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Posts Tagged ‘trans human rights’

Updates on the Amendment of the Federal ‘Gender Identity’ Bill

March 7th, 2013 Comments off

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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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Notice of final Debate and Vote on Federal ‘Gender Identity’ Bill

March 6th, 2013 Comments off

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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.

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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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The Queer Ontario Steering Commitee
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Update on the Progress of Bill C-279, the Federal ‘Gender Identity’ Bill

February 28th, 2013 Comments off

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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