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On July 20, 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world, and the first country outside Europe, to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide with the enactment of the Civil Marriage Act which provided a gender-neutral marriage definition. Court decisions, starting in 2003, had already legalized same-sex marriage in eight out of ten provinces and one of three territories, whose residents comprised about 90% of Canada's population. Before passage of the Act, more than 3,000 same-sex couples had already married in those areas. Most legal benefits commonly associated with marriage had been extended to cohabiting same-sex couples since 1999. The Civil Marriage Act was introduced by Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal minority government in the Canadian House of Commons on February 1, 2005 as Bill C-38. It was passed by the House of Commons on June 28, 2005, by the Senate on July 19, 2005, and it received Royal Assent the following day. Following the 2006 election, which was won by a Conservative minority government under new Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the House of Commons defeated a motion to reopen the matter by a vote of 175 to 123 on December 7, 2006, effectively reaffirming the legislation. This was the third vote supporting same-sex marriage taken by three Parliaments under three Prime Ministers in three different years, as shown below. ==Same-sex marriage by province== Same-sex marriage was legally recognized in the provinces and territories as of the following dates: *June 10, 2003: Ontario *July 8, 2003: British Columbia *March 19, 2004: Quebec *July 14, 2004: Yukon territory *September 16, 2004: Manitoba *September 24, 2004: Nova Scotia *November 5, 2004: Saskatchewan *December 21, 2004: Newfoundland and Labrador *June 23, 2005: New Brunswick *July 20, 2005 (Civil Marriage Act): Alberta, Prince Edward Island, Nunavut territory, and the Northwest Territories Note that in some of these cases, the marriage was in fact legal at an earlier date (for example, the Ontario ruling held that marriages performed in January 2001 were legal when performed), but the legality was questioned. As of the given dates, the legality was authoritatively established. The decision by the Ontario government to recognize the marriage that took place in Toronto, Ontario, on January 14, 2001, retroactively makes Canada the first country in the world to have a government-legitimized same-sex marriage (the Netherlands and Belgium, which legalized same-sex marriage before Canada, had their first in April 2001 and June 2003, respectively).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=First same-sex marriage in the world now recognized )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Same-sex marriage in Canada」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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