Health Committee on April 11th, 2019

Evidence of meeting #139 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was testing.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

LGBTQ2 Health in Canada

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Marilyn Gladu

Bill Casey

Robert-Falcon Ouellette

Don Davies

Ron McKinnon

Sonia Sidhu

Emmanuella Lambropoulos

Len Webber

Doug Eyolfson

Also speaking

Mark Gilbert Medical Director, Clinical Prevention Services, BC Centre for Disease Control

David Moore Research Scientist, Epidemiology and Population Health Program, British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

Gary Lacasse Executive Director, Canadian AIDS Society

Gerry Croteau Executive Director, Gilbert Centre for Social and Support Services

Nadia Faucher Committee Researcher

4:45 p.m.

Executive Director, Gilbert Centre for Social and Support Services

Gerry Croteau

For example, if a trans person goes to a hospital in our area and their health card, from birth, indicates “Michael Smith”, but their preferred name, which is not a nickname, is “Michelle”, many health care providers will not use the preferred name of “Michelle”, even though the person presents as female, and they will say “Michael”.

The patient could be in a waiting room and they're called “Michael Smith” and they're presenting as female and their preferred name is “Michelle”. That's triggering many in the trans community to walk out of that environment, whether it's in a private office of a doctor or a clinic or a hospital waiting room or an emergency room.

4:50 p.m.

Liberal

Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON

You mentioned the transportation challenge of accessing health care. The health committee went to Quebec and met with Quebeckers. They have mobile vans. Do you think it's a good idea?

4:50 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian AIDS Society

Gary Lacasse

For mobility, of course. Look at Saskatchewan. There is no public transport in Saskatchewan anymore, and it's the same in all rural areas across the country. They're not all at the same level as Quebec. B.C. has very good transport for inter-rural areas for health, if I'm not mistaken. Even northern Ontario has some really good transport for going down south, but it's not equal across the country.

That's where, in my testimony, I spoke about the fact that every province has its own jurisdiction, which is perfectly okay, but if the federal government is not going to nudge, nudge, tap, tap down, saying that these are the best practices, we're not going to get anywhere.

4:50 p.m.

Liberal

Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON

Thank you.

April 11th, 2019 / 4:50 p.m.

Liberal

Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC

Thank you, guys, for being with us today.

I am not a regular member of on this committee, but I am happy to be here for this particular study today.

I am a former high school teacher. I taught quite a bit on gender education and would try my best to be as inclusive as possible in my teaching. Right now I'm working on my master's degree to hopefully get gender education implemented across Quebec from K to grade 11—because I'm from Quebec—and hopefully give that idea to other provinces as well.

Can you please speak to the importance of including this type of education in the classroom. I know this is the health committee, but obviously education is an extremely important preventative measure. Not only does it influence the kids who are experiencing certain issues, such as kids in the LGBTQ2 community who are learning about things that are important for them, but it also educates cisgender, heterosexual children on diversity and learning about differences.

Can you please comment on that?

4:50 p.m.

Medical Director, Clinical Prevention Services, BC Centre for Disease Control

Dr. Mark Gilbert

Sure. I'll start the comments.

I fully agree. The research has been quite clear that comprehensive sexual education that talks about all the nuances of gender identity and other aspects of sex and mental health is a benefit both to youth who are sexual, and gender minorities and heterosexual youth. It's extremely valuable.

The Adolescent Health Survey in B.C. done by the McCreary Centre is a really powerful source of statistics on youth in schools. Certainly in the work they've done on sexual health, all youth they survey have been very outspoken about the fact they want to get this information into schools, which clearly speaks to the demand for it. But it's often not there, so they're getting information from their peers or from the Internet and feeling that they don't know where to go for that piece of work.

I think the other example that's important within the school environment is thinking about other structural interventions, like gay school alliances and policies around homophobia and bullying, which research has again shown to have positive impacts on mental and physical health among LGBT youth. I think it's critically important for us to intervene in the school environment.

4:50 p.m.

Liberal

Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC

As you know, education is not part of federal jurisdiction. However, we sometimes do fund programs and organizations that work with schools. Through that we can introduce certain programs or some parts of curriculums, even though it's not official. Where do you think the focus should be if the federal government were to intervene in this, such as with CanCode, which works with organizations to introduce coding to the classroom? How do you think the federal government can play a role here?

4:50 p.m.

Medical Director, Clinical Prevention Services, BC Centre for Disease Control

Dr. Mark Gilbert

I'm not aware of all the options around that. For example, I know there's been funding for SIECCAN to develop the comprehensive sexual health education guidelines that are being reviewed. I think there are ways the federal government is seeking that. I think it's important that kids have access to sexual health education in and out of schools, because we know that while we want to get that comprehensive sex education in every school for every child across Canada, it's going to take a while until we get there. That's why I think that thinking about funding agencies to do online resources or campaigns for youth is also.... Again, it can be within the federal jurisdiction to do that work, which can have that broad national reach.