Login / RegisterLiberal MP Hedy Fry resurrects transgender rights bill championed by NDP’s Bill Siksay
Hedy Fry is carrying on retired NDP MP Bill Siksay’s fight for transgender rights in Canada.
On Monday (September 19), Fry, the Liberal MP for Vancouver Centre, introduced Bill C-276 in the House of Commons.
Titled “An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code (gender identity and gender expression)”, the legislation is an “exact redraft” of Siksay’s Bill C-389, according to a news release from Fry’s office.
Fry says she made a promise to Siksay, who represented Burnaby-Douglas, that she’d bring back the bill if she won reelection earlier this year.
In February, Bill C-389 passed third reading in the House of Commons by a vote of 143-135. But it died in the Senate when the federal election was called.
Like Siksay’s legislation, Bill C-276 would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include gender identity and gender expression as prohibited grounds of discrimination.
It would also amend the Criminal Code to outlaw hate speech that advocates genocide against groups distinguished by gender, and to allow evidence that a crime was motivated by hate based on gender to be taken into account during sentencing.
I hope that Hedy Fry and her Liberal colleagues will work closely with NDP MP's to move this Bill C-276 forward. And in a moment of brightness, I will even hope that some Conservative MP's will see the light, have a breakthrough moment and do what is RIGHT and support this human rights bill. One can never give up hope that fairness will win!
"I doubt there would be any objections from any quarter within the existing NDP if she were to cross the floor and be again in the Official Opposition"
One vote against right here.
yawn.
Point taken. When I lived in Vancouver Centre, I always wondered why she got re-elected. There is a pretty good record on support for HIV issues and that is what I based my comment on. Nonetheless, I should know better than to presume to speak for all, many, or even sometimes more than just myself.
I will give Fry credit for her work around AIDS/LGBT rights advocacy.
That is about all.
The rest of her record is that of a loyal Liberal footsoldier (and some bizarre personal grandstanding), and I am from that part of the self indentified progressive population that looks at the federal Liberals from 1983-now as a huge part of the problem.
I was a card carrying member of the BC Liberal Party until the DAY that they voted Campbell in as leader back in the mid nineties. I have since cut off any support of the party due to that major blunder. After the BS he pulled, I don't feel there is much hope for the Liberals in BC but I will pray for such people as Hedy Fry. May your god(s) walk with you.
'Sex' is not the issue there. Sex is not something you are, it is something you DO. The issue at stake is Gender.