Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't be too long on this.
I don't know if it will be friendly or not, but this is about consistency with what has actually been passed in the House of Commons. There was quite a debate on this in the House of Commons, to get it through. It went through the several readings, then it went through committee, then it came back, and now it's in the Senate. I would hate for the Senate, in it's consideration of this bill now, to ask why a committee of the government is voting against the definitions it proposed, which passed in the House of Commons.
It will be kind of interesting, actually, when the Senate finds out that we have basically gone against the human rights definition proposed by the government previously. I think they're going to have an interesting conversation. Questions will probably arise from the Conservatives in the Senate as well. I won't say that we unfortunately don't have Senate members, because we've chosen not to have Senate members. That's another discussion, and I'm not filibustering, so I won't get into that.
I do want to point out though that as this bill is travelling through the Senate it's going to be interesting to see how they actually see this, and whether or not this could mean some amendments to the bill coming back to the House of Commons. Then the House of Commons will have to deal with it. If the Liberals are being inconsistent with disability, gender, and all those things, as well as the things that I've proposed here on a previous Bill S-12, it will be rather interesting to see whether or not that has consequences. I'm getting a little tired of trying to do favours for the Liberals here, but at any rate, I think it's very important.
Now the distinct difference in this, in terms of mental and physical disabilities, besides the issue of it being consistent, is that there has been a lot of discussion in society about mental illness and its affect on the workplace. In fact, you've even seen corporations take that up as well, by raising funds and so forth. There has been a better distinction with regard to mental illness and awareness. Before, it was seen as shame and not coming forth. Now we've seen stars and celebrities come out with mental health expressions in terms of their own personal struggles. There is one Canadian, obviously, Howie Mandel, as well as others who have chosen at personal risk to come forward and be champions of this. Now it's getting a little bit more notoriety than ever before in the sense that an awareness is there.
Awareness is also taking place in the school systems. There was a lot of bullying taking place in the past that was often related to some mental illness problems, which can resonate even from the home. There's also a whole series of problems that we now have with the use of medications and where they go. This is an issue that's complicated, because it can affect getting access to medications that are correct for a person, and the use of those medications. One of the interesting things to watch, sociologically, over the last number of years has been the progression of mental illness, now being associated with the workplace.
Why I think this is so important for the boards of directors, and for the expression of this, is that it will show again that the most important thing is action, not words. Action on this will actually get corporations to identify those champions, if they want to self-identify. It won't make them do it if they don't want to, but they will self-identify with the mental illness, and it will count on the board. Say, for example, Howie Mandel or somebody else wants to go on a board and self-disclose, he'll be able to do that and that will show role models. One of the biggest things that has taken place with regard to any type of piercing of the establishment of rule-based systems that are racist, sexist, and discriminatory are role models.
Having this in the bill, in terms of medical and physical disability, will also be an identification source that we won't just pass on to regulations. For example, even here, if it weren't mentioned, it could potentially go unmentioned in the regulations. It's one of those ones that shows as a modernization and is very important.
Again, we can't underestimate how this bill can enforce legislation and information. We've heard testimony over and again, specifically, that having quantifiable information will lead to that diversity.
I'll leave it there, Mr. Chair. I'm hoping that somebody else might want to chime in on it, but again, I think it shows leadership.
Right now we have all these days in ribbons on the Hill. We have so many ribbons that we wear for different things. One of them is for mental illness. Here's a chance for us to do something about it, so let's do it. All we're talking about is including this in the motion. The main motion is yet to be discussed.
This is the subamendment we're talking about, so it doesn't mean that you are agreeing that it will go forward just yet. You're asking for its inclusion.