I'm a little confused; well, actually, I'm a lot confused. I'm a little confused that Mr. Garrison is actually proposing his amendment, only because I understand there was some suggestion that perhaps some of the alternate definitions of gender identity were actually superior to the definition proposed in this amendment by the sponsor of the bill.
Since we have to deal with this proposed amendment before we deal with the other ones, I'm perplexed as to why the sponsor of the bill would include the qualifier “deeply felt”. It occurs to me, first of all, that from a legal perspective it ambiguous as to what that means. I don't know how an administrator sitting on the Human Rights Tribunal could possibly evaluate whether or not a person's claim to discrimination under the proposed grounds of gender identity is “deeply felt”.
That aside, I would think that the individuals who are advocating for this type of legislation would also want to remove the words “deeply felt”, because “deeply felt” creates a bar that you have to climb over. It's a gatekeeper level that you have to get over before you can claim the protection of the statute, as opposed to CPC-8, which removes the words “deeply felt”.
Then it's only an individual's inherent feeling of gender, as opposed to a “deeply felt” feeling of gender, which I think satisfies both. My concern is that you cannot assess what is and what isn't “deeply felt”. It would also address the concern of those who are promoting this type of legislation by not forcing applicants to establish the bar of “deeply felt”.
I'd like to put my name back on the bottom of the list. I would like Mr. Garrison to comment on some of the proposed amendments and whether or not he might think there might be some merit to CPC-8 or CPC-9 as opposed to NDP-2.