The ''Equality Rights Statute Amendment Act'', (formally ''An Act to Amend Ontario Statutes to Provide for the Equal Treatment of Persons in Spousal Relationships''), commonly known as Bill 167, was a proposed law in the
Canadian province
Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British Nor ...
of
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, introduced by the government of
Bob Rae
Robert Keith Rae (born August 2, 1948) is a Canadian diplomat and former politician who is the current Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations since 2020. He previously served as the 21st premier of Ontario from 1990 to 1995, leader of th ...
in 1994, which would have provided same-sex couples with rights and obligations mostly equal to those of opposite-sex common law couples by amending the definition of "spouse" in 79 provincial statutes. Despite the changes, the bill did not formally confer
same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...
rights in the province, as the definition of marriage in Canada is under federal jurisdiction; instead, the bill proposed a status similar to
civil union
A civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage, created primarily as a means to provide recognition in law for same-sex couples. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage ...
s for same-sex couples, although it was not explicitly labelled as such since the term was not yet in widespread international use.
The legislation was in part a response to a 1992 ruling by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in the case of Michael Leshner and Michael Stark, which obligated the government to provide spousal benefits to same-sex partners of government employees.
The bill was first introduced in the legislature on May 17, 1994, by
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
Marion Boyd
Phyllis Marion Boyd ( Watt; March 26, 1946 – October 11, 2022) was a Canadian politician in Ontario. She was a New Democratic member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1999 who represented the riding of London Centre. She ...
. The bill passed first reading by a recorded vote of 57 to 52. Vocal opposition increased between first and second reading as public opposition to the bill began to mount so, in an attempt to salvage the bill on second reading, Boyd dropped controversial provisions such as
adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, fro ...
rights. The move did not win any new support for the bill and it was defeated by a recorded vote of 68 to 59 on second reading on June 9, 1994.
Victoria—Haliburton by-election
Liberal leader Lyn McLeod had long pledged her party's support for legislation extending civil rights to same-sex couples; Liberal MPP Tim Murphy, who represented the riding that included Toronto's Church and Wellesley
gay village
A gay village is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries that is inhabited or frequented by many lesbian, gay, bisexuality, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBT) people. Gay villages often contain a number of gay-orien ...
, had even drafted and presented a similar albeit less sweeping
private member's bill
A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in wh ...
, Bill 45, which passed first reading in the legislature in June 1993 but was delayed as the government prepared Bill 167.
However, the party's response to the issue was dramatically altered by a provincial by-election in Victoria—Haliburton on March 17, 1994, following the resignation of Dennis Drainville. With the Liberals holding a strong lead in provincewide polling at the time, Liberal candidate Sharon McCrae had been widely expected to win the resulting by-election, but the tide changed when the local Progressive Conservative riding association ran a campaign ad:
The ad resulted in Progressive Conservative candidate Chris Hodgson quickly gaining support at the expense of McCrae, and ultimately winning the by-election. Bill 167 consequently came to be seen by the Liberal party as an electoral liability, causing "great panic" in the caucus and leading several Liberal MPPs to switch sides on the issue. As a result, McLeod chose to withdraw the party's support of the bill, and just three Liberal MPPs — including Murphy, who remained the bill's single most vocal supporter — continued to support it. Several federal Liberal MPs, including Jean Augustine, Barry Campbell, Bill Graham, Shaughnessy Cohen and Hedy Fry, intervened to encourage McLeod not to withdraw support, to no avail.
While the withdrawal of Liberal support did not kill the bill by itself, as the New Democrats still had enough votes to pass it if their caucus had been united, twelve New Democratic MPPs were also opposed to the legislation. Rae ultimately permitted a free vote on the bill within his caucus, albeit with the warning that he would not support the dissenting MPPs if they ran for re-election in the 1995 election.
Outside opposition
Opposition to the legislation was also noted outside the legislature.
Aloysius Ambrozic
Aloysius Matthew Ambrozic (born Alojzij Matej Ambrožič; January 27, 1930 – August 26, 2011) was a Roman Catholic cardinal and Archbishop of Toronto. He was made a cardinal on 21 February 1998.
Biography
Ambrozic was born near Gabrje i ...
, the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto stated his objections to the bill granting same-sex couples equal standing to opposite-sex ones, although he insisted that he did not oppose protecting the rights of individual homosexual people.Don Pennell, the leader of the minor socially-conservative Family Coalition Party of Ontario, was quoted as saying that "homosexuals may choose to behave in a certain way but it is wrong for the government to legally sanction and support these choices. This legislation would have put heterosexual and homosexual relationships on virtually the same level, which is morally reprehensible and economically foolish."
Final vote
The final recorded vote on the second reading of Bill 167 was as follows:
Yeas: 59
*New Democrats:
Zanana Akande
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Gilles Bisson
Gilles C. Bisson (born May 14, 1957) is a Franco-Ontarian politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a New Democratic member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 until his defeat in the 2022 Ontario general election. From 1999 to 2022 ...
,
Marion Boyd
Phyllis Marion Boyd ( Watt; March 26, 1946 – October 11, 2022) was a Canadian politician in Ontario. She was a New Democratic member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1999 who represented the riding of London Centre. She ...
Jenny Carter
Jenny Carter (born December 26, 1931) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. She was a New Democratic Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1995, and served as a cabinet minister in the government of Bob Rae.
Backg ...
Shirley Coppen
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Noel Duignan
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Bob Frankford
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Evelyn Gigantes
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Ruth Grier
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Karen Haslam
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Frances Lankin
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Floyd Laughren
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Ed Philip
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Gilles Pouliot
Gilles Pouliot (born May 25, 1942) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1985 to 1999, representing the Northern Ontario riding of Lake Nipigon for the New Democratic Party.
...
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Robert Keith Rae (born August 2, 1948) is a Canadian diplomat and former politician who is the current Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations since 2020. He previously served as the 21st premier of Ontario from 1990 to 1995, leader of th ...
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Len Wood
Leonard Wood (born February 4, 1942) is a former Canadian politician. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1999, sitting for the New Democratic Party of Ontario.
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Mike Cooper Mike Cooper may refer to:
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Gord Mills
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Allan Pilkey (born ) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He served as alderman and mayor of Oshawa, and was a New Democratic Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1995.
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Backgrou ...
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In the immediate moments after the bill was defeated, gay activists in the visitors' gallery of the legislature began to loudly protest and were quickly chased out of the building, in some cases violently, by
Ontario Provincial Police
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) is the provincial police service of Ontario, Canada. Under its provincial mandate, the OPP patrols provincial highways and waterways, protects provincial government buildings and officials, patrols unincorp ...
officers. According to ''
Toronto Sun
The ''Toronto Sun'' is an English-language tabloid newspaper published daily in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The newspaper is one of several ''Sun'' tabloids published by Postmedia Network. The newspaper's offices is located at Postmedia Place in ...
'' columnist Christie Blatchford:
Over the next two hours, crowds of protestors began to gather in both Toronto and
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the c ...
and marched through the streets in what the LGBT newspaper '' Xtra!'' would later characterize as the largest spontaneous demonstration of queer anger in the province since Operation Soap. ''Xtra!'' also argued that the failure of Bill 167 provided other governments with a roadmap of how not to handle controversial LGBT rights legislation and paved the way for future successes. In 1995, the NDP government in
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...
successfully passed an LGBT rights bill that included adoption rights.
McLeod's decision to withdraw the party's support of Bill 167 led to ongoing criticism, with activists and opposing politicians branding her as a " flip-flopper" who could not be trusted to keep a campaign promise. That in turn contributed significantly to the party's defeat in the 1995 election, during which some Progressive Conservative election ads depicted McLeod as a weathervane continually shifting direction with the wind. The resulting perception of untrustworthiness proved more damaging to the party's election prospects than the same-sex benefits issue itself. Even Murphy, who should seemingly have been spared by his status as a champion of LGBT civil rights in the most broadly LGBT-friendly electoral district in the province, was himself defeated by PC candidate
Al Leach
Allan F. Leach (born December 9, 1935) is a former transportation executive and politician in Ontario, Canada. In the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, he was the head of GO Transit and later the Toronto Transit Commission. He was a Progressive Co ...
. Similarly, the governing New Democrats were trounced in the 1995 election; although many of the MPPs who had voted in favour of the legislation were defeated, so were all 12 of the dissidents.
The gay community in Ontario held the Rae government's handling of the bill against the party for many years. In his book ''On the Fringe: Gays and Lesbians in Politics'', the political scientist
David Rayside
David Morton Rayside (born 1947) is a Canadian academic and activist. He was a professor of political science at the University of Toronto until his retirement in 2013,Kyle Rae, cited the failure of Bill 167 as her primary reason for refusing to seek the NDP endorsement in her own campaign for a city council seat in the 2003 municipal election. The bill's defeat also led to the creation of the activist group Foundation for Equal Families.
Subsequent legislation
Bill 5, a similar bill providing same-sex couples with equivalent statutory rights and responsibilities to opposite-sex common-law spouses under 67 provincial statutes, became law under the Progressive Conservative government of
Mike Harris
Michael Deane Harris (born January 23, 1945) is a Canadian retired politician who served as the 22nd premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC Party) from 1990 to 2002. During his time ...
in 1999 to make changes required by the
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; french: Cour suprême du Canada, CSC) is the Supreme court, highest court in the Court system of Canada, judicial system of Canada. It comprises List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, nine justices, wh ...
Court of Appeal for Ontario
The Court of Appeal for Ontario (frequently referred to as the Ontario Court of Appeal or ONCA) is the appellate court for the province of Ontario, Canada. The seat of the court is Osgoode Hall in downtown Toronto, also the seat of the Law Soc ...
, deciding on ''
Halpern v Canada (AG)
''Halpern v Canada (AG)'', 003O.J. No. 2268 is a June 10, 2003 decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in which the Court found that the common law definition of marriage, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, violated ...
'', upheld a lower court ruling which declared that defining marriage in heterosexual-only terms violated the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' (french: Charte canadienne des droits et libertés), often simply referred to as the ''Charter'' in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part ...
. Same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide with the passage of the federal ''
Civil Marriage Act
The ''Civil Marriage Act'' is a federal statute legalizing same-sex marriage across Canada. At the time it became law, same-sex marriage had already been legalized by court decisions in all Canadian jurisdictions except Alberta, Prince Edward ...