According to Statistics Canada, in 2001, there were about 0.5% Canadian gay couples who lived under the same roof. When same-sex marriage was permitted in 2005, there were greater than 45,000 gay couples in the country, and 16.5% of them were married. In 2016, the number spiked up to 72,880 same-sex relationships, and 33.4% of them were married.
The practice of same-sex marriage originally started in the Netherlands back in 2000. Next to it was Belgium in 2003, Spain in 2005, then Canada. The provinces who were first to legalise same-sex marriage in Canada were British Columbia and Ontario, then the rest of the provinces followed.
It was in 2005 that the Civil Marriage Act became enforceable, permitting same-sex marriage all over Canada. Instead of being “husband and wife”, the definition was changed into “spouse”. Moreover, the phrase “natural parent” was also changed to “legal parent” to ensure that support is going to be given to children in case of divorce.
Not all religious denominations acknowledge this practice. Therefore, the Supreme Court made a law based on the “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” that religious marriage officials who are against sex-marriage shouldn’t be forced to perform this practice. On the other hand, the government is responsible for offering civil marriage to gay couples who desire to marry in Canada.
Prevalence of Same-Sex Marriage
On the first year of British Columbia’s legalisation, about 3.5% of couples who were getting married were gay couples, and 54.5% of that population were female partners. About 27.6% of this population were women who once married and 14.2% were men who were also once married.
In the year 2003, Canada, among all the other countries in the world, was the only one who allowed same-sex marriage for outsiders or foreigners. Since then, 5% of same-sex marriages in Canada were outsiders, though 95% of them did, in the end, live in Canada.