Thank you very much.
My goal in bringing forward the bill was to address a problem for a community much discriminated against within Canada. When I met with some objections over the term “gender expression”, as Ms. Findlay has just said, not being as well understood or defined, I agreed that it could be removed from the bill and we would still make progress. In the best of all possible worlds for me, as for the Liberals, it would still be there, but I'm seeking the maximum support for this bill. As I've said to Mr. Rathgeber privately...not just a majority, but I'd like to see as many parliamentarians on side as possible, because it makes a very strong statement to the Canadian public.
For that reason I'm suggesting we narrow the scope of the bill; we take out the more contentious.... We deal with “gender identity”, which has a clear definition, as you'll see in law, that's more clearly recognized. If we as a group try to write the definition of “gender expression”, we'll be breaking new ground in Canadian law, in international law. We'll be doing something that no one else has really done. At this point, I think I am prepared to say we really can't do that in this committee, so let's take the term out.