Question : My question is to both Prime Ministers. The holiest priest of the Sikh religion has issued an edict against same sex marriage. So, to our Prime Minister, I would like to ask how you think this would impact on support for your party among an important constituency and I would like to ask the Indian Prime Minister that as a Sikh yourself are you concerned at all about Canada’s bid to legalize same sex marriage?
Manmohan Singh: You forgive me. I have not understood your question.
Question: You know that Canada is trying to legalize, to make legal, the marriage between two people of the same sex, so a man with a man and a woman with a woman, and I know that your holy priest has issued an edict against it recently.
Manmohan Singh: Well, I do not think it is proper for me to comment on internal Canadian affairs, but certainly, such a thing in our country would not have, I think, wide appreciation.
Paul Martin: Let me just say first of all that this is now the law of the land in seven Canadian provinces and one Canadian territory. This is a decision taken by our courts based on our Charter of Rights. This is a question of equality and the question that would ultimately arise is whether we will use the notwithstanding clause to take away that particularly right and I have made it clear that I would not so.
So, let me simply give you the background. The first is that what the courts have determined unequivocally is freedom of religion. This is a question of civil marriage, not a religious marriage. No church, no temple, no synagogue, no mosque will be forced to provide a marriage in any other way than those which are accepted by its own beliefs. And what the courts have said is that in fact the freedom of religion indicates that the definition of marriage will be determined by that particular religion.