Liberal Strategy Clarified on Same-Sex Benefits

In January, Justice Minister, Anne McLellan, announced that she would be bringing in same-sex benefits. It was undecided at that time, however, whether the changes would be made by way of a large omnibus bill or whether they would be brought in quietly piecemeal, in an effort to head off large public opposition to it.

We now have the answer. The government is taking the piecemeal approach. Once some of these bills are passed, they will be used to support even more measures to bring alleged "equality and fairness" to homosexual/lesbian couples.

The first move by the government came with its announcement that the Treasury Board would introduce legislation in April to make a sweeping overhaul of all legislation relating to the pension plans of public servants, employees of Crown corporations, the RCMP and the Canadian military.

Several weeks later, the government went one step further, when it announced that Finance Minister, Paul Martin, was preparing changes to the Income Tax Act to grant same-sex benefits for all same-sex couples in Canada, not just those employed by the federal government.

As its reason for doing so, the government gave the lie that it was required to advance this amendment in order to bring the pension law in line with recent court decisions, in particular the Ontario Court of Appeal decision by feminist judge, Rosalie Abella in the Rosenberg case.

FACTS:

The homosexual challenge to the Income Tax Act in the Rosenberg case was funded by the Federal Court Challenges program. It also funded some 12 homosexual organizations which intervened in the case. REAL Women was also an intervenor on behalf of the family, as well as the Evangelical Christian fellowship. (See Reality, September/October 1997, "Real Women Undertakes Court Interventions," p. 1.)

During the hearing, the pro-family intervenors both pointed out that the provincial Ontario Court of Appeal was Bound by court precedent to follow the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1995 Nesbit and Egan, which held it was not discrimination to give special benefits to heterosexual couples because they made a unique contribution to society by giving birth to and raising the next generation.

To our utter astonishment, Judge Abella dismissed the Nesbit and Egan decision as being wrongly decided, and said that she was not bound by it! This was an incredible presumption on her part. She had no legal basis on which to take such a posiion. She obviously believed her "superior" moral understanding of the issue gave her this unprecedented right to disgard the decision of the higher court.

The lawyer for the Attorney General (Department of Justice), whose duty it was to uphold the law in the case, did not argue the case well. He conceded in the first place that homosexuals experienced discrimination under the Income Tax Act, but that the law was developed only to protect stay-at-home women. He ignored the conclusion of Nesbit and Egan that it was not discrimination because of the unique contribution of heterosexual couples to society, etc.

The Court of Appeal then handed down its predictable decision in support of same-sex benefits. (See Reality, May/June 1998, "Court Rejects Traditional Values - Vriend and Rosenberg," p. 1.)

The Department of Justice then refused to appeal the obviously wrongly-decided Rosenberg decision, it is required to amend the Income Tax Act even though another same-sex benefits case, M v H is still pending before the Supreme Court of Canada. One can reasonably ask just how stupid does the Department of Justice think we are? Obviously very stupid indeed.

Please read the article AJustice Department Hires Market Research Company to Sell Same-sex Benefits,@ p.6. Please write to the politicians listed at the end of that article. This government con-job must be stopped.

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