Update #36: Same-Sex Marriage Act
Everyone from journalists to opposition MPs could admit that Pierre Pettigrew made for a better Prime Minister than his predecessor, and seemed to have lived up to the expectation that many held for the late Paul Martin. He had brought the Liberal Party from crisis to stability, minority to majority, from internal division to unity. He had dispatched his Conservative rival handily, and established a healthcare deal with provinces made up primarily of centre-right premiers. But like any politician, even the best, his luck had begun to run out. The first blow came at the 75th First Ministers’ Conference, where the Prime Minister’s proposed Pan Canadian Environmental plan had fallen way to the provinces concerns following the September 27 attacks and the ensuing conflict in the Middle East. Pettigrew had committed some Canadian peace keeping forces, but was hesitant to add any ground troops to the conflict in Afghanistan and the unrest emerging in Iraq and neighbouring regions. As was on display during the healthcare conference with Premiers, Prime Minister Pettigrew held a macromanager style towards policy. He set the agenda, and let others do the work. Thus when it came to conflict in the Middle East, it was often left to his ministers to explain to the house the government’s rationale as to why Canada would not commit resources, even though the ministers themselves did not have the entire picture. There was also the matter of the scandals. As reported by the Globe and Mail in the early months of 2001, documents showed that Pettigrew had taken his chauffer with him on his various foreign trips as Prime Minister, costing taxpayers approximately $10,000. This, when added to the fact that it was wildly known that the Prime Minister frequently vacationed at his Paris apartment that he had owned for the past twenty years, created the image of an aloof government head more interested in luxury than doing his job. For the first time since Pettigrew took office in 1999, the Tories found that there was blood in the water.
The PMO decided to fast-track one of their leader’s coveted pieces of legislation, originally scheduled for after the next election, to pull voter attention away from the scandals and instead on potential historic change. A quick win might reaffirm the Liberal brand as they finalized their campaign footing.
Historically speaking, the golden rule followed by most Canadian politicians was to avoid the controversial stuff and get re-elected. This was especially true after the turbulence witnessed during the eighties to mid-nineties. Within that time span Canada had repatriated its constitution, signed a free-trade agreement with the United States, held various constitutional meetings, which culminated in two failed ratification attempts, and of course two separate independence referendums involving the province of Quebec. Suffice to say, voters were more than tired of the big-ideas and the controversial, and were more interested in a government that embraced the mundane. As such, issues like Same-Sex Marriage fell to the wayside. That’s not to say it wasn’t debated. On September 18, 1995, the House of Commons rejected, 124-52, to legalize Gay marriage. Prime Minister Paul Martin was interested in the country’s finances, not its definition of marriage. Three years later it was rejected once again. NDP MP Svend Robinson, Canada’s first openly Gay MP, tabled a private member’s bill, which was subsequently buried by the house. The House of Commons even voted to reaffirm the definition as being a union between one man and one woman. But if Parliament would not address the issue, it seemed as though the courts would. In 1999 the Supreme Court ruled in M. v. H. [1999] 2 S.C.R. 3 that same-sex couples in Canada were entitled to receive many of the financial and legal benefits commonly associated with marriage. However, this decision stopped short of giving them the right to full legal marriage. Most laws which affect couples are within provincial rather than federal jurisdiction. Thus, rights for homosexual couples varied from province to province. In 2001 and 2002, court decisions in the superior courts of BC, Ontario, and Quebec found that the existing laws were discriminatory against same-sex couples and ran contrary to the equity clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Some within the Liberal caucus, like Tom Wappel, hoped that the government would appeal the decisions. But since Prime Minister Pettigrew had made the introduction of Same-Sex marriage legal as a part of his leadership and election manifestos, and thus was glad to see the dirty work being completed by the courts. While an official government sponsored bill would likely have the unanimous support of the cabinet, the majority of the party, both the NDP and the Bloc, it would most definitely not have the support of the Reform Party and a large number of Tories. On September 11, 2002, the Reform Party introduced a non-binding motion to once again reaffirm the heterosexual definition of marriage. The same language that had been passed in 1999 was brought to a free vote, with members asked to vote for or against the 1999 definition of marriage. By a clear majority, the motion failed.
Suffice to say, the situation was awkward for the Tories, just as the Liberals had hoped.
Jim Dinning was by all accounts a member of the party’s right-wing. After all, he was the architect of the Klein revolution, and was largely known as one of the biggest fiscal conservatives, if at least the most successful one, in the entire country. Yet when it came to social policy, Dinning was far more moderate. This wasn’t a fact he tried to advertise during his leadership campaign. After all, most of the Red Tories and moderates had backed John Tory or Lewis Mackenzie at that point. In order to defeat them, Dinning had positioned himself as the most credible right-wing candidate, meaning he was forced to tamper down on some of his own personal beliefs and instead focus exclusively on fiscal policy. He had won, but was now forced with a situation that could potentially divide his party only a year out from the next election. On the one hand, endorsing the government’s bill would give a large swath of voters the impression that Dinning wasn’t some scary, populist American republican as his opponents attempted to portray him as. On the other hand, if he publicly endorsed same-sex marriage, he opened the possibility of a schism within his own party and a potential revival of the Reform Party in the more socially conservative regions of the country. If the Tories were to be competitive in the next election, they needed their base intact, which meant winning out West. The obvious answer was to allow his caucus a free vote on the matter, knowing that with their majority, and the fact they enjoyed the support from two of the four opposition parties, the government would easily pass their legislation. It was now only a matter of how, as Conservative Party leader, Dinning would vote. He soon announced that he would vote against the measure, but privately made clear that no MP would face retribution if they were to vote in favour of the governments proposed law.
Entitled An Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes, the bill was given its first reading on February 1, 2003 following its introduction by Justice Minister Bill Graham. On June 20, a vote was held in the House of Commons. By a margin of 169-125, the bill passed. Liberals Tom Wappel, Jo Comuzzi, and NDP MP Bev Desjarlais voted against the bill, joining the entirety of the Reform Party and a plurality of the Tory party. Although they were engulfed in several scandals, the Liberals had pulled off yet another major victory in parliament, as well as their last major piece of legislation before the next election.
The PMO decided to fast-track one of their leader’s coveted pieces of legislation, originally scheduled for after the next election, to pull voter attention away from the scandals and instead on potential historic change. A quick win might reaffirm the Liberal brand as they finalized their campaign footing.
Historically speaking, the golden rule followed by most Canadian politicians was to avoid the controversial stuff and get re-elected. This was especially true after the turbulence witnessed during the eighties to mid-nineties. Within that time span Canada had repatriated its constitution, signed a free-trade agreement with the United States, held various constitutional meetings, which culminated in two failed ratification attempts, and of course two separate independence referendums involving the province of Quebec. Suffice to say, voters were more than tired of the big-ideas and the controversial, and were more interested in a government that embraced the mundane. As such, issues like Same-Sex Marriage fell to the wayside. That’s not to say it wasn’t debated. On September 18, 1995, the House of Commons rejected, 124-52, to legalize Gay marriage. Prime Minister Paul Martin was interested in the country’s finances, not its definition of marriage. Three years later it was rejected once again. NDP MP Svend Robinson, Canada’s first openly Gay MP, tabled a private member’s bill, which was subsequently buried by the house. The House of Commons even voted to reaffirm the definition as being a union between one man and one woman. But if Parliament would not address the issue, it seemed as though the courts would. In 1999 the Supreme Court ruled in M. v. H. [1999] 2 S.C.R. 3 that same-sex couples in Canada were entitled to receive many of the financial and legal benefits commonly associated with marriage. However, this decision stopped short of giving them the right to full legal marriage. Most laws which affect couples are within provincial rather than federal jurisdiction. Thus, rights for homosexual couples varied from province to province. In 2001 and 2002, court decisions in the superior courts of BC, Ontario, and Quebec found that the existing laws were discriminatory against same-sex couples and ran contrary to the equity clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Some within the Liberal caucus, like Tom Wappel, hoped that the government would appeal the decisions. But since Prime Minister Pettigrew had made the introduction of Same-Sex marriage legal as a part of his leadership and election manifestos, and thus was glad to see the dirty work being completed by the courts. While an official government sponsored bill would likely have the unanimous support of the cabinet, the majority of the party, both the NDP and the Bloc, it would most definitely not have the support of the Reform Party and a large number of Tories. On September 11, 2002, the Reform Party introduced a non-binding motion to once again reaffirm the heterosexual definition of marriage. The same language that had been passed in 1999 was brought to a free vote, with members asked to vote for or against the 1999 definition of marriage. By a clear majority, the motion failed.
Suffice to say, the situation was awkward for the Tories, just as the Liberals had hoped.
Jim Dinning was by all accounts a member of the party’s right-wing. After all, he was the architect of the Klein revolution, and was largely known as one of the biggest fiscal conservatives, if at least the most successful one, in the entire country. Yet when it came to social policy, Dinning was far more moderate. This wasn’t a fact he tried to advertise during his leadership campaign. After all, most of the Red Tories and moderates had backed John Tory or Lewis Mackenzie at that point. In order to defeat them, Dinning had positioned himself as the most credible right-wing candidate, meaning he was forced to tamper down on some of his own personal beliefs and instead focus exclusively on fiscal policy. He had won, but was now forced with a situation that could potentially divide his party only a year out from the next election. On the one hand, endorsing the government’s bill would give a large swath of voters the impression that Dinning wasn’t some scary, populist American republican as his opponents attempted to portray him as. On the other hand, if he publicly endorsed same-sex marriage, he opened the possibility of a schism within his own party and a potential revival of the Reform Party in the more socially conservative regions of the country. If the Tories were to be competitive in the next election, they needed their base intact, which meant winning out West. The obvious answer was to allow his caucus a free vote on the matter, knowing that with their majority, and the fact they enjoyed the support from two of the four opposition parties, the government would easily pass their legislation. It was now only a matter of how, as Conservative Party leader, Dinning would vote. He soon announced that he would vote against the measure, but privately made clear that no MP would face retribution if they were to vote in favour of the governments proposed law.
Entitled An Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes, the bill was given its first reading on February 1, 2003 following its introduction by Justice Minister Bill Graham. On June 20, a vote was held in the House of Commons. By a margin of 169-125, the bill passed. Liberals Tom Wappel, Jo Comuzzi, and NDP MP Bev Desjarlais voted against the bill, joining the entirety of the Reform Party and a plurality of the Tory party. Although they were engulfed in several scandals, the Liberals had pulled off yet another major victory in parliament, as well as their last major piece of legislation before the next election.
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