Mr. Speaker, as a general rule, the Supreme Court and indeed all courts in Canada are reluctant to rule on hypothetical cases when the opportunity exists for presenting an actual case of law before them. The courts do not like to do this, notwithstanding the lapses in judicial activism that we see more often than we ought to with our courts. The reason they do not like to do it is that a hypothetical case inevitably is a case of policy, as opposed to being a matter of deciding on law. Obviously courts do what they can to restrict the extent to which they are being forced into policy decisions, especially when it is a highly controversial decision on which a consensus does not exist in public opinion.
I think the court quite rightly sensed that it was being asked to make a political decision to get the Prime Minister out of the hot seat. The Supreme Court quite rightly said, “Look, you have other options here”. One option would have been to appeal one or perhaps several of the provincial court decisions up to the Supreme Court of Canada. The court might have, as my hon. colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River suggested, in the end decided to uphold those decisions, or it might not have done so. We will not know. That would have been the best way to go from a legal point of view.
Of course the Minister of Justice understands that entirely, as does the Prime Minister, but they were not looking for the best legal solution. They were looking for a way to get themselves off the policy hook, while at the same time pushing through their agenda on same sex marriage.