The Cadre -

9 February 1999

National News 9

Federal bill recognizing same-sex spouses defeated

BY ERIN FITZPATRICK

OTTAWA (CUP) -- A private member’s bill that would have changed the defi- nition of the word spouse to include same-sex couples in all federal laws died in the House of Commons last week.

The proposed Bill C- 239 was introduced by Bloc Québécois member of parlia- ment, Réal Ménard.

“I’m convinced that there’s something very dis- criminatory in our treatment of same-sex partners,” Ménard said after the bill died on the House floor last Tuesday.

“The Canadian govern-

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ment needs to accept that there are men who love men, women who love women, and that those people are in real, authentic relationships that deserve to be recog- nized.”

In 1995, the govern- ment passed Bill C-33, which effectively outlaws discrimi- nation on the basis of sexual orientation. However, about 70 federal laws remain that still define spouses as a het- erosexual couple.

“We've already recog- nized that we can’t discrimi- nate against gays, so the next step is to recognize their re- lationships as legitimate,” Ménard said.

Because it was a private

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member’s bill, Ménard’s ini- tiative was not voted on, but only debated in the House of Commons for an hour.

Private member's bills are only put to a vote if the MP behind them can con- vince an all-party committee or the entire House that the issue merits a vote.

Both the Reform and ei parties opposed the

ill.

Reform MP _ Eric Lowther defends his party’s position.

“We look at the ben- efits that are there today for couples, and largely those benefits are there in recogni- tion of the social contribution that couples make in procrea-

tion, and the ag Nel the next generation of Canadi- ans,” he said. “That's in the public interest.”

If the government is going to change the word

to include same-sex couples, Lowther said, it should first determine how the public interest would be served by such a move.

The effort to have same-sex — — as spouses, however, didn’t die with Ménard’s bill.

New Democratic Party MP Svend Robinson, who supported the bill, says he plans to re-introduce it him- self in the near future.

“It’s a question of ba- sic equality and fairness,”

Robinson said. “Gay and les- bian people are involved in committed loving relation- ships —1 myself have had the good fortune of being in- volved in one for almost five years. And we're saying that our relationship should be recognized as equal, espe- cially when opposite-sex common law relationships are recognized.”

But it’s about more than just recognition, Robinson says.

“It’s also a question of justice. We pay taxes, we pay into benefit plans like the Canada pension plan, and we shouldn’t be denied equal- ity.”

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