Garrison calls on Conservatives to keep promise to guarantee equal marriage rights

OTTAWA- Official Opposition Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Critic Randall Garrison (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca) is calling on the Harper Government to follow through with earlier promises to ensure the validity of all same-sex marriages in Canada and to allow non-resident same-sex couples married in Canada to divorce in Canada.

“People have been waiting nearly six months to see these changes,” Garrison said. “If equality was truly a priority for this government we would have seen this legislation brought before the House for debate by now.”

In January, the Minister of Justice needlessly called into question the validity of same-sex marriages entered into in Canada when the only issue in question was a gap in Canadian marriage law which currently prevents non–resident same-sex couples from getting a divorce.

In February the government introduced Bill C-32 to address these problems. However, since then the Conservatives have failed to bring it up for debate in the House of Commons. And though C-32 is an important step to fix this problem it also fails to provide for corollary remedies.

“The government’s bill would leave non-resident same-sex couples in the awkward position of being able to get a divorce but with no legal means to address disputes over things like child custody and division of property,” Garrison pointed out.

That is why Garrison introduced his own Bill, An Act to Amend the Civil Marriage Act (divorce and corollary relief) which would guarantee the legal validity of all Canadian same-sex marriages and fix two other problems in the government’s bill.

“This government promised to guarantee equal marriage rights and needs to act to make that a reality. If they are not ready to proceed with their own bill, we would be happy to see them proceed on the basis of the Private Members Bill I introduced today,” Garrison said.