Wednesday, February 27, 2013
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Today, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights was to report on the outcomes of their consideration of Bill C-279, the federal bill to include ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ as protected grounds in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code of Canada. Sponsoring MP Randy Garrison reported that the Justice Committee was unable to finish its consideration and discussion of the bill given the interruption of the last meeting by unregistered Conservative MP Dave Anderson. As a result, he requested that the Speaker allow the outstanding motions to be heard, considered, and voted on during the Justice Committee Report Stage.
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The Speaker ruled that the Justice Committee’s discussions were effectively incomplete and therefore allowed the outstanding motions from the last Justice Committee meeting to be heard and discussed live, then and there, in the House of Commons. One of two hours of discussion was had today, with the second hour of discussion continuing at a later date. Votes to approve the outstanding amendments will follow thereafter.
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An audio recording of the discussion regarding Bill C-279 can be found on the Parliamentary website at: http://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Parlvu/TimeBandit/PowerBrowser_SilverLight.aspx?ContentEntityId=10085&EssenceFormatID=443&date=20130227&lang=en. The discussion begins at 4:33 and ends shortly before the 5:40 mark.
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We have just gotten word that the amended status of the federal ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ bill (Bill C-279) is set to be ruled upon by the Speaker of the House of Commons on Wednesday, February 27. The Speaker will determine if the Justice Committee’s approved amendments are to go forward — that is, the amendments that were approved before the meeting was interrupted by two unregistered Conservative MPs. (See the Xtra! article on that meeting, here: http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Conservatives_filibuster_trans_bill-12904.aspx).
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The amendments include the removal of ‘gender expression’ as a protected ground, and the addition of a definition for ‘gender identity’, which were the conditions placed by some Conservative MPs to have their vote.
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The definition of ‘gender identity’ put forward by Garrison, which is based on the definition of ‘gender identity’ in the found in the Yogyakarta Principles (Page 6), is:

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

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Update, 6:30 pm:
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Randall Garrison, the NDP MP sponsoring the bill, provided the following insights via Facebook:

We are arguing that the amendments didn’t get fair and full consideration at the Justice committee due to the actions of a Conservative minority. Normally you don’t get a second shot at amendments already introduced at committee. The Speaker won’t consider content, just procedures. We need the compromise amendments in order to hang on to the support of the 15 Conservatives who voted in favour at 2nd reading and then the bill will pass. We are hopeful he will allow them…

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