Amidst the welter of issues bedevilling the Liberal Party of Canada as voters prepare to cast their ballots in the General Election to be held on January 23rd is its stance on same-sex marriage, men marrying men, and women marrying women.

Despite promising to allow Parliament a free vote on the issue in 2004, the Liberal Leader and Prime Minister, Paul Martin, reneged on that promise, insisting that all Government ministers must support him, arguing the Pierre Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Freedoms overrode all other considerations.

One cabinet minister resigned, and a number of Liberal backbenchers insisted on upholding the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, the legal recognition of the natural law as it existed for time immemorial.

Canadians were given no choice. The Prime Minister took it upon himself to overrule the natural law, society's conventions, and the various teachings of religious faiths.

Now Canadians have a chance to express themselves.

If the Liberals thought Canadians would conveniently forget all about the disgraceful manner in which they had broken their promise to hold a free vote, their candidates in every riding in the 2005 election are being confronted with voters who haven't forgotten, and who demand an accounting. Voters who were promised one thing and received the exact opposite are making their dissatisfaction known, and in such plain terms that the Prime Minister now says his candidates can tell voters they will be free to vote on the matter, if it arises again, without bowing to party discipline.

That was last year's promise. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." And Canadians are not fools.

After twelve years of one-party rule, enough is enough. It is time for change. New thinking. New policies. New government.

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