I appreciate the question and I, even more, appreciate the opportunity to provide an answer.
I believe and am confident that Bill C-16 does something substantial in terms of amending the Canadian Human Rights Act to explicitly and in clear language add gender identity and gender expression as a prohibited ground. I want to acknowledge the decades of advocacy on behalf of the trans community to ensure that we have been able to get to this place wherein, as a Parliament, we have the opportunity to recognize that discrimination against trans individuals, individuals who have a different gender identity or gender expression, are now clearly protected under the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Furthermore, to add them as an identifier to the identifiable groups under the Criminal Code and have gender identity and gender expression added as an aggravating factor in sentencing goes to the intent, which I am very proud of in terms of Canadian values and recognizing that as a country we are stronger in terms of our diversity and we need to ensure that we do as much as possible to eliminate and eradicate discrimination wherever it finds itself in our society.