House of Commons Hansard #124 of the 38th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was religious.
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 19th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts concerning chapter 5, “Management of Public Opinion Research”, of the November 2003 report of the Auditor General of Canada.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, your committee requests a comprehensive government response within 120 days.
Bernard Patry Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade concerning the participation of the state of Israel in the proceedings of United Nations organizations.
Alexa McDonough NDP Halifax, NS
Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent for the following motion. I move that the 12th report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, presented on Monday, June 13, be deemed concurred in without debate or amendment.
Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
The Speaker
Does the hon. member for Halifax have the unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?
Dominic LeBlanc LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, you may be distressed not to hear me ask this in the coming days, we do not know, but I will ask once again that all questions be allowed to stand.
Irwin Cotler LiberalMinister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
moved that Bill C-38, An Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes, be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Speaker, Bill C-38, the civil marriage act, has now arrived at third reading stage. This journey has been a long one and, from my perspective, I would say that it started in 1982 when Parliament passed the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
What is important to appreciate is that it was a parliamentary initiative to enact the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to make it part of our Constitution. It was Parliament that then vested the courts with the role of protecting these fundamental rights and freedoms, including equality rights and religious freedoms on behalf of all Canadians.
It was the people of Canada, including minorities, gays and lesbians among them, who invoked the charter and sought remedy and redress from these courts.
It was the courts of Canada, including those in eight provinces and one territory, that held that the opposite sex requirement for marriage was an unconstitutional breach of the equality rights section in the charter.
It was the Supreme Court of Canada that unanimously held that the purpose of the government's legislation, “Far from violating the Charter, flows from it”. The court also held that no religious official can be compelled to perform a same sex marriage if it is contrary to his or her religion or beliefs.
Accordingly, the issue now returns to the place from where it all began, here in Parliament where the people of Canada are now speaking to their elected representatives.
On February 1, the government tabled Bill C-38 in order to fulfil Parliament's responsibilities to respect equality rights by extending access to marriage to same sex couples and to render uniform the definition of marriage across the country, as invited to do so in the unanimous judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada.
The essence of the legislation, anchored as it is in the two foundational principles under the charter, equality rights and religious freedom, involve the extension of equal access to civil marriage to same sex couples while, at the same time, respecting religious freedom.
This has been known to us for over two years. Indeed, it was in July 2002 that the government referred its draft bill to the Supreme Court of Canada. During this period, and it is important and bears recall, all aspects of the bill had been discussed in depth in the House during second reading earlier and in the predecessor standing committee that travelled across Canada, went to 12 cities, heard from over 500 witnesses and received over 300 written submissions, all of which has been incorporated by reference in the testimony and report of the present special legislative committee.
It has been before the courts in nine provinces and territories, before the Supreme Court of Canada in the reference hearing and, most recently, as I mentioned, before the special legislative committee established to examine Bill C-38. That committee met for 21 sessions over the last month and comprehensively examined each clause of the bill, hearing from over 70 witnesses and receiving submissions from many more.
During its comprehensive review, the committee considered 19 recommendations for amendment and, consistent with the principles with respect to amendments and to be consistent with the principles of the bill and within federal jurisdiction, accepted two of those amendments.
I have yet to mention the media, another public forum that has given this issue one of the longest and continuous high profiles in recent history. I am pleased that there has been so much involvement by so many on this important issue and would say that this has been an exemplary democratic discussion and debate.
I have had the opportunity myself to visit every region in this country to engage in that debate with the faith communities, with the cultural communities, with non-governmental organizations and with the whole expression of civil society in that regard.
However, with all this discussion, debate and detailed clause by clause examination, the opposition's main arguments against the bill rests on three assertions that are simply unfounded as a matter of law and unfounded as a matter of policy.
The first argument is that it is somehow open to the House to re-enact the opposite sex definition of civil marriage without using the notwithstanding clause.
That is what Mr. Harper reiterated yesterday.
The second argument is that Parliament can ensure that the equality guarantee is respected through some form of civil union.
The third argument is that the bill threatens religious freedoms.
I fully acknowledge that the legal and constitutional principles--
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I will get to the fourth question if I am not interrupted and the member allows me the democratic right to share my remarks with the people of Canada.
I fully acknowledge that the legal and constitutional principles involved here are complex. I understand there are strong feelings on all sides of the debate and that many Canadians are still struggling with the idea of change to one of Canadian society's central institutions.
I have seen for myself the diversity of answers.
There is a diversity of feelings, respect and expressions, all of which deserve respect, yet here we stand on the final day of debate in this House and the opposition continues to suggest that somehow there are alternatives to the present approach of Bill C-38, which are simply not available. I would like to use--
Civil Marriage ActGovernment Orders
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)
Order, please. I am having difficulty hearing the hon. minister's explanations.
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I indicated, here we stand on the final day of debate in this House, with the opposition suggesting alternatives to the present approach to Bill C-38 that are simply not founded as a matter of law and simply do not exist.
I would like to use some of my short time available to explain in as brief a way as possible what choices are and are not open to us, as well as the costs and implication of those choices, in particular for our values and for our future.
The opposition members have continued during their speeches in the House and in hearings of the legislative committee to suggest that there is a compromise available to us, which would mean legislating the traditional opposite sex definition of marriage once again, this repeated yesterday by Mr. Harper, and it would offer the same rights and privileges of marriage to same sex couples, but through civil union, not marriage.
This alleged compromise is based on two assumptions which involve occurrences that are so unlikely they cannot really be put forward as realistic options and which do not have any real legal grounding in law.
First, the alleged compromise, while technically possible, can be implemented only if Parliament is willing to use the notwithstanding clause, only if it is willing to use the clause to override the charter, court decisions, rule of law and the like.
Second, even if that were to be done, it is unlikely that the law the opposition proposes could survive a court challenge, as Parliament simply does not have the authority to bring about this compromise.
Let me begin with why the notwithstanding clause would have to be used to re-enact an opposite sex definition of civil marriage.
The opposition assertion that somehow it is still open to Parliament to re-enact the traditional definition of marriage, to override the equality rights provisions of the charter, to override the decisions of courts in nine jurisdictions, and to override the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, without using the notwithstanding clause, is based on a leap of logic in law: that because the Supreme Court of Canada did not answer the fourth question put to them by the government in the marriage reference, Parliament is now free to decide the issue any way it wants.
I should add parenthetically that the fourth question that was put, and I added that question to the reference, as to whether the traditional definition of marriage is compatible with the charter, was included not because we intended to argue in support of that position, but to allow those who wished to argue in support of that position to be able to do so before the court. Indeed, the court admitted 28 interveners to provide as full and as fair and as comprehensive hearing as possible on this issue before the Supreme Court of Canada.
As to the question we put and supported as to whether extending access to civil marriage to gays and lesbians was compatible with the charter, the court answered, as I mentioned, and it is important to bear this in mind, that it was not only consistent with the charter but flowed from the principles and values of the charter.
As well, it is incorrect to say that the Supreme Court of Canada did not answer the question asked in the reference without stating that when the court came to question four, the answer, as the court itself acknowledged, was moot. For the court to have answered it at that point, as the court itself said, would have been unprecedented. This is particularly in light of the reason the Supreme Court gave us for not answering that question.
Simply put, the court said it was not necessary to answer question four because courts in six provinces and territories at that time had already come to this conclusion; that several thousand couples had already relied on these court decisions to get married and had acquired, as the court put it, protected rights; that the government had already indicated it would legislate to provide equal access to civil marriage to same sex couples in the reference itself; and, most important, something that is being ignored, that the Supreme Court of Canada had already effectively answered the question when it answered the earlier question on whether same sex marriage was constitutional and unanimously held it to be so.
Accordingly, what the opposition leaves out in its argument for alternatives is that the court, as I indicated, did not answer the question because it deemed the question to be moot, because, in effect, the court had already answered the question before. This does not mean that the court said that whatever decision Parliament makes would be constitutional or that we have a blank slate here. Rather, nothing in the Supreme Court decision overruled the binding decisions in the now nine provinces and territories finding that the opposite sex definition of marriage is inconsistent with the fundamental guarantee of equality in the charter.
As well, the opposition referred to the nine decisions striking down the traditional definition of marriage as being “only lower court decisions”. Somehow it is being suggested that only a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on this subject needs to be followed and so the House would only be required to exercise its power of the notwithstanding clause in the face of a Supreme Court of Canada decision.
This appreciation of the issue is not only wrong in fact, it is contrary to the rule of law. What needs to be appreciated is that where a law has been found to be unconstitutional, the only options open to Parliament are to either remedy the unconstitutionality, which is what we are doing with Bill C-38, or overrule that court decision by invoking the notwithstanding clause. Invoking the notwithstanding clause means that Parliament is publicly stating that it will pass the law despite the fact that it is knowingly unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court of Canada is not the only court in the country that governments are bound to respect under the rule of law. Courts in nine jurisdictions have declared that restricting civil marriage to opposite sex couples is unconstitutional. Their decisions stand as binding on us. They are constitutional law in this country. They are a law for making laws.
The opposition may wish to speculate on what the Supreme Court might have done under other circumstances. However, it cannot continue to state that the House can ignore those court decisions and re-enact the same law that has already been declared unconstitutional.
There is a Constitution in this country. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a centrepiece of that Constitution. This country is a constitutional democracy. W need to conduct ourselves with the full respect for this country as a constitutional democracy under the rule of law.
The opposition would also have us believe that changes to the definition of civil marriage can somehow come about because of an alleged lack of action on the part of Parliament. The problem with this theory is that Parliament had already legislated the opposite sex definition of civil marriage. It was this federal legislation that was considered by the courts in Quebec, not the common law definition of marriage, yet the statute, and I underline statute, was also found unconstitutional by those courts.
Yes, the government could have continued to appeal all of those decisions to the Supreme Court, but did that really make sense? Should more taxpayers' money be spent on appeals in the face of what were unanimous decisions in all jurisdictions and regions of this country? The government made a decision that it was the role of Parliament to craft a uniform Canada-wide solution based on the decisions of the courts and as invited to do by the Supreme Court.
The second mistaken assertion of the opposition is that it could create equality for same sex couples by legislating a form of civil union that would give them the same rights and privileges of marriage. The opposition describes this as a responsible compromise.
However, both the British Columbia and Ontario courts of appeal have already looked at the possibility of a civil union alternative and said that it would be less than equal and therefore unconstitutional and would stand as a pronouncement on the rule of constitutional law in this country.
Even if Parliament adopted this approach, civil unions are within provincial and territorial jurisdiction, as the opposition acknowledges, and leaving it to the provinces and territories to try to solve this question would inevitably result in a patchwork of 13 different civil union schemes that would not guarantee equality.
The compromise offered by the opposition may appear to have a superficial attraction to it but it is simply not possible in Canada's legal and constitutional framework.
Let me turn now to the important question of religious freedom. The government takes this question most seriously, so seriously, as I mentioned, that we took the additional time to refer the proposed legislation to the highest court in the land to make sure that religious freedom would not be threatened. This principle of religious freedom is now included in five separate places in the bill for greater certainty.
The opposition would have us believe that Bill C-38 imperils the exercise of freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is portrayed as the weaker sister to equality, and it is asserted that whenever courts and tribunals are faced with a clash between equality rights and religious rights, equality rights will always trump religious freedom.
Such an assertion ignores both the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the reference and any number of other charter decisions. The Supreme Court has consistently indicated that freedom of religion must be fully respected. Indeed, as the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Brian Dickson, asserted, freedom of religion is the “firstness of our freedom”, to which I referred in many articles that I was writing long before I ever became the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.
If additional specific protections are desired in terms of civic marriage officials, commercial provision of services or rentals of church halls, they admittedly would have to be added to provincial and territorial laws. I have raised this with my provincial and territorial colleagues.
Ontario has already responded, passing a new bill extending further protections for religious freedom. Quebec already has specific protection in the civil code for religious officials who refuse to marry a couple. Other provinces are now considering additional legislative protection. I brought it up in our meeting of the federal-provincial-territorial ministers of justice.
Bill C-38 fully respects the religious freedom guarantees of the charter, and this government has made a commitment to the importance of those religious freedom guarantees. Religious freedom is not threatened here, no more than it was in earlier changes to allow civil divorce, which enabled first cousins to marry and so on, none of which affected religious practice. This is a bill with respect to civil marriage. It does not affect religious marriage, religious institutions or religious beliefs and in fact expressly protects them.
As I have outlined, the compromise offered by the opposition is not possible within Canada's legal and constitutional framework. There are before us today only two alternatives, not a blank slate. The Conservative compromise is not a responsible contribution to this debate in this regard.
Bill C-38 emerges as the only responsible and appropriate constitutional compromise, one that will preserve the important and central institution of civil marriage in our society for both opposite sex and same sex couples seeking that degree of commitment. It will also ensure at the same time that religious groups continue to have the freedom to make their own decisions about marriage, both those who wish to maintain the traditional definition of marriage and those who might wish to recognize marriage for same sex couples.
The charter is the expression and entrenchment of our rights and freedoms, the codification of the best of Canadian values and aspirations, and we are all its beneficiaries. It defines us as to who we are as a people and what we aspire to be. It is in that spirit that this legislation has been tabled and in which this democratic debate and exercise in democracy has been carried out. It is also in that spirit and in that hope for equality, for the rights of minorities and for the protection of religious freedom, that I trust this legislation will be enacted.
Rights are rights. None of us can, nor should we, pick and choose whose rights we will defend and whose rights we will ignore. The government must represent the rights of all Canadians equally.
We understand and we respect the fact there are strong feelings on all sides of this debate. We are talking about a central, longstanding institution of society. We trust and hope that this bill will lead not only to a more respectful solution, but a solution governed by mutual tolerance and understanding, a solution anchored in charter principles of equality rights, minority rights, respect for religious freedom and respect for diversity, and, as I said, which represents the best of our hopes and aspirations for an egalitarian and just society.
Civil Marriage ActGovernment Orders
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)
Before proceeding to questions and comments, may I remind the hon. minister that his comments are to be addressed to the Chair. As he knows, we are not to refer to members of the House by their family names but rather by their riding names or titles.
Brian Fitzpatrick Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Mr. Speaker, the minister has a lot more education in the law than I have. I am a lawyer, a small-town country lawyer, and I guess sometimes we just do not see things as well as the academic people who live in ivory towers do.
If I understand his overarching message today, it is that Parliament must respect the Constitution in every detail and that somehow the Conservatives have this wrong. Last year in the election campaign, the Prime Minister made health care the centrepiece of his campaign. That is what we heard about: health care. Now in his media interviews he says he has accomplished a lot, that he has the cities agenda pushed through and he has early child learning is in place.
Maybe I got something wrong in our law school in Saskatchewan, where Howard McConnell was my constitutional law professor, but it is my understanding that under section 92 of our Constitution and other provisions, municipal government is the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces. Under the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces is health care and the exclusive jurisdiction over education is with the provinces.
I think the minister has to be honest in acknowledging that the government, through its spending power and other means, has invaded those areas of the Constitution. In my opinion, it has violated the spirit of that Constitution by doing so. This government spends more time invading provincial jurisdictions and evading the Constitution of this country than any other government we have had in our country. For the minister to preach about being a constitutional purist in the House of Commons really flies in the face of the record of the government.
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the hon. member's observations have to do with Bill C-38, which is the subject before the House. In fact, I did not hear any direct reference to Bill C-38.
The hon. member made references to matters relating to health care, child care and the environment, and then to the fact that these were invasions of provincial jurisdiction. The last time I looked these were the subject of federal-provincial-territorial agreements brought about with the understanding, concurrence, support and indeed at times even the initiative of the provinces.
We are talking about an exercise in cooperative federalism, which is a central pillar of a whole approach to constitutional law and policy. We are talking about cooperative federalism in the service of the public good regardless of partisan party or politics in that regard. We respected the Constitution for our social justice agenda for the public good and we are respecting the Constitution with respect to Bill C-38.
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a very simple question of the justice minister. The only people saying that traditional marriage is unconstitutional are in fact the Liberals due to the Prime Minister's radical obsession with it.
In 1996, in a majority decision, Justices Iacobucci and McLaughlin stated that, in the absence of statute law, if Parliament enacts a statute law that differs from the court's view, it does not follow that would be unconstitutional. We have a lot of case law and common law in this country that when there is an absence of statute law, Parliament can fill that void by passing a statute and that it would not necessarily be unconstitutional if it differs from what the court may envisage in that absence.
Parliament could just as easily pass a statute law respecting the traditional definition of marriage and put forward that compromised position of civil unions without it being unconstitutional. We have lots of case law that proves that.
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Speaker, I had a sense that this was going to be proposed regardless of what I said. Many of my remarks were spent trying to address that kind of scenario.
The hon. member says that the only one party that wants this is the Liberal Party. I might add that it is not a matter of this party or another party. It is a matter of the rule of law in this country. It is a matter of court decisions in nine jurisdictions following New Brunswick's decision last week, eight provinces and one territory. It is a matter of a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, all of which are constitutional law and a law for making laws.
Any statute about which the hon. member spoke has to comport with the charter, the Constitution, the rule of law and these constitutional law decisions. If we were not to comport with the rule of law, the charter and all these constitutional law decisions, we would have to use a notwithstanding clause and in using it state that all that has been declared as being constitutional can somehow now be regarded as being unconstitutional. That is not the kind of country that Canadians would want or invite.
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the minister's remarks. He kept implying that to use the notwithstanding clause was a negative and somehow dirty thing.
Coming from Saskatchewan where in the days of constitutional negotiations and so forth with Pierre Trudeau, my understanding was that the NDP premier of Saskatchewan, Mr. Alan Blakeney, was one of the people who pushed for this for various reasons. One of the reasons may have been the health care ruling we saw from the Supreme Court where three of the justices referred to the national charter of rights and four of the justices referred to the Quebec charter of rights. However, listening to the minister speak, he continued to imply that using the notwithstanding clause was a bad thing.
The Prime Minister himself has said that under certain circumstances he would use the notwithstanding clause and that with the ruling of the Supreme Court it may be necessary to use the notwithstanding clause to protect a one tier public medicare system.
Does the minister disagree with the Prime Minister because the Prime Minister has backed the use of the notwithstanding clause in certain circumstances? Does he criticize the province of Quebec which has repeatedly, for language legislation, used the notwithstanding clause? Other provinces have, including my home province of Saskatchewan for one piece. Does he disagree with all those uses and criticize every use of the notwithstanding clause including the protection of medicare?
If we are to be consistent, we must be either completely opposed to the notwithstanding clause or we must actually think that it is a part of the charter of rights, which it is, and a part of our Constitution. We should embrace the entirety of the charter of rights and not merely pick and choose different parts.
So, my question again, which is it? Is he completely opposed to the notwithstanding clause or is he opposed to his own leader's position on it?
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said that the notwithstanding clause, as a hypothetical, would be there for that rare possibility in order to protect rights, not to override rights. We are talking about the use of the notwithstanding clause. As I said to the hon. members of the opposition, if they want to re-invoke the traditional definition of marriage then at least have the honesty to say that they would have to use the notwithstanding clause to do so.
They should not invite Canadians to think it could be done by a magic wand of verbiage. If they are going to re-invoke the traditional definition of marriage, they should be prepared to tell Canadians that they are going to use that notwithstanding clause and if they use it, they are going to be overriding the charter of rights. They are going to be overriding the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, overriding decisions of eight provinces and a territory, and they are going to be overriding the rule of law and constitutional law in this country. If they want to do that, at least they should be honest and say that is what they want to do. However, I have not seen that kind of honesty, regrettably, from the opposition in this debate.
Alexa McDonough NDP Halifax, NS
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On the basis of further discussions that have taken place among the parties, I think you would find that there is unanimous consent for the following motion.
I move that the 12th report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade presented Monday, June 13, be deemed concurred in without debate or amendment.
Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)
Is there unanimous consent?
