Over the past few days I've been doing some research into what Canada's political parties currently think about same-sex issues. One of the reasons why I've been doing this research is because I remembered that Harper and his Conservative party wanted to change the definition of marriage to: 'as the union of one man and one woman'.
In fact, up until at least August 28, 2008, according to Google's cache, the Conservative party website had a page titled: K) SOCIAL POLICY. Under section 63: Family and Marriage; it states: "iii) The Conservative Party believes that Parliament, through a free vote, and not the courts should determine the definition of marriage. A Conservative Government would support the freedom of religious organizations to determine their own practices with respect to marriage.
iv) A Conservative Government will support legislation defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman."
Currently, that page is blank and I could not find anywhere on their site what their current position on this issue is.
Link to original page. Link to Google Cache page.
I also remembered that there was some discussion about this by the other political parties a couple of years back. But what I didn't know and what I sought out was their current positions on same-sex marriage. So, I emailed each of the parties to find out what their thoughts were. Actually, I didn't email the Bloc Québécois as their entire site is in French and didn't look like they cared to let the Anglo part of Canada know what they thought about anything. I see now however that there is a tiny link that shows the archived old version of their site which includes a portion of their old site in English.
The results of my attempt to contact everyone else though were interesting and provided one big surprise. Over 24 hours has come and gone and the only party who answered my simple little query was The Green Party of Canada. The Greens answered back in less than 17 hours. The Conservatives not surprisingly did not answer; moreover they also had the worst email form which asked for a whole slew of questions that one would only need if one were attempting to build up ones mailing list. The Liberals did not answer, which was highly disappointing because they were the ones who helped bring in same-sex marriage federally. The NDP, of which I'm a card carrying member, also did not bother to answer. I think this lack of response from 'my own party' is particularly galling.
Note: I did not use my domain email address in any of my correspondence as I have learned from prior experience that it tends to get ignored/Spam filtered out by government sites due to the word 'gay' in it. I used one of my personal email addresses from my ISP.
The Green Party did come through though and here's what their spokesperson, Andrew Muir had to say:
"Thank you for your email regarding same-sex marriage in Canada. We do still support same-sex marriage.
Canadians believe in freedom from discrimination. This includes people having the right to live their lives without being discriminated against for their race, creed, ethnic background, political beliefs or sexual orientation. A majority of Canadians applaud the fact that Canada was one of the first countries to sanction same sex marriage. Canada's Charter of Rights and laws now do a reasonable job of prohibiting discrimination. However we must be vigilant to ensure these laws are respected in practice and delivery.
In 1996 the Green Party of Canada became the first federal party to officially support the inclusion of same-sex couples in civil marriage, and we are pleased that this issue is now settled. However, much prejudice and discrimination remains, and transgendered people are rarely even considered when laws and public policies are created.
Our vision is of a world free from discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, a world in which difference is accepted and even celebrated.
Green Party MPs will:
- Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to explicitly include gender identity and gender expression as protected grounds of discrimination.
- Amend the Criminal Code to include gender identity and gender expression in the hate sentencing and hate propaganda provisions.
- Repeal s.159 of the Criminal Code. *
- Support public education to end prejudice and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
- End the targeting by Canada Customs of LGBT bookstores and other LGBT businesses.
- Ensure Canada advocates internationally for an end to state-sanctioned discrimination and violence against LGBT people."
* Editor's Note: Section 159 of The Criminal Code of Canada deals with anal intercourse; which should have been struck from the CCofC long ago.
Fascinating! Do the Liberals or NDP still support same-sex marriage? Do they support any of these ideas/issues? I have no idea, because they won't talk to me, and they don't clearly outline this in an easy to find manner on their websites. These are issues that I'm interested in and concerned about as a gay Canadian. Yes, I'm interested in a whole lot of other issues that face us these days but these are still important to me and my vote is going to the person and party that is dedicated to these issues and that is interested in communicating with me. And at this point it looks like the Canadian Green Party is the only one ready, willing and able to do so.
Update -- Sept. 29th:
NDP Answers My Question on Same-sex Marriage and Transgender Rights
