The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Saskatchewan may be the next province to legalize same-sex marriage. Justice Minister Frank Quennell says the province will not oppose a gay or lesbian couple who takes the matter to court. "It is clearly federal jurisdiction," Quennell said, as reported by CBC. "In the absence of a [federal] court decision, we are reluctant to enter into it unilaterally...we want to respect the certainty of marriages. We don't want a situation we see in the States where we see one thing and the federal government says something else and people who were married are no longer married." Saskatchewan's marriage laws are likely to be challenged within the next two weeks in the same way same-sex couples took their argument to court in Manitoba. With no opposition from the province or the federal government, Manitoba recently began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Meanwhile, a court ruling Friday turned Nova Scotia into the sixth jurisdiction in Canada to allow same-sex marriage. Gay and lesbian couples may also marry in Manitoba, B.C., Ontario, Quebec and the Yukon. A poll released in July by the Centre for Research and Information on Canada suggested 57 per cent of Canadians support same-sex marriage while 38 per cent oppose. A poll released by NFOCF Group a year ago showed a more divisive result: 48 per cent in favour and 47 per cent opposed.
