moved that Bill C-225, an act to amend the Marriage (Prohibited Degrees) Act and the Interpretation Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to ensure that a marriage is void unless it is a marriage between one unmarried man and one unmarried woman.
There has been considerable interest in the bill by many Canadians. Thousands of them have signed petitions which have been presented in the House. Many are watching now and they will read the debates as they are reported in Hansard . However, they may not understand the procedure and what is going on. I propose to talk for a few minutes about the procedure.
This is Private Members' Business and my bill has not been deemed votable. Therefore it is entitled to up to one hour of debate tonight, after which it will be dropped from the Order Paper without a vote. I am permitted a 15-minute speech and a five minute wrap up. Other members are entitled to speak for no more than 10 minutes each, up to a maximum of 40 minutes.
I wish to use my initial 15 minutes to briefly outline some of the intricacies of Private Members' Business as I am sure most Canadians are not familiar with this aspect of our rules. I wish to discuss my bill and why I believe it is needed now. In my wrap up I shall try to deal with some of the points made by other hon. members.
Like many other members, I have drafted bills and motions. Our names are put into a drum. Once in a while a draw is held. My name was picked and I chose to put forward Bill C-225.
The rules try to ensure that there are about 15 public bills and 15 motions on the Order Paper at all times. A subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs known as the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business meets to select five motions and five bills to deem as votable. This procedure continues as bills and motions are dealt with in the House.
In my case there was room for only one bill to be chosen votable as there are still four votable bills on the Order Paper. A number of bills were vying for this one slot, including mine.
The subcommittee consists of six members of parliament: two Liberals, one Reform, one Bloc Quebecois, one NDP and one PC. The committee listened to the submissions of the MPs and chose another bill as votable. No reasons were given and none are required to be given under our rules. Only one-third of the committee is members of the governing Liberal Party.
This bill which I consider so important gets one hour of debate and then disappears.
That is a thumbnail sketch of how we got here tonight.
Turning to the substance of the bill, section 1 reads:
A marriage is void unless it is a legal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife and neither the man nor the woman was married immediately prior to that union.
There is nothing startling there. It is the definition that we have always known in Canada. I presume most people would think that it is already in the law of Canada. It is not. The purpose of my bill is to enshrine in statute that a marriage is valid only when it is a marriage between one unmarried man and one unmarried woman. In other words, neither multiple parties nor parties of the same sex may get married.
I asked both the previous justice minister and the present justice minister to support the bill. You will hear from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice or some other designated member of parliament as to why the justice minister does not support the bill, but I will tell you now what those reasons are.
One of the things that has been stated in a letter by both the previous and present justice ministers is the following:
The definition of marriage in federal law is not in a statute passed by Parliament, but is found in what is called the federal common law, dating from an 1866 British case of Hyde and Hyde v Woodmansee. This case has been applied consistently in Canada and states that no marriage can exist between two persons of the same sex, or between multiple wives or husbands. Thus, the definition of marriage is already clear in law in Canada as the union of two persons of the opposite sex.
That is what the justice ministers have said in writing.
What is important to note in this statement is that the definition of marriage is to be found in federal common law. Common law is, plain and simple, judge made law. Therefore, it can be changed at any time by judges. There is no statute to guide or restrain judges.
The Department of Justice has indicated in writing reasons why it does not support the bill. According to the Department of Justice one of the reasons is that it is clear in federal law what a marriage is. That is not an accurate statement of the law. Why do I say this? Because there are numerous continuing challenges in our courts to this definition, both by those who wish same sex unions to be recognized as marriages and those whose religious beliefs permit multiple wives or husbands.
One case will illustrate this point. The case is Layland and Beaulne v Ontario Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, Attorney General of Canada, et al. In this case decided by three judges of Ontario in the divisional court, two male homosexuals sued to force the province of Ontario to issue them a licence to marry. If as the justice department states the definition of marriage is already clear in law, we would have expected a unanimous decision against the applicants. In fact, the decision was two to one. I will read some brief excerpts from the dissenting judgment:
I am of the view that restricting marriages to heterosexual couples infringes and violates the applicants' section 15(1) charter rights and that such violation cannot be justified under section 1 of the charter. I also agree with the position of the church that there is no common law prohibition against same sex marriages in Canada.
In this case the church was the Metropolitan Community Church of Ottawa. She goes on: “In the opening paragraph of these reasons, I have noted that the common law must grow to meet society's expanding needs.... To say that the state must preserve only traditional heterosexual families is discriminatory and contrary to the equal benefits and guarantees they”—that is, homosexuals—“are entitled to at law.... A rule with a discriminatory purpose may not be justified under section 1”—of the charter. “Further, I agree with counsel for the applicants that there is no rational connection between supporting heterosexual families and denying homosexuals the right to marry. It is illogical and has no beneficial impact on the goal. To deny them the right to marry is a complete denial of their relationship and a denial of their constitutional rights”.
If the law is clear as the justice minister and the justice department state that it is, then this judge should never have made these statements in a dissenting judgment. The fact is that in the next such application, the dissenting judge could find an ally and the decision could be two to one in the opposite direction. This is entirely possible and predictable since the current law is judge made common law.
If the law is to be clear as the justice ministers would have us believe, it must be confirmed in statutory form so that a judge cannot draw the conclusions drawn by the dissenting judge in Leyland.
The justice department is just plain wrong to say the bill is unnecessary. They say that the usual legislative principle is to legislate only to cure a legal problem or advance a legal issue. Bill C-225 cures a legal problem, namely the incorrect thinking of the dissenting judge and allies she may have in the judiciary, and it advances a legal issue, namely that only single people of the opposite sex are permitted to marry.
The Department of Justice contends that the same concept of marriage is present throughout the world. This also is not accurate. A very large part of the world condones multiple marriage partners, something foreign to our society. Indeed, Queen Elizabeth recently visited the Sultan of Brunei who together with his two wives hosted a state dinner for the Queen. Bill C-225 would confirm that marriage in Canada does not include multiple spouses.
Is there a move to legitimize bigamy or polygamy? Let me quote from an October 1, 1998 article by Stephanie Nolen in the Globe and Mail , a newspaper that has been pushing for the legitimization of same sex relationships for years. Members will not believe it. Talk about current. The editor's note reads:
No need to waste it, so a growing number of couples think. They have embraced an alternative to the married-couple-for-life scenario, a style of relationship called “polyamory” where primary partners branch out to other partners, but in committed relationships too. But in an age when the traditional idea of marriage is taking it on the chin, polyamory makes some sense. Read on.
To quote from the article:
Polyamory (loving more than one) means maintaining intimate relationships with several people.
“There are greater numbers and greater acceptance for polyamory” says Brett Hill, co-editor of Loving More. “It's definitely changed since we started publishing 15 years ago”.
Poly relationships range from the couple in a long-term union who each see other people casually, to the committed threesome, to the polyfidelitous groups living a “married” life in multi-adult households.
Even child raising is better when you are poly, the proponents say.
Boy, talk about poly. The next step is the legitimization of polyamory and trying to get a marriage licence for three, four or five partners.
The justice department's considered legal opinion as the chief adviser to the chief law officer of the crown is “this bill risks opening further debate”. Oh my goodness. Debate. The legal advice of this department is that it risks opening further debate.
The Government of Canada needs a new law firm because that is not legal advice. That is political advice. This is the place for society's policies to be debated and decided, not in the policy cubicles of the Department of Justice and not by judge made law.
My colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, an avowed homosexual, in debate on Monday, June 8 made the following comments with which I wholeheartedly agree: “It is true that we would like the members of this House to make known their views on recognition of same sex spouses. To be sure, a debate must take place. Reformers are right when they say it is unacceptable in a democracy to leave it to judges to make the decisions. My colleague is right saying that this debate should be held in the House. We must vote on an important matter such as this”. He was talking about same sex benefits.
In conclusion, Bill C-225 is the vehicle to have this debate. The concept of marriage as it has always been in Canada is under attack. It continues to take it on the chin, as the Globe article put it.
It is time that the definition of marriage as the union of a single male and a single female was taken out of the hands of judges and judge made law and judge changed common law and put into a statute of the Parliament of Canada expressing the will of the people of Canada. Since the definition in Bill C-225 is argued by the justice department and the justice minister to be clear and since the justice minister has written “counsel from my department have successfully defended and will continue to defend this concept of marriage in court”, there can be no logical reason not to enshrine the principle in statute law.
The only real reason for not supporting this bill is fear of debate. That is not only shameful but it is truly lamentable.
I ask the House to support this bill.