Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Majority of Canadians Say Keep Same-Sex Marriage

(Linky-pops to article) Singalongs of "Oh Canada", hockey classes and poutain eating contests on the rise as potential refugees prepare for northern migration.
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2 comments:

LNewsEditor said...

JIC Post:

Most Canadians want same-sex bill to stand: poll

CTV.ca News Staff

Canadians do not want politicians to undo historic legislation on same-sex marriage, despite a promise from the Conservatives that they would repeal the bill.

A new poll of 1,000 Canadians conducted by The Strategic Counsel for CTV/The Globe and Mail finds 55 per cent of those surveyed say the next government should let same-sex marriage legislation stand.

Thirty-nine per cent said they would like to see Bill C-38 repealed, and six per cent said they did not know.

Those results seem to back up remarks made by Prime Minister Paul Martin two weeks ago that the majority of Canadians do not want revisit the issue. They also appear to contradict a promise made by Conservative Leader Stephen Harper to rescind the bill if he becomes prime minister in the next election.

In fact, Harper's stance on the bill may be giving the Liberals a boost, according to analysis by The Strategic Counsel.

"Harper is helping to consolidate and solidify Liberal support," The Strategic Counsel said in a news release.

"Liberal-NDP switchers are much more inclined to want this legislation to stand than to have it repealed. In essence, Harper is giving these switchers more reason to consider voting Liberal."

Those surveyed listed the same-sex marriage bill as the second-most notable achievement of Paul Martin's minority government, since it took power last June.

When provided with a list of possible achievements, 28 per cent picked the health-care accord, 19 per cent picked same-sex marriage, and the tsunami relief effort came in at 14 per cent.

When not prompted with a list of possible achievements, 60 per cent could not come up with any.

The same-sex marriage bill passed in the House of Commons on June 28, and is now winding its way through the Senate. It will become law once it is adopted in Senate and receives royal assent.

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has already warned the Senate committee that it can't stop the same-sex marriage bill, even if they decide not to pass it.

"Where a law has been found to be unconstitutional, the only options open to Parliament are to either remedy the unconstitutionality - which is what we are doing with Bill C-38 - or to overrule that court decision by invoking the notwithstanding clause," Cotler said last week.

The Strategic Counsel poll surveyed 1,000 Canadians between July 5 and July 10. The results are accurate to within 3.1 percentage points 95 per cent of the time.

7/19/2005 11:11 AM
Anonymous said...

I'm glad the polls are reflecting what Paul Martin has claimed. It would be awfully hard to "take it back" now, surely thousands of same sex marriages have taken place in Canada by now. When we married there in August 2003 we were the 78th same sex union our officiant had performed. That was only 7 weeks into B.C.'s decision to have them.
Our second anniversary is in 39 days!

7/20/2005 3:34 PM

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