38th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 071
CONTENTS
Monday, March 21, 2005

Mr. Ed Komarnicki (Souris—Moose Mountain, CPC): Madam Speaker, with respect to Bill C-38, the Prime Minister has one thing right, that is, at stake is the kind of nation we are today and the kind of nation we want to be.

The legislation invites Canadians to go down a road they do not wish to travel and to accept as a nation a fundamental change to the traditional definition of marriage, a change the majority of Canadians do not wish or choose to accept. This does not bode well for Canada.

The Prime Minister does not wish to submit this issue to a referendum and he does not care what the majority of Canadians think or feel, but should the bill succeed, it will happen whether he likes it or not: at the ballot box in the next election. The issue is too big and too important for the justice minister, the Prime Minister and his enforcers to decide. It will be decided ultimately by the people of Canada, ordinary men and women who believe in the traditional definition of marriage.

Although our liberal courts and the Liberal Party of Canada would like to describe this as a rights issue, an equality issue or a dignity issue, it is not. If anyone is confused on this issue, it is the Prime Minister himself.

It is amazing when there are no guiding fundamental principles in play how, one step at a time, one can come to a place of confusion. Who would have thought just a few years ago that we would be having the debate we are having today? Even the then justice minister, Anne McLellan, had stated as late as 1999--

The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine): Order, please. The name of a member of the House is not mentioned. Members are referred to by position or by riding.
Mr. Ed Komarnicki: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The then justice minister, as late as 1999, said:

Let me state again for the record that the government has no intention of changing the definition of marriage or of legislating same sex marriages.
She then said:

I fundamentally do not believe that it is necessary to change the definition of marriage in order to accommodate the equality issues around same sex partners which now face us as Canadians.

It was right then. It is right now.

What has changed?

Once again, in 2000 the minister stated, with reference to marriage being the relationship between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, “It has served us well...”. It still serves us well and it should not change.

She stated:
We recognize that marriage is a fundamental value and important to Canadians....Important matters of policy should not be left to the courts to decide.
It should be decided right here in the House of Commons.

This is not an issue of whether gays and lesbians can vote or whether they can serve in the military, and it is not an issue, as the member for Burnaby—Douglas says, of whether gays and lesbians can drink at the same water fountain or ride on the same section on buses or be on the same beach. If these matters were an issue, as some say they are, it would lend credence to the Prime Minister's arguments relating to equality rights and dignity of the person.

The core issue here is the redefinition of a known term so as to include someone who would by the very nature of the fundamental meaning of the term not be included. By reformulating, redefining, diluting or extending the definition of marriage, it has made it mean something other than what it is and was. Marriage essentially is the union of two people, a man and a woman, who consummate their relationship by sexual relations with the potential to procreate.

To change the definition to suit the whim or needs of anyone is not equality. It is catering to the current political thought at the expense of those who actually believe the definition is important and meaningful to them.

The very essence of marriage, its inherent nature, is by definition an opposite sex institution. If we change the very essence of the meaning of marriage, we have destroyed the institution as it is known.

In 2003 in a British Columbia Court of Appeal case, the Attorney General of Canada argued that “legal marriage does not discriminate in a substantive sense because gays and lesbians cannot achieve the ends for which marriage exists”.

This was also referred to in a statement by Mr. Justice La Forest in Egan v. Canada in a 1995 Supreme Court of Canada case, where the justice stated that the essence of marriage:
--is firmly anchored in the biological and social realities that heterosexual couples have the unique ability to procreate, that most children are the product of these relationships, and that they are generally cared for and nurtured by those who live in that relationship. In this sense, marriage is by nature heterosexual.

In the Hyde v. Hyde case, which has been referred to by many politicians and judges alike, seldom has this passage from the judgment been quoted:

Marriage has well been said to be something more than a contract, either religious or civil; to be an institution.

Marriage is not religious marriage or civil marriage. It is an institution. It is more than just a contract between two people. The judge in the Hyde case clearly indicated that.

The Prime Minister and others make the distinction between religious and civil marriage and then deal with civil marriage as if it were something less, and I would suggest only for the purpose of making the real decision easier and getting them off the hook with religious leaders. The reality is that when the Prime Minister changes the definition of marriage it affects all marriage, whether it is religious or whether it is civil.

What the Prime Minister is doing, and he is being less than frank about it, is embarking on a profound change to the meaning of marriage. The time tested definition of marriage should not be simply set aside because somebody has a different idea about marriage. There may be many ideas about marriage, but an idea does not make it so. Ideas have to measure against what marriage in fact is.

Marriage is more than just a committed, loving relationship. To redefine it to mean something less than it is, simply put, is to embark on a slippery slope. While it is true that courts have veered from these defining characteristics of marriage, it does not mean that they are right in doing so.

In fact, the basis courts use to make the decisions they do are subjectively based and based on their perception of society. What gives them the right to be the sole arbiters of this important issue?

In the most recent Supreme Court of Canada case, where the Prime Minister tested the waters by referring pointed questions to the Supreme Court, the court essentially held that “our Constitution is a living tree which, by way of progressive interpretation, accommodates and addresses the realities of modern life”.

In other words, things change as society changes. That is the problem with

ur society. That kind of reasoning allows for an anything goes philosophy. If the courts and politicians start redefining and accommodating a meaning of a thing to suit their own purposes, we could come to a place where the original meaning is lost and the end has no resemblance to its beginning and, in fact, can come to mean the opposite. This path is wrong, ill-advised, ill-conceived and we need to stop it.

Some things in society are solid and foundational, and some things are right and not wrong, and they require no judicial tinkering or political invention or intervention. These are best left alone, in fact protected and defended. Our country will be better for it. The traditional definition of marriage must and should be protected and will be protected from this side of the House.

The Prime Minister, after confusing the issue here as one of equality and rights, now tries to justify, by his inaction, the reason for his position now. He says that the definition of marriage has been changed by courts in seven provinces and one territory. Where was the Prime Minister when he had an opportunity to appeal those decisions and did not? Where was the Prime Minister when the courts had no federal legislation defining the capacity to marry and struck their own course to deal with the common law definition of marriage? Why did the Prime Minister advocate his constitutional responsibility, a responsibility that would have allowed him to define the capacity of marriage in line with his 1999 thinking so the courts would have a basis upon which to make the decisions that were before them?

He now uses his inaction to justify his present position and that this is the law of the land and he cannot do anything about it. In fact, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to rule on the all important fourth question, which was whether the heterosexual definition of marriage was constitutional. However it did say that Parliament had the ability to legislate with respect to the capacity of marriage which would include the definition of having it heterosexual. It did not rule on the constitutionality of that issue as the government's stated position was that it would proceed regardless of what answer the court gave. This is an example of the arrogance of the Liberal government.

The Prime Minister would like to divert attention from the real issue by saying that the notwithstanding clause needs to be used. It does not need to be used until the court rules on it and this party has the opportunity to legislate as does the government on that issue.

The Prime Minister's argument that religious officials are protected by not being required to perform same sex marriages is a very narrow point. It is a red herring and a small comfort to religious leaders, this especially so given the Prime Minister's and the former justice minister's flip-flop on maintaining the traditional definition of marriage. Any religious rights would surely clash with equality rights and everyone knows in such a battle the outcome would be uncertain.

My leader said, “There are fundamental questions here. Will this society be one which respects the long-standing basic social institution of marriage, or will it be one that believes even our most basic structures can be reinvented overnight for the sake of political correctness? There are some things more fundamental than the state and its latest fad”. That is the traditional definition of marriage.

He went on to say, “...marriage and family are not the creature of the state, but pre-exist the state”. We as a state must uphold and defend the traditional definition of marriage.

It is truly a significant time in the history of our country and indeed it is a time where at stake is the kind of nation we are today and the kind of nation we want to be.

As the Prime Minister has stated, “the gaze of history is upon us”. Whose vision of the future of our nation is the correct one? There is no doubt about that and the people of Canada will see to it. The Prime Minister has it wrong. Canadians will see to it that he has it right.