Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
Let me start by indicating that I will be voting against the bill at third reading. I will be doing so because I consulted with my constituents, using a householder that contained a mail in ballot, in which constituents were asked the following question, “Should your member of parliament vote for the civil marriage act?”
We received back a total of 9,176 responses, with 7,321 advising me to vote against the bill, 1,814 advising me to vote for the bill and a further 41 ballots which were either spoiled or invalid. Therefore, my mandate is clear. My constituents want me to vote against this bill and I will respect their wish. However, speaking frankly, I am relieved that I was not asked to vote for this bill since I have grave concerns as to the implications of the civil marriage act for religious freedom in Canada.
Defence of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience has been one of the hallmarks of my own political career. My very first speech in the House of Commons in 2001 was in defence of the freedom of conscience of Falun Gong practitioners who had been persecuted in China.
In 2002 I offered a resolution, which was adopted unanimously by the House, in favour of freeing 13 Falun Gong practitioners who had ties to Canada and who had been imprisoned in China for expressing freedom of conscience. Some of those individuals are in our country today as free individuals because Parliament took a stand at that time in favour of freedom of religion and conscience.
My loyalty to this foundational principle goes beyond the defence of any one group. I have spoken out in protest against the oppression of Tibetan Buddhists and of both Buddhists and Christians in Vietnam.
One of the reasons I broke with my party to vote against the Anti-terrorism Act in 2001 was because that law effectively criminalized certain kinds of religious beliefs in certain kinds of situations, a feature that at least in theory could lead to the oppression of religious groups, most notably and obviously a danger that existed with Canadian Muslims.
When I say that I am very worried by the absence in Bill C-38 of protections for freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, I hope hon. members will understand how serious this matter is to me.
I am not unique of course in having such concerns. I will read from an article that Father Raymond de Souza, the well-known columnist, published in the journal First Things last year. He wrote, regarding the draft same sex marriage law then before the Supreme Court:
[It is likely to erode] religious liberty on questions related to marriage. First it will be churches forced to rent out their halls and basements for a same-sex couple’s wedding reception. Then it will be religious charities forced to recognize employees in same-sex relationships as legally married. Then it will be religious schools not being allowed to fire a teacher in a same-sex marriage. Then it will be a hierarchical or synodal church not being allowed to discipline an errant priest or minister who performs a civilly legal but canonically illicit same-sex marriage. All of this can happen short of the worst-case scenario specifically exempted in the federal government’s proposed law.
If Father de Souza's concerns seem a bit over the top to some hon. members, let me demonstrate that these concerns are, if anything, understated.
I will demonstrate this by giving a real life example of just how far Canada's courts have already gone to restrict or roll back the protection given to freedom of religion and freedom of conscience and the protection given to those rights under section 2 of the charter when this protection has come into conflict with the currently fashionable but constitutionally unjustifiable, highly aggressive reading of the charter's equality of rights section, section 15.
I refer to the Scott Brockie case, although there are other cases before this nation's courts that I could cite as equally effective illustrations.
In April 1996, Scott Brockie and his family's Toronto printing business, Imaging Excellence, were approached with an order for letterhead, envelopes and business cards for the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Mr. Brockie, who is a Christian, refused to accept the order as it contravened his religious conscience to assist an organization's activities that directly promoted homosexuality, which he believed to be a sin.
Two months later, a representative from the Archives filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, asserting that Mr. Brockie had denied the individual commercial services based on the man's sexual orientation.
In September 1999, Mr. Brockie and Imaging Excellence were found guilty of what was called discriminatory conduct. He was forced to pay a penalty to the Archives of $5,000 and to provide the printing services he had originally refused; in other words, to perform an act that he regarded as being unethical or immoral.
All of this occurred despite the fact that Mr. Brockie was able to demonstrate in court that he had provided printing services to homosexuals in the past and that his objection was to the policy objectives of the organization seeking the use of his services rather than to the sexual orientation of the representative who approached him.
Later, the Ontario Supreme Court rejected Mr. Brockie's request to overturn the decision. The Superior Court had initially awarded Mr. Brockie $25,000 in costs, a decision that the Human Rights Commission and the archives successfully appealed to the Court of Appeals. As a result, Mr. Brockie must now foot a legal bill of $40,000.
In upholding the initial decision of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Ontario Superior Court engaged a logic that, if fully applied, would mean that freedom of conscience has no meaning under Canadian law, except that with which it is endowed by judges who more often than not will not share the religious or ethical beliefs of those upon whose right to act according to conscience they are ruling.
The court started in paragraph 51 of its ruling by citing with approval an earlier case in which the Supreme Court of Canada had “expressed some of the elements of freedom of religion and necessary limits on it”, that is, freedom of religion. It went on to state:
The further [a given] activity is from the core elements of the freedom, the more likely the activity is to impact on others and the less deserving the activity is of protection. Service of the public in a commercial activity must be considered at the periphery of activities protected by freedom of religion.
The court went on to say, “Mr. Brockie's exercise of his right of freedom of religion in the commercial marketplace is, at best, at the fringes of that right”. It then made an argument in paragraph 56 of its decision that deserves to be quoted at length:
If any particular printing project ordered [of] Mr. Brockie...contained material that conveyed a message proselytizing and promoting the gay and lesbian lifestyle or ridiculing his religious beliefs, such material might reasonably be held to be in direct conflict with the core elements of Mr. Brockie's religious beliefs. On the other hand, if the particular printing object contained a directory of goods and services that might be of interest to the gay and lesbian community, that material might reasonably be held not to be in direct conflict with the core elements of Mr. Brockie's religious beliefs.
Let me start by making the obvious observation of the astounding arrogance of this claim. How can the court know what Mr. Brockie's core religious beliefs are? How can it determine what is core and fundamental to his conscience? When he says certain things are core to his beliefs, how can the court say that no, they are not, that he misunderstands what his own beliefs are and the court will dictate them to him?
There are so many examples from history of this. Let me cite just one example where something that appeared peripheral was actually core to people's beliefs.
I studied Russian history. In the 1600s, in an attempt to modernize the Orthodox church, the czar of Russia instructed that certain changes would occur. For example, the manner in which the sign of the cross was made would be done using three fingers instead of two and certain other apparently limited rationalizations took place. The so-called old believers, and there were hundreds of thousands of them, maybe millions in Russia, were so distressed by these changes they fought them. Sometimes it cost them their lives. Whole congregations allowed themselves, for example, to be burned alive rather than to change to the new rationalizations.
These may seem like peripheral beliefs and practices, but they were not peripheral in the minds of the old believers. I would argue that it is arrogant to assume that any court has the capacity to reach into the minds of other people to determine what is core to their belief systems.
This is as outlandish as the court determining that a Buddhist has no right not to print menus for a restaurant that serves meat. It is as ridiculous as instructing a Muslim that he has no right not to allow the Gideon Bible to be placed on bedside tables in a motel he runs. It is as inappropriate as saying that it is not against the core belief of a Mennonite to refuse to print a pamphlet promoting a war. This is simply inappropriate and arrogant action on the part of the courts. Unfortunately, it is something that could get worse and indeed is likely to get worse under the direction that the government is going.
Kevin Bourassa who runs the website equalmarriage.ca has publicly stated the following warning to religious officials who disagree with his viewpoint. Mr. Bourassa, of course, is in favour of same sex marriage. He stated:
If you are at the public trough, if you are collecting taxpayers' money, you should be following taxpayers' laws. And that means adhering to the Charter....We have no problem with the Catholic Church or any other faith group promoting bigotry.
By that he means opposition to same sex marriage.
We have a problem with the Canadian government funding that bigotry.
In other words, we have a problem with the Catholic church being able to have charitable status but not with the Unitarian church.
I myself am a Unitarian and was raised as a Unitarian, as part of a church that supports same sex marriage. I do not think it is my right to dictate that the Catholic church or any other institution which says that same sex marriage is not moral should be deprived of its equality and its right to speak freely and proselytize its views, any more than I happen to think that the Catholic church should be restricted from saying that divorced persons, like myself, cannot get married in a Catholic ceremony. It is not my right; it is not the right of any person to dictate what some other person's core beliefs are and to say that that person does not have the right to express those beliefs I dictate as being non-core.
This is protection that is completely absent not merely from Bill C-38, but from the entire legislative agenda of the government. It could be central to its agenda, but it is not. I regret that very much. I urge every member of this House to vote against this bill and in favour of protection of freedom of religion and conscience in Canada.