Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to take part in the debate. I want to thank my colleague from Okanagan, British Columbia for allowing me to speak now and he will speak a little later.
From the outset I simply want to put on the record that I support the traditional definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.
The debate is about the Government of Canada changing the definition of marriage; it is as simple as that. The federal justice minister suggested that we change the traditional definition of marriage from the union of one man and one woman to the union of two persons, which is the change that we are actually debating in the House today. I am fundamentally opposed to that and a number of my constituents are as well.
I want to mention at the outset that our party is the only party in the House of Commons that is actually having a free vote on this issue. We can talk about a democratic deficit in the House, as the Prime Minister used to do a long time ago and that he would do something about it, but the fact is we are the only party that will have a free vote in the House of Commons on this issue.
The NDP will not have a free vote. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if you have been observing, which you often do from the chair during votes, some of the members of the NDP have had to leave the chamber during the vote. They are not allowed the intellectual freedom to cast a vote according to the wishes of their constituents and their own conscience, which is a good word and a fair word to use. Of course it is the same for the Liberals. As for the Bloc members, we know how they are voting on the issue.
The Liberals do not have a free vote. It is disturbing to a lot of Canadians that if there were a free vote in the House of Commons, the bill simply would not pass. The Prime Minister has the largest cabinet in the history of Canadian government. All of those people will be forced to vote. They are whipped by the Prime Minister. They hold their positions only because of the wishes of the Prime Minister. In addition, there are the parliamentary secretaries. Three-quarters of the Liberal Party will be forced to vote according to the Prime Minister. There is no free vote in the House of Commons. So much for the democratic deficit and so much for the words of the Prime Minister. They mean just about as much in this issue as any of the other issues we have dealt with in the House.
The sad part of the whole debate is that the Prime Minister is attempting to pit Canadian against Canadian. The Liberals do not want a debate. I want to quote from some comments made yesterday by my colleague from Dufferin—Caledon because they focus on the level of debate the government wants to take us down to.
The government does not want to debate the question of traditional marriage versus same sex marriage. It would rather focus on attacking its opponents as opposing human rights and the charter. This debate is not about human rights. It is a political, social policy decision and should be treated in that light.
That fits in with what we have heard from so many speakers in the House. The previous speaker mentioned the same thing in terms of human rights. He quoted the United Nations charter as it relates to human rights and the whole marriage issue.
We are the only party that will have a free vote. We are the only party that introduced amendments to the legislation which, by the way, were voted down by the government. Again, the government members were whipped by the House leader and the Prime Minister.
We said that we would propose amendments, which we did and which were voted down by the House--Mr. Speaker, you were here for that vote--which amendments would provide clear recognition of the traditional definition of marriage. It is something that the courts were saying that Parliament should do, that Parliament should lead on this issue.
The Supreme Court is acting in a legislative vacuum. The leadership on this issue should have been exercised by the Government of Canada. The Supreme Court would take its message from the Parliament of Canada.
In addition to the recognition of the traditional definition of marriage, we were also proposing to provide full recognition of same sex relationships as possessing equivalent rights and privileges. In addition to that, we would provide substantive protections for religious institutions in the context of federal law, none of which exists under the present legislation.
The churches are afraid of prosecution under the act because the government has not taken the time to provide them with adequate protection. That is an argument that we are hearing from all religions and all denominations. We have seen those cards, letters and presentations from Catholic bishops, Baptist ministers, and the list goes on. Basically every religious group and every denomination in the country has concerns about the direction in which the federal Liberal government is pushing us.
There is an article written by Barbara Kay in the National Post . I want to read it because children are the one group of people missing in this debate. Other members have mentioned this as well. The title of Barbara Kay's article is “It's time to think about the children”. This is the point that Ms. Kay made:
Canadian researchers have made no effort to harvest the views of those who have the most invested in the gay marriage debate--children. Nobody has asked the children if they “strongly prefer, strongly reject or don't care” whether they have a single mom, single dad, mother and father, or two moms or two dads.
She said that “children are by nature social conservatives and will, by nature, respond that they prefer a mom and a dad”. She concludee by saying, “Canada is one of only three places on earth poised to endorse the use of children as social guinea pigs without their consent. And all because our intellectual and political elites haven't ever really thought about it”. They have not thought about the children.
That pretty well lays it on the line. That journalist is speaking for a lot of moms and dads and a lot of individual Canadians.
This is not about voting the wishes of our constituents. It is all about voting our conscience. There are members in our own party with whom we disagree on this issue. We respectfully disagree with each other on this issue.
This is an issue that does not have to come before Parliament. It does not have to be dividing Canadians. The track record of the government is always about dividing. It is never about uniting and bringing us together. This is a debate that should not happen.
The Conservative Party is asking the government to reconsider this legislation. It should reconsider this legislation in light of the impact it will have on our families and our institutions. We ask the government to simply stand back for a minute and listen to individual Canadians.
