Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his remarks. He mentioned the fact that people sometimes marry for reasons other than just procreation. He gave several examples.
I am thinking of older people, who often no longer have the ability to procreate but who marry for love and for companionship. We consider those marriages equal to any other.
I would like to ask the member a question. He knows the law, he studies it and he continues to learn more about the law. The government has a responsibility, if it sees that the laws of the country need changing, to present bills to Parliament. We debate those bills, as we did in the case of civil marriage. We hear from witnesses in committee, we come to a decision and, finally, we enact the law.
I find it hard to understand why a government would propose a motion setting out what we would possibly find in a bill that it might table, if that were the wish of the House, unless it was because it knows that it can not introduce that bill without using the notwithstanding clause, or that it has no intention of introducing that bill or that it is trying to create division in the House of Commons and in the public.