that we can compare it to the situation in which we currently find ourselves in this debate.
My discussions will centre on the process by which the government has been attempting to ram this legislation down the throats of Canadians by cloaking its arguments in the mantra of human rights. I want to speak today about the flaws in the process and the lack of accountability to the Canadian people and the method by which we stand here today when we should have been in our ridings having dialogue with our constituents.
There has not been a proper debate on this issue involving the people of Canada and there has not been a proper process followed to allow full debate by parliamentarians.
The government introduced this bill after insufficient public debate and rushed it through the House, and sent it to a committee that I happened to have sat on that in my view did not allow proper examination of witnesses. It was not the proper process. This was a committee that the government knew would discuss the bill quickly. It was designed to get this issue out of the way with little opportunity for debate, permitting no changes. We now find ourselves in extended sittings as we fully expected we would, and we fully expected the government to invoke closure, as it has. The government is shutting down debate. We are going to pass this piece of legislation that flies in the face of the history of our country.
Late in his mandate, the former Prime Minister sent a proposed piece of legislation to the Supreme Court of Canada for a ruling on human rights issues. The current Prime Minister added a clause to that proposed piece of legislation in an effort to hog-tie the court and Parliament. Of course, and thankfully, the court saw through that feeble attempt and made no ruling.
I have several problems with the actions of these two prime ministers. First, this is not a debate about human rights. It is a debate about politics and social policy. Therefore, it should be treated in a much different way from how it has been handled by the current and previous governments.
I and my colleagues, and indeed every person in this place, have been elected by Canadians to debate and decide issues of concern to this country and its people. Whether it is the civil marriage bill, budget bills, assistance for foreign countries, missile defence, assistance for our farmers or any number of other issues, we the elected members of Parliament have been chosen by the people of Canada to debate and ultimately decide the direction of this country.
If the party opposite believed that, it would have followed the accepted process for such issues as Bill C-38. That process would have involved some sort of public dialogue and arguments for and against. The government would have brought the issue before the House and it would never have gone to the Supreme Court of Canada first.
A proper process would have taken into consideration the decisions and wishes of a previous Parliament, a Parliament that included some of our current members, which determined that the only definition of marriage that is acceptable to Canadians is the traditional definition of marriage.
A proper process would have included statements by members of Parliament that they would do everything in their power to defend the traditional definition of marriage. It would have included statements by judges on the Supreme Court that defined and defended the traditional definition of marriage.
Let me offer some examples. In 1995 Supreme Court Justice Gérard La Forest, speaking on behalf of four judges in the majority in the Egan decision, wrote:
Marriage has from time immemorial been firmly grounded in our legal tradition, one that is itself a reflection of long-standing philosophical and religious traditions. But its ultimate raison d'être transcends all of these and is firmly anchored in the biological and social realities that heterosexual couples have the unique ability to procreate, that most children are the product of these relationships, and that they are generally cared for and nurtured by those who live in that relationship. In this sense, marriage is by nature heterosexual.
This statement remains the only commentary on the basic meaning of marriage in any Supreme Court decision and would have been included in any proper debate.
I will offer another example. This House, which at the time included the current Prime Minister, voted to uphold the traditional definition of marriage in 1999 and the amendments to Bill C-23 in 2000, with the Deputy Prime Minister, who was the then justice minister, leading the cause of the defence of marriage.
The following is what the Deputy Prime Minister said in 1999 in her eloquent defence of the traditional definition of marriage. She said:
We on this side agree that the institution of marriage is a central and important institution in the lives of many Canadians. It plays an important part in all societies worldwide, second only to the fundamental importance of family to all of us.... The definition of marriage, which has been consistently applied in Canada, comes from an 1866 British case which holds that marriage is “the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”. That case and that definition are considered clear law by ordinary Canadians, by academics and by the courts. The courts have upheld the constitutionality of that definition.
We have also heard comments from our Minister of Immigration that are consistent with that.
If the bill had followed proper process, these parliamentary statements and the court decisions would have had to be factored into the formulation of any bill that upholds the rights of same sex couples.
There may have been, and rightly so, a referendum. After this type of proper debate, the government would then have presented a bill for first reading, second reading and a proper committee hearing. The proper committee for the bill would have been the justice committee, but instead of carrying out the correct process, the Liberals formed a special committee and then loaded it in their favour. They charged through committee hearings at a blistering pace that did not allow ordinary parliamentarians the time for proper research and questioning of witnesses.
The Liberal chair of the committee ruled suggested modifications by the Conservatives to be out of order and the committee swiftly sent this piece of legislation back to the House for debate and third reading.
As we witnessed last week, the government will stop at nothing and use any trick in the book to avoid proper debate and reach its own predetermined end.
As I prepared this speech I wondered if I would in fact be granted the time to present it here in this place. I wondered that because of what we witnessed last week. I and most Canadians expected the coalition government to barricade proper debate on the bill once again, as it has, and close the doors on this sad chapter in the history of this place.
We all know that if a free vote were allowed by all parties, where MPs could represent the wishes of their ridings, the legislation would fail. It is this lack of proper process and the lack of real democracy more than anything, that I am truly concerned with today. I also have a great deal of concern about the lack of protection of religious freedom and the strengthening of that protection against discrimination for religious beliefs.
At this time I would like to move an amendment. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following therefore:
Bill C-38, an act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes, be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the legislative committee for the purpose of reconsidering all of its clauses with the view to strengthen protection against discrimination for religious beliefs and that the legislative committee on Bill C-38 be reconstituted for the purpose of this reconsideration.