EasyMail Action Item: Transgender Bill Back in Parliament
Updated – Vote Result: The bill passed Second Reading vote with 150 MPs in support and 132 against. It still has a ways to go through Parliament. If you have not done so yet, please take a few minutes and use our EasyMail to urge your MP to vote against this bill.
EasyMail Action Item: NDP Member of Parliament Randall Garrison (on right) has reintroduced the infamous “bathroom bill” which many of our readers worked hard to oppose in the last Parliament. Bill C-279 would add gender identity and gender expression to the list of “identifiable groups” to the hate section of the Criminal Code as well as to the the Canadian Human Rights Act. As Dr. Douglas Farrow pointed out in 2010 this legislation “will entrench in Canadian law the notion that sex and/or gender are basically social constructs, products of a series of human choices, based not in the natural order but in more or less arbitrary acts of interpretation.”
In the interview with LifeSitenews.com Dr. Farrow also noted that ‘unlike categories such as sex or race, which are ‘objective conditions,’ the terms proposed by Siksay’s bill are ‘subjectively determined.’ They are ‘mere attitudes towards oneself, or attitudes combined with behaviours (cross-dressing, say, or elective surgery) intended to express or alleviate those attitudes,’ he explained.”
In the last Parliament, the bill (then called C-389 and introduced by Bill Siskay) narrowly passed in the House of Commons, but was killed by an election call, before making its way through the Senate. It is hard to know how this vote will go, though likely it will be close. Even many MPs who personally oppose it refuse to speak up because of the political pressure to promote everything coming from the LGBT community.
Find talking points against this legislation here.
Click here to send an EasyMail letter to your MP and the leaders of each party. The letter’s content is below:
Dear [Name of MP]
I’m writing to respectfully ask you to vote against, and publicly oppose, Bill C-279 which would add “gender identity” and “gender expression” as identifiable groups in a section of the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act.
I recognize that all Canadians should be protected equally under the law. But the reality is that transgendered Canadians already are granted the same protection as all others. There is no doubt that the purpose of this bill is entirely ideological. This bill would make it Canada’s official position that gender is a social construct. Unlike the other categories, which are objective, these vague terms can be defined and changed at will.
The legislation is also out of line with all other legislation in the country. If Parliament goes down this ideological path there will be pressure on all other governments to follow its lead.
Further, although the bill’s defenders scoff at those who raise legitimate concerns about the bill’s application (such as in public washrooms), the reality is that the bill is so vague that there is no way legislators can know how it will be applied. A basic tenet of law is that laws must be clear so that the public is well aware of how to abide by them.
Most important, it is not up to government to redefine gender to begin with. The civil government’s role is to promote justice and freedom, not engineer society according to how people feel.
Instead of trying to appease every interest group, our nation should focus on strengthening the institutions in society that are pivotal to a healthy nation. Marriage and the family should be at the top of that list.
I look forward to your response. If you think it is a good bill, please explain why. If you oppose it, are you willing to speak with your colleagues about why this shouldn’t be supported?
Thank you very much for hearing my concerns about his legislation.
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Sincerely yours,
