Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I move:
That Bill C-15, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing line 10 on page 5 with the following:
tent with the Declaration and must, in cooperation with Indigenous governing bodies, implement the Declaration in a manner that respects the laws, traditions and practices of each governing body.
2) The Government of Canada must, in consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples, take all measures necessary to ensure that the laws of Canada are drafted in a way that reflects non-binary gender identity and two-spiritedness.
I would like to provide a quick explanation for the benefit of the committee. The objective of this amendment, as put forward by the Assembly of First Nations, is to ensure that the federal ministers will work in collaboration with indigenous governing bodies on implementing UNDRIP in a manner that respects each indigenous government's laws, traditions and practices as unique and diverse entities.
The second objective is to ensure this legislation and all future legislation that will be drafted will reflect, both in English and French texts, the various gender identities of indigenous peoples by being gender inclusive. This can be achieved by not deferring to the masculine form by default in a French version of the text.
For context, “two spirits” refers to a person who identifies as having both masculine and feminine spirit and is used by some indigenous people to describe their sexual gender and/or spiritual identity. It is necessary that the language used in this bill includes space for this recognition.
This amendment is also in line with recommendation 25 issued from a July 2020 report investigating systemic racism at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The report recommended that gender pronouns be pluralized and be non-binary in all internal and external documents.
Finally, this amendment is consistent with the vision of this government to promote human rights, including respect for diversity and inclusion, protecting 2SLGBTQ+ rights and addressing discrimination.
This proposed amendment is a concrete step toward this objective as well as towards decolonizing Canada.