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Today, the House of Commons heard the second hour of debate on the proposed amendments to Bill C-279, the bill to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code of Canada to include ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ as protected grounds. This second-hour of debate was followed by a vote on the proposed amendments.
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Most significantly, the House of Commons voted in favour of:
(1) moving forward with the motion to remove ‘gender expression’ from the bill, to leave only ‘gender identity’; and
(2) moving forward with the motion to add the proposed definition of ‘gender identity’ to the bill, which is:

Gender identity means, in respect of an individual, the individual’s deeply felt internal individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex that the individual was assigned at birth.

The final vote on the amendments and the final bill will take place March 20th.
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Moving Forward…
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If you haven’t already done so, please write to your MP to request that they support the bill.
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A list of current MPs, with a link to their contact information, can be found here: http://www.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx
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If you are unsure of who your MP is, you can find your riding here http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/FindED.aspx and search for it in the MP list above.
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Feel free to share this note with your contacts
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A number of students at the University of Windsor are staging a peaceful protest tomorrow (March 8, 2013) at 11:30 am at the The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board office (1325 California Ave in Windsor, Ontario). This is in support of a St Thomas of Villanova Secondary School student who is being threatened with a lawsuit from the Board after speaking to Xtra! about the bullying she has endured from a teacher for being gay.
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Xtra’s report on the student’s story is here:
http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Bullied_Catholic_student_speaks_out-13217.aspx
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Xtra’s report on the protest is here:
http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Protest_planned_at_Windsor_school_board_office-13250.aspx
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The protest’s Facebook Page can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/556456587705780/

If you can spread the word and make it to the protest, that would be greatly appreciated.
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The Queer Ontario Steering Committee

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Sarah Manns, the parliamentary assistant to MP Randall Garrison, has provided the following update on Bill C-279 (the bill to add ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ as protected grounds in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code of Canada):

Bill C-279 will be back up for its final hour of debate tomorrow, Thursday March 7th from 5:30 to 6:30pm. You can watch the debate live on CPAC (check your local listings) or stream it for free online at http://­­www.cpac.ca/­eng/­direct/­cpac1.

If you are here in Ottawa and would like to watch the debate live from the public gallery of the House of Commons the debate is open to the public. I would suggest arriving at Centre Block by 5:15pm as you will have to go through both general security on the ground floor and security for the public gallery.

The final vote will take place on Wednesday March 20th and will be followed be followed by a small reception. Details on that to come.

Thank you again for following and supporting the bill.