Letter from the publisher: In Canada, the courts overrule the people. In Switzerland, the people govern the courts.

By: Link Byfield

In the blizzard of media stories about the homosexual-marriage question these past two months, one very important point has been overlooked. The focus has been this: should Parliament grant gays the right to marry before the Supreme Court of Canada inserts such a right in the Constitution?

When you contemplate the absurdity of the question, I'm not sure why we would care. It's like being asked if you want to commit suicide before someone shoots you. We should be asking instead why we have given judges such immense power to set public policy.

Conservatives recently addressing the roving Commons committee for justice and human rights seemed to think (perhaps naively) that the question being decided is whether homosexual marriage makes sound public policy.

Well, obviously it doesn't, and it does no harm to say so. Neither, however, does it do much good to raise the point, because parliamentarians, roving or sedentary, don't have the power to dispose of it. The appeal courts in three provinces have already decided, and any day now they will be upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada. What a few backbench MPs think matters very little.

As for what the public wants, be serious. This is a decision for the ruling class. This is Canada.

It is not, alas, Switzerland.