Advocates say a Senate committee dealt an unjust and likely lethal blow Wednesday to a bill that would protect transgender people from discrimination.
Bill C-279, introduced by Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca NDP MP Randall Garrison, would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include gender identity as a prohibited ground of discrimination.
It would also include gender identity as a basis for hate crimes protection.
But the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee approved a series of amendments Wednesday that could not only delay the bill to the point of its undoing, but includes a new clause many consider discriminatory.
“It completely guts the whole point of the bill,” said Aaron Devor, who heads the University of Victoria’s Transgender Archive.
“We’re long overdue to protect the rights of trans people and this is a huge setback.”
The clause would grant operators of single-sex facilities like washrooms and showers the right to deny transgender people access. Conservative Sen. Don Plett said he intended to protect “vulnerable” people such as women who have experienced abuse from the trauma of sharing a space with a “biologically male” person.
Liberal senators said the clause goes against the intent of the bill.
“This act and the human-rights legislation are designed specifically to avoid discrimination and this clause is inherently discriminatory,” Sen. Grant Mitchell said at the meeting.
“It holds people who are law-abiding, full-fledged and equal members of our society accountable for the potential — the very, very long-shot potential — that someone would misuse this to justify a criminal act.”
The clause and all other amendments, which include removing the definition of “gender identity” from the wording of the bill, were approved by the committee, which has eight Conservative and four Liberal members.
“To me, it’s a small number of individuals abusing their privilege of being on this particular committee and undoing a free vote in the House of Commons, by not allowing their colleagues in the Senate to vote on the bill as approved by the House,” Devor said.
Garrison introduced Bill C-279 as a private member’s bill in 2011. It received narrow approval in the House of Commons in March 2013. Since then, it has been delayed in the Senate. Garrison called the delay uncommon.
“It’s completely abnormal. The Senate has voted on the bill itself twice and approved it twice in principle. It’s been to two different committees in the Senate, which have both held heardings on it twice. It’s very unusual,” Garrison said ahead of the meeting.
He said he believed Plett’s intention was to kill the bill, using the amendments as a stalling tactic.
“We only have 12 sitting weeks remaining before the election. All business that hasn’t been completed with files in the Senate, when an election is called, dies. So we’re running out of time,” Garrison said.
Garrison, who is the NDP’s LGBTQ critic, said he introduced the bill after seeing transgender friends and community members struggle with discrimination.
“It fills a gap in our human-rights legislation,” he said. “It would provide the same rights and protections to transgender Canadians that the rest of us already enjoy.”
It’s another example of why the Senate should be abolished, he said in a statement after the vote.
“Their obstruction of a bill that has received the approval of elected MPs must cease.”
