Elected members of the National Assembly pass often arid laws on insurance, pensions and taxes. They legislate on the opening hours of shops, and even on the color of margarine. But sometimes their decisions touch the very fiber of our lives. We saw this recently with medical assistance in dying.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
Twenty years ago, at the beginning of June 2002, another solemn moment. Unanimously, the National Assembly gave the green light to the “civil union” which conferred on Quebec spouses of the same sex the same rights as heterosexual couples.
PHOTO JACQUES BOISSINOT, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Minister of Justice Paul Bégin, in September 2001
This is without doubt the finest moment of my parliamentary life.
Paul Bégin, former Minister of Justice
As Minister of Justice, Mr. Bégin sponsored Bill 84 at the time. It was the culmination of a process of reflection begun in September 2001. The problems were significant: same-sex spouses did not have the same rights in the eyes of insurance and the Régie des rentes, and were not protected under the sharing of heritage. Furthermore, they could not legally adopt a child. Children from previous unions had no legal relationship with their parent’s spouse.
A significant obstacle: the institution of “marriage” was under federal jurisdiction. Quebec law can go as far… but without using this term.
With the civil union, Quebec was at the forefront in North America in terms of recognizing the rights of homosexuals. Comparable measures existed in the Netherlands or in the Scandinavian countries.
Gay marriage “touches the most sensitive fibers of a society”, said Paul Bégin at the time. It took a dose of courage, but Quebec society was “gone there,” observes the former minister.
Michel Bouchard was Bégin’s Deputy Minister at the time. The civil union, then the “marriage” between spouses of the same sex, “it would have happened inevitably, but it took a push to get there”.
Ottawa will modify the law two years later, but the fact that Quebec has moved since 2002 has accelerated things, believes the ex-Mandarin. For him, the institution of the civil union at the time is socially as important as medical assistance in dying today.
It is for me of equal value. In both cases, we touch on the question of respect for the person. In one case with an individual’s decision to unite with the person of his choice, in the other with regard to what he wishes to do at the end of his life.
Michel Bouchard, former Deputy Minister of Justice
In November 2001, Michael Hendricks and René Leboeuf had already filed a lawsuit to have it recognized that the prohibition of same-sex couples violated the Canadian Charter of Rights. After a long legal maze, Hendricks and Leboeuf were able to marry in April 2004, a right obtained a month earlier, two years after the Quebec civil union.
Gay rights groups were still opposed to his civil union plan, which was silent on the adoption. Bégin recalls a meeting: “I put my fist on the table. I will withdraw my project, I will let things go and wait until in five, six or seven years the Supreme Court declares that you are right. »
Between 2002 and 2004, 508 same-sex couples opted for civil union in Quebec. This number will decrease when, in 2004, marriage becomes available to them. But still today, in Quebec, more than 200 homosexual couples opt for civil union each year.
The issue of adoption
At the PQ caucus the previous fall, the members had cautiously welcomed Minister Bégin’s intentions. Three or four deputies “are of the opinion that we should not go ahead with this bill, the population not being ready, according to them, to accept such a change in our mores”, writes Bégin in his memoirs, In search of a country. Many are concerned that gays are allowed to adopt children.
Those who remember the impetuous sovereigntist will smile. With the civil union, Paul Bégin will be a disciple of the etapisme. Feeling the thin ice, after probing Premier Bernard Landry, Bégin will take a step back: it will first be a “draft bill”. He will keep in his pocket for a while the finding of a survey showing that 54% of Quebecers agree that gays should be allowed to adopt children, and 75% are in favor of marriage between spouses of the same sex.
In the spring, he will belatedly add provisions on adoption, a question that has long been more sensitive among elected officials than among the population. In parliamentary committee, the Barreau du Québec invites the minister to exercise caution. Minority, rather marginal groups express downright homophobic positions. “Homosexuality should not exist. We are against it,” said one of them. Another criticizes that same-sex spouses are “still the object of malevolent expressions and violent gestures”, but adds: “It cannot be said that the homosexual condition is not disordered. »
When the time comes to study the delicate provisions on adoption, Bégin, strategically, proposes to have three young adults, heterosexuals, from such families testify before a parliamentary committee.
In a heartfelt intervention, Annick Gariépy, a young lawyer, evokes the contribution of her mother’s spouse, Gaby, to her education. ” [Des enfants adoptés par des couples homosexuels]you have three here in front of you who, having become adults, are politicized citizens and who come here to tell you how proud they are of their parents, ”says Mr.e Gariépy, who predicts, however, that the “insidious, systemic” reluctance of the population will still be present “in 10 years”.
Twenty years later, Mr.e Gariépy admits, in an interview, “to be amazed at the progress made” since.
The school now recognizes that children can have another gender identity, this is no stranger to the steps that were taken at the time with this legislation.
Me Annick Gariepy
“We felt the wind blowing”
After these testimonies of 2002, Bégin remembers the torrent of support he had suddenly obtained for his bill. “I’ve drafted a lot of bills, but I’ve never seen such systematic support from colleagues, ministers, deputies, and the entire population,” he recalls. “We felt the wind turn after our interventions”, also observes Me Gariepy.
At the time Minister for Employment, Agnès Maltais remembers the development of this project well. “Paul Bégin had warned me: I would need help! We still felt a lot of reluctance in the MP caucus. It wasn’t against gays, but we wanted to protect marriage as an institution,” she recalls.
PHOTO YAN DOUBLET, LE SOLEIL ARCHIVES
Agnès Maltais, in September 2020
A lot of the caucus didn’t know I was gay then. I told the caucus: “If the project goes ahead, I plan to marry the spouse with whom I have lived for 20 years.” There had been a strong reaction of surprise in the room.
Agnès Maltais, Minister for Employment in the Landry government
An important intervention, both in caucus and in parliamentary committee. Benoît Laprise, a very self-effacing and very religious PQ deputy from Roberval, had repelled the reluctance based on faith.
“Your God is a god of hate, mine is of love. People who love each other should be able to live their love fully, “said the MP in a parliamentary committee. For meme Maltais, as for Paul Bégin, it is this unexpected intervention that will have definitively swept away the reluctance.