Same-sex Benefits + Authoritarian Government = Madness

Prime Minister Chrétien never pretended that the democratic will was behind the amendments to 68 federal statutes in Bill C-23 which gives same-sex couples the same benefits as given to legally married and heterosexual common-law couples. He knew better. Rather, under the centralized control held by a Canadian Prime Minister (which allows authority over the Cabinet, Caucus and Liberal Party apparatus), he had the power to sweep the legislation through Parliament with ease. In this regard, Mr. Chrétien:

denied his MPs a free vote based on conscience, or, on the views of their constituents. Why waste time with such amenities when he could sweep it through Parliament without this hassle?

permitted only four (4) hours of debate on the bill on second reading before invoking closure, and then moved it directly into the Justice Committee for review. The vote on second reading was 160-61. All the Reform members sitting in the House at the time (31 of the possible 59 members); fourteen (14) Liberals (defying party discipline); ten (10) Bloc Québécois; five (5) Progressive Conservatives and one (1) Independent (Jake Hoeppner, who was dropped from the Reform party by leader Preston Manning, for objecting to the United Alternative) all voted against Bill C-23.

permitted only five (5) days for the House of Commons Justice Committee to review the bill.

REAL Women has done everything within its power to publicize this treacherous bill. In addition to immediately placing it on our web site, we sent out press releases, and wrote an opinion piece on the bill, which was sent to over 100 daily newspapers across Canada.

We also sent a letter, in both English and French, to all MPs, expressing our concerns about Bill C-23. This was followed by a rally we organized on Parliament Hill on March 14th. (See "President's Message," page 5, for the details about our famous rally!)

Finally, we were granted permission to appear before the House of Commons Justice Committee examining the bill. We were initially scheduled to appear on March 14th, but this date was changed to March 21st, because of an urgent vote on the Clarity Bill in the House of Commons that required all Committees to be suspended on March 14th.

It is an interesting side note that the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) was refused permission to appear before the Committee. As a result, NAC issued a press release on March 8th, stating that it was "appalled" that the largest women's
organization in Canada (sic) had not been granted permission to appear before the Justice Committee on Bill C-23.

NAC claimed in its release that it represented 740 organizations encompassing over 3 million women. In the press release, NAC President, Joan Grant-Cummings was quoted as follows:

At least 50% of our members are lesbians and there are no lesbian groups appearing before the Committee.

A call was placed to NAC's Communications office listed at the end of the press release to verify this astonishing statistic as to lesbians in the organization. The caller was assured that NAC believes that half of its members are lesbians and that there are over 1.5 million lesbians in the organization. The next day, however, on reflection, NAC issued another press release suggesting that perhaps half its members were not really lesbians, but rather, they meant that 50% of NAC's membership were friends/relatives of lesbians who would be "affected" by C-23!

REAL Women Appearance Before
the Justice Committee

At the Committee hearing on March 21st, REAL Women made the following points:

- We expressed, as a matter of record, our strong objections to the ruthless way in which the bill was ignoring the views of the Canadian public and being swept through Parliament by manipulating the House of Commons rules.

-Bill C-23 destroys the traditional understanding of marriage and provides an opportunity for the activist Supreme Court of Canada to set aside legal marriage as applying only to a man and a woman and extending it to same-sex couples. This is based on the fact that Bill C-23 provides the same rights and benefits to homosexual and lesbian partners that are currently provided to legally married couples.

This effectively destroys the social policy of holding marriage in a unique position in society, established because its formation has the potential to give birth to children, and, according to Statistics Canada, is the most stable unit in society and the most advantageous to the raising of children.

-The Minister of Justice has incorrectly interpreted the May 1999 decision of M and H which applied to financial benefits between individuals only and has applied this to amend 68 federal statutes, involving government benefits (paid by the taxpayers) to homosexual partners.

-Ms. McLellan has ignored the 1995 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Nesbit and Egan that held it was NOT DISCRIMINATORY to provide special benefits to legally married couples because of the unique contribution they make to Canadian society.

-Benefits to be paid under Bill C-23 are based on "conjugal relationships." Although "conjugality" is the cornerstone of this bill, it was left to the Supreme Court of Canada to define it (because politically, it was too hot to define it in the bill). Undoubtedly the court will define it as a relationship based on the couple's private sexual activity. That is, no sex, no benefits!

This is discriminatory against other arrangements, such as a mother/child, siblings, or even friends who reside together.

-The government does not know the cost implications of this bill. It is fiscally irresponsible to amend 68 statutes without having any knowledge of its cost to the taxpayer.

-The bill is not in accordance with the public's wishes. According to an Angus Reid Poll commissioned by the Department of Justice in June 1999, 67% of Canadians support the extending of benefits based on economic dependency ONLY if the traditional definition of marriage remains the law in Canada, which Bill C-23 fails to do.

Committee's Response to
REAL Women's Presentation

The Committee (apart from Reform Family Critic, Mr. Eric Lowther) was not interested. The two homosexual MPs on the Committee, Svend Robinson (NDP) and Réal Menard (BQ), dominated the proceedings, while the sleepy and obedient Liberal MPs just followed orders from the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister's Office and did not respond to our presentation.

The government, since it has a majority in the House of Commons, has a majority of members on the Justice Committee. These Liberal MPs, of course, are there to follow instructions issued by the Prime Minister - namely, speed the bill through Committee - hence their reluctance to engage us in debate. (Perhaps, too, they were afraid of our truthful responses.)

The two homosexual MPs attempted to discredit our presentation, but with little success.

Justice Minister's Response

Letters, phone calls, and e-mails objecting to Bill C-23 have flooded into the MPs offices (our deepest thanks to our wonderful members who have played such a significant role in this regard). This has led to trouble within the Liberal caucus whose members do not want to face an election, probably as early as this fall, with this bill hanging as a millstone around their necks.

Consequently, on March 22, Minister of Justice Anne McLellan was forced to make an amendment to the bill in which she added the definition of marriage as "the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others." In response, REAL Women immediately issued a press release which stated in part as follows:

Justice Minister Anne McLellan, in an attempt to save controversial Bill C-23 (same-sex benefits) has made a political, but not a legally substantive, amendment to the bill by adding the definition of legal marriage.

Her amendment is merely cosmetic and has little legal merit since the Supreme Court of Canada can sweep aside this definition in the legal challenges already proceeding through the courts by same-sex couples demanding the right to enter into legal marriage.

Finally, we stated:

The only way to legally protect traditional marriage from a judicially activist court, because of the provision of Bill C-23, is to:

· reject the bill in its entirety, or
· include in the amendment proposed by Ms. McLellan, the notwithstanding clause (section 33 of the Charter of Rights), or alternatively
· amend the federal Marriage Act to provide the traditional definition of marriage with the notwithstanding clause.

We ended our press release by stating:

WITHOUT THE NOTWITHSTANDING CLAUSE, BILL C-23 DESTROYS TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE IN CANADA.

Copies of our press release were then sent to every MP, in both French and English. We could do no more.

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