Simply put, the court said it was not necessary to answer question four because courts in six provinces and territories at that time had already come to this conclusion; th
at several thousand couples had already re
lied on these court decisions to get married and had acquired, as the court put it, protected rights; that the government had already indicated it would legislate to provide equal access to civil marriage to same sex couples in the reference itself; and, most important, something that is being ignored, that the Supreme Court of Canada had already effectively answ
...[+++]ered the question when it answered the earlier question on whether same sex marriage was constitutional and unanimously held it to be so.