Mr. Speaker, like all members in the House, I listened very intently to the hon. member. In fact, all of us have to recognize the sincere concerns that we have as members of Parliament representing people across this country and, more important, representing everyone and not just particular interest groups.
I voted against Bill C-38 and I spoke in this House on trying to retain the historic and Christian definition of marriage that so many of my constituents have. Even at that time, we were recognizing that marriage in Canada had a very complex definition. Not only is our federal government involved with marriage according to our Constitution but, very significantly, each province issues marriage licences that enable people to become married. In fact, when we dealt with that issue and voted on it, we found that many provinces, Ontario being the lead, were offering marriage licences and people of the same sex were being united in matrimony.
How would the member answer a question in terms of what federal rights we have as federal politicians to deny the province of Ontario the right to issue marriage licences?
Second, it is deeply troubling to me that a government which has a leader whose responsibility is to lead Parliament, to bring bills to this House and define legislation that he wants debated in this House, has not had the leadership ability to lay a bill before the House and instead went to his House leader--