Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government has put the following motion before the House:
That this House call on the government to introduce legislation to restore the traditional definition of marriage without affecting civil unions and while respecting existing same-sex marriages.
I am honoured to speak for the New Democratic Party in this debate. On a Saturday afternoon in September of this year, Chelsea United Church, just across the Ottawa River and up the road from Parliament Hill, was full. It was standing room only. Many people from this corner of the House from the NDP caucus were present. That afternoon we witnessed Scott Daly say to Éric Hébert:
Éric,
You and I have travelled to so many places, seen so many things, experienced so many milestones together that is difficult to describe exactly what our journey together has come to mean to me. In all of our successes and failures, gains and losses, adventures and mishaps, all I know for certain is that wherever you are I belong beside you.
When I left Kamloops so many years ago I was alone in every sense of the word. You not only helped me find a place in which to be myself, you also expanded my horizon to include a different language, and different perspective, and a new family in which to find acceptance.
I promise you, in front of family, friends and God that I will rejoice with you in your successes, mourn with you in your failures, and persevere with you in your struggles. For your journey is my journey. I promise you that I will share my own dreams, my own fears and my own challenges with you. For my travels are your travels. You and I, we share this odyssey together.
I promise to respect who you are and to honour what you stand for, to be your strongest ally and your fairest critic, to embrace your foibles as well as your strengths, to remember each and every day that what we share is something very unique and special.
I cannot promise to love you more than I already do. I can only say this: if I am a good teacher, if I am a talented writer, if I have found any success in this life we share, it is because you have helped me find the best part of who I am.
I have always loved you. And I always will.
Éric then spoke to Scott in front of all those who had gathered:
Scott,
When I think of our 17 years together and the promises that we made to each other, I know that we have, indeed, lived our love.
I know that God has blessed me with your presence. Our lives together have meaning and our hopes for the future are always brighter when we journey side by side.
What can I promise you now that you don't already know? What can I offer you now that isn't already yours?
Scott, I will do all I can to inspire you, the way you inspire me. I will surprise you from time to time, the way you do for me. I will comfort you when you need it most, as you always have with me. I will be joyful, the way you are, even when the circumstances make it difficult for us both. I will strive to see the world through your eyes, to laugh with your light heartedness, to savour your love and offer you mine every day. Since you bring out the best in me, I will continue to be a better person for you.
And while I may never be a perfect partner, I will always be happiest when I'm travelling with you on the road trip of our lives. The beauty of this road trip is that it doesn't have an end or a destination--it's just an incredible journey with each passing mile more beautiful than the last--and an unending fuel supply!
I stand before you, committed as ever, before God, our community, our family and friends, to tell you that I love you and promise to continue living that love in every way, every day, for as long as we walk this earth together.
In exactly the same way, on August 25, 2006, Laura Chapman and Anne Drummond and their family, friends and colleagues gathered in the rose garden at the arboretum at Queen Elizabeth Park on Little Mountain in Vancouver. At that time Anne said to Laura:
I take you, sweet Laura, to be my partner in life, love and adventure.
I will be at your side for all the risings and settings of the sun, for the days of fullness and through the barren times.
I will support your endeavours, listen to you, forgive you and laugh with you, and above all, I promise to be true and faithful to you and this wonderful love that we share.
Laura then spoke these words:
Dearest Anne, love is a miracle, love is a mystery. I take you to be my life partner in this dance of wonder. I will love you and delight in you. I will whisper to you each morning, dream with you each evening, celebrate your joys, kiss your tears and nurture our love with all my strength and passion.
Back in the summer of 2005 in a restaurant in Stanley Park, also in Vancouver, a lesbian couple from Baltimore, Maryland in the United States stood with a marriage commissioner and made promises to each other. This couple knew no one in Vancouver but had gone there to be married because that possibility did not exist for them back home. They asked two women who happened to be having lunch in the restaurant, also as it turns out visitors from the United States, to be their witnesses. The women agreed. The brief civil service took place in the garden. When the marriage commissioner pronounced them married and they kissed for the first time as married spouses, everyone in the restaurant stood and applauded. Total strangers, randomly selected, stood and applauded this couple's making solemn, joyous promises to each other. A line formed of restaurant patrons to congratulate these strangers, this newly married couple.
A table of folks from rural Alberta had taken photos and offered an email address so they could be delivered. An elderly woman, moving slowly with a cane, waited and gave them huge warm hugs and a blessing. The American witnesses were deeply moved. That such a scene was possible in a public place made them believe that Canada was in a very real sense the promised land.
I feel lucky to have been present when Scott and Éric were married. I am very moved by the eloquence and poetry of Anne and Laura's vows. I am also so deeply moved by the story of the marriage of the women from Baltimore in the restaurant garden and so proud of my citizens for their spontaneous outpouring of support.
For me, these promises, these stories are what this debate is all about. It is about gay and lesbian couples making promises to each other, promises on the one hand that are not unusual because they are the same as couples have made to each other in marriage for years and years. But they are promises that are also very special because gay and lesbian couples have had to fight for the exact same right to make them in public that our heterosexual brothers and sisters have.
They are promises that provide a firm foundation for life-affirming relationships. They provide a firm foundation for families. These promises make our communities stronger by expanding the circle of intimate, justice seeking, loving relationships. These promises give security, security to couples, security to the children of these partnerships, security to our families and our communities. These promises lead to serious legal obligations and responsibilities that are willingly and enthusiastically engaged.
Building relationships, founding families, expanding intimacy in the pursuit of justice and love, providing security, assuming responsibility: all these are foundations of a strong society, all values that contribute to a strong society, all defining aspects of the institution of marriage in our society.
Twelve thousand five hundred couples, 25,000 individuals, have made the same kind of commitment in Canada since marriage became possible for gay and lesbian couples. These marriages were performed by clergypersons and by secular marriage commissioners, all of whom were licensed to solemnize marriages by their provincial governments and given the civil authority to legally marry couples as defined now by the federal Civil Marriage Act.
These couples who chose to be married are not people who want to change the institution of marriage, but instead are people who only seek to be included in this institution, because they believe in the values that it represents and that it supports. They are people who have been raised in families and communities that hold marriage in high regard.
Thousands more in Canada have stood with these couples as members of wedding parties, best men and maids of honour, as members of congregations, as family members and as witnesses. In doing so, we have pledged our support for these couples. We have witnessed their love and commitment and pledged to honour and respect those relationships. We have agreed to be part of their families.
Marriage is stronger in Canada for these thousands of commitments by gay and lesbian couples and by their witnesses. Often we have left these marriage ceremonies inspired with new respect for this institution. In so many ways, gay and lesbian couples are true marriage evangelicals in Canada. They are the people fervently advocating for this institution, an institution that has faced many challenges in recent decades. I believe that gay and lesbian couples who marry have breathed new life into this venerable institution.
At a very fundamental level, the marriage law was about equality for gay and lesbian Canadians. It was about our basic human rights, whether we choose to be married or not. This fact was clearly recognized in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities, even in quarters that have questions about the institution. It was about full citizenship, about clearly stating that all Canadian institutions were open to all Canadian citizens, including civil marriage.
As gay and lesbian Canadians, we recognized, whether or not we sought to be married ourselves, that it was not acceptable to be told that we could not walk through the front door of a key institution of our society. We also recognized that a lesser recognition of our relationships, such as civil union, cheapened our citizenship and made us less than full citizens. Entering a key institution of our society by a side or back door or creating a separate institution to recognize our relationships is not equality and not full citizenship.
The government also knows that it has no jurisdiction to create a civil union possibility, so that suggestion in its motion is misleading at best. The jurisdiction for such a step lies with the provinces, and the provinces have shown no interest in such a possibility since the passage of the Civil Marriage Act and since the court decisions that preceded it and which established the right for gay and lesbian couples to marry in almost every province in Canada.
There was great care paid to ensuring freedom of religion in the law that was passed. No priest, rabbi or minister will be forced to marry a couple against their will. No religious institution will be forced to perform a marriage that is against its beliefs, theology or practice. Indeed, since the law was changed, none have, and none will be. This is not new, in the same way that no divorced couple could sue or has tried and least of all succeeded to sue a church for a marriage if that was against the theology, belief or practice of that church.
Furthermore, to change the law now to remove the ability of gay and lesbian couples to marry will also remove the right of those churches, synagogues and temples which, on the basis of deeply held religious convictions, have decided to marry gay and lesbian couples. In many ways, the religious freedom shoe is now on the other foot. To truly protect religious freedom in Canada, we must protect the provisions of the Civil Marriage Act.
It has also been said that somehow the debate on the Civil Marriage Act was deficient. As someone who was part of that debate in the last Parliament, I want to take serious issue with that position. No issue was more fully debated in the last Parliament. Hours and days of debate were held at every stage of the bill. A special legislative committee held extensive hearings and heard from dozens of witnesses.
That was in addition to the numerous court challenges in the provinces and territories, Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Yukon, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, and in the former government's reference to the Supreme Court and that court's decisions. As well, in the 37th Parliament, the Standing Committee on Justice held cross-country hearings on the matter, hearing from 467 witnesses. There have been multiple court decisions and multiple votes in the House. Hundreds of witnesses have testified and there have been hundreds of hours of debate. Due diligence was done.
This issue has been thoroughly debated in political parties. The NDP, for its part, has been very clear on its unconditional support for the right of gay and lesbian Canadians to marry. Other parties have had significant debates. The matter has been debated in churches, temples and synagogues, in families, classrooms and bars, and on the shop floor, and it is clear that a majority of Canadians do not now want to see a change in the current law.
Thirty-two years ago as a young gay man, I marvelled at the bravery of Richard North and Chris Vogel, a gay couple in Winnipeg, as they attempted to obtain a marriage licence. They did not succeed, but their relationship, their marriage, was subsequently celebrated by a Unitarian church congregation.
At that time, I could not imagine doing what they had done. I could not imagine living in a society where my relationships would be respected and honoured, where I could pursue a lifelong commitment to another man whom I loved and who loved me. I thought my relationships would always face imposed limitations and therefore be less than those of my parents and grandparents.
Thanks to brave couples like Richard and Chris, thanks to their example, their role modelling and their risk taking, new possibilities were opened up for me and for thousands of gay and lesbian Canadians like me. More recently, many other brave gay and lesbian couples put their relationships on the line, pursuing and ultimately securing justice in the courts and here in Parliament.
Éric and Scott, Laura and Anne, the women from Baltimore, and thousands of others have shown us that there is something of great value in the institution of marriage. They have shown us that inclusion in the institution of marriage is worth fighting for. They have demonstrated love, commitment and responsibility. These are the true traditions of marriage in Canada. These are values that truly define marriage in Canada.
Given all that, there is no reason to again debate marriage, no need to change the law, no need for a separate institution for gay and lesbian couples, and no need to limit access to marriage for gay and lesbian couples in the future. Instead, there is real reason to celebrate, to celebrate love, right relationships, commitment, the pursuit of justice, responsibility, and the building of relationships, families and communities, and to celebrate equality.
The witness of gay and lesbian married couples, the family, friends and co-workers who support them, and the Civil Marriage Act make that celebration possible. That is why New Democrats in the House will be voting against the Conservative government motion.
