Evidence of meeting #145 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rights.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Arab Canadian Lawyers Association
This is a signal to Palestinians and Canadians that, again, there is no freedom to speak on Palestine with government, and it has a real impact on what Palestinians are going through in Palestine right now and the extreme harms that continue 14 months in.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB
Thank you very much, Ms. Majid, for speaking out. Your voice is one that we have a responsibility to hear. I know that you speak on behalf of many, obviously, as well as the ACLA.
Thank you so much for being with us today.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Ms. Ashton.
I would like to take the liberty, as chair, to ask a question of Ms. Dufresne.
Ms. Dufresne, what is happening today with young children who are not allowed to use their pronouns and are therefore subject to bullying in schools? We are now seeing the outcome of the Alberta legislation, which is causing those young kids to be bullied by their peers and is moving many of them to mental health problems and suicide. What is your response to that? How do we do something to protect the children who are being bullied and who are mentally ill as a result of this?
Thank you.
Director, Legal Services, QMUNITY: BC's Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit Resource Centre
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I think you're spot-on. That absolutely is what's happening. Children are being bullied. They're being prevented from living their true and authentic self. As a result, they're developing mental health problems. It's incredibly stressful to be told that what you are is hateful. To be a young person without an ability to deal with that.... It makes total sense that kids end up trying to take their own life and are in fact dying by suicide as a result of this hateful rhetoric.
What can we do to support them? I think kids need increased counselling. They need access to gender-affirming care. They need to be able to socially transition from a young age. There's no harm in it. Let's say a youth decides they're transgender. They're living in a gender they weren't assigned to at birth. Later down the line, they take some puberty blockers, or they don't medically transition but socially transition. A few years later, if they decide that's not actually how they feel, there was no actual harm done.
If we just accept that gender can exist in a fluid continuum, and we don't try to stick people in rigid boxes, I think you'll have a lot less fear and trauma and the negative consequences that we're seeing as a result.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I'm going to ask one more question. I'm giving myself the opportunity to take two minutes.
Canada is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Does this contravene that United Nations declaration?
Director, Legal Services, QMUNITY: BC's Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit Resource Centre
Madam Chair, unfortunately, I don't feel qualified to speak to that.
I would say that not allowing children to transition socially, and then later medically, really hampers their ability to self-identify and grow into their true selves, and it hampers their mental health.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much.
I want to thank all the witnesses and the committee for their patience.
This meeting is adjourned.