Northern News Services

Yellowknife (June 24/02) - The vote was 10-1 in favour of the controversial bill that enshrines the right of same-sex couples to adopt children in the Northwest Territories.

And when the final vote came, four of five dissenting MLAs walked out. Jane Groenewegen, David Krutko, Leon Lafferty and Steven Nitah left in a show of protest. Only Hay River North MLA Paul Delorey remained to vote against the bill.

Hansard, the legislature's official record, shows that the debate came down to a discussion of human rights and traditional values:

Premier Stephen Kakfwi: In Canada, we live with a Charter of Rights ....

It is there to put an end to discrimination and to legislation that would be deemed unfair to individuals that live within this country.

One of the great pains or vacuums that some of us have grown up with is the denial of rights. Aboriginal people grew up with that....

One way to look at this is, would you feel any different if your own children were born gay or born of a different sexual orientation, or some of your grandchildren were born with these different sexual orientations?

Would you love them just as much as if they were born of the orientation you would prefer?

Or would they be banished or treated different or denied the love and support, and the fair treatment they should be accorded?

Sandy Lee: I do believe that this is the right thing to do. It is not a question of a weakening of morals or a changing of society without any basis for principles, or anything like that.

I believe strongly that this is not a question about morality, it is really a question about all of us recognizing and respecting the right of everyone to do that which we should all be entitled to, to have our family the way we want to....

I was not planning to speak on this, but I wanted to make sure that voters and the people in our constituency know that we are joining the 21st century.

Brendan Bell: As you know, Mr. Speaker, on certain bills, there is not a public process. We wanted to gauge the level of interest in hearing from the committee on this bill, so we advertised across the territories, asked people to write in, present us with written submissions on their views on this piece of legislation, and we sent them a package -- a plain-language version of the legislation explaining exactly what this did do and what this did not to.

I think one of the questions that kept coming back to my office was this concern the people were somehow not aware that gay people currently do and can adopt, so that was one of the things that we had to straighten out, and this legislation was not going to do anything to change something of that nature, Mr. Speaker.

...So after the plain-language summaries went out, we received a number of submissions. As for concern about the fact that we did not go to public consultation outside of Yellowknife, we made the offer in the package that we sent to the many people who picked them up, suggesting to them that if they wanted to hear from us in their community, to let us know. That did not happen, Mr. Speaker.

Floyd Roland: I have heard many people say that right now somebody who is in a gay relationship can adopt today. They just adopt as an individual. I recall in the 13th Assembly when we did the tour on the Child and Family Law Act we were told of that situation, but it was not enough that that opportunity exists. They wanted it in law and they followed through, and have found at this time members of this assembly that will accept that....

I can say that I am ... embarrassed this time if this law does go through, that more values of residents of the Northwest Territories are just thrown out the window because it is considered not good enough any more....

Now we are saying that family values are going to be removed.

Leon Lafferty: We are putting them into a lifestyle where they have no choice as to which gender they wish to choose for a partner in their future life because as everyone knows a child follows, listens and does what a father does. If you do something a certain way, the way you walk, the way you do things, a child will do the same thing. I do things the way my dad did. I am sure he did it the way his dad did it.

Right now just even the medical facts that are out there with respect to same sex relationships (show) ... they all have a short life span - - 20 years less than the heterosexuals....

I think this is the time to say, do we need to follow Canada? Because we are the Northwest Territories. We can make our own laws. We do not need Canada to tell us what to do. Maybe we need to go to court....

If we are going to shorten their lives by 20 years each, what are we looking at -- maybe the end of mankind or of the human species.

Steven Nitah: Mr. Speaker, I represent a community that is 90 per cent aboriginal. The Northwest Territories is 40 per cent aboriginal people. Talking to elders in my constituency, they do not like the idea of same-sex couples being able to adopt children. They feel they have not been consulted....

(Bill 5) is against aboriginal cultural beliefs, it is against Catholic and some types of Anglican beliefs....

The morality of this issue should be considered. Government is pushing this on people when they should be asking the people "Can we do this?" or telling the people why we have to do this.