And according to Statistics Canada, which released the results on Wednesday, the number of same-sex couples has surged five times the pace of opposite-sex couples between 2001 and 2006.

In total, the 2006 census revealed 45,345 same-sex couples in Canada – 16.5 percent of which were “married” couples. Others were living in a common-law union. The number of homosexual couples jumped 32.6 percent over the past five years while heterosexual couples grew only 5.9 percent. Overall, the total count of families in 2006 was 8,896,840, up 6.4 percent from 2001. ...