Evidence of meeting #138 for Status of Women in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was students.
A recording is available from Parliament.
As an Individual
Yes, that makes sense. I think the way our society has been built so that toilets are gendered makes it harder to break free from that, since we have literally built our society on toilets being gendered and separate and they should be separate at all times, which—
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Shelby Kramp-Neuman
Okay. Thank you.
Ms. Vien, you have the floor for five minutes.
Conservative
Dominique Vien Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Tremblay, Ms. Krause spoke earlier about rural communities. The regions in my constituency are largely rural. There are obviously people from the LGBTQ community. I've also heard of villagers who have gone through a transition. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that they have access to services. The Bellechasse region can't be compared to the heart of the capital, Quebec City, or to Lévis. Mr. Tremblay, you know the area well. I don't know about Ms. de Repentigny‑Corbeil.
Is the situation of violence described in this study more severe for people living in rural areas? Is access to services more limited? Do they fare worse than people living in urban areas?
What are your thoughts on this?
Director, Alliance Arc-en-ciel de Québec
I'm originally from the Saguenay, a small region in northern Quebec. The organizations are less prevalent or even non‑existent in the Saguenay—Lac‑Saint‑Jean region. I can think of Diversité 02, which has been there for a short time. I know that an organization is also found in Abitibi‑Témiscamingue.
These organizations often have limited resources. They do their best, with the help of volunteers, to support people. However, this often leads to an exodus of LGBTQ+ people. It's a self‑perpetuating issue. Fewer people from the LGBTQ+ community live in the regions because they decide to move to the major centres where they can access services.
Even Quebec City doesn't have that many organizations. I think that there are four or five, whereas greater Montreal may have 50 or 60, or even a hundred. As a result, the representation of these organizations in the regions is quite disproportionate.
Conservative
Dominique Vien Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Thank you, Mr. Tremblay.
Ms. de Repentigny‑Corbeil, you're a researcher associated with the Raoul‑Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies.
Isn't that right?
Conservative
Dominique Vien Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
We're hearing a great deal about this chair right now. You're looking at gender issues in relation to North African immigration. On Monday, a witness from Tunisia told us that it really wasn't easy for him in the North African countries and that he had been through two or three countries before coming to Canada. Honestly, I think that he feels at home in Quebec and Canada.
You're familiar with North Africa and Canada. Compared to other countries, isn't Canada a welcoming place where these people can flourish? Are we right to think this?
Co-Chair, Conseil québécois LGBT
In absolute terms, there are more rights and freedoms here. We must always look at how far current rights have been rolled back. That's why we need to fight for these rights.
These are complex situations. The immigration process also leads to people feeling uprooted and losing their sense of belonging to their community. I'll refer to the comments regarding the regions. Sometimes LGBTQ+ people in the regions find a closer‑knit community. In the big cities, we lose our ties and the people who make us feel good.
I think that this is also the case for immigrants, who must deal with other forms of discrimination. I lived in Morocco for a number of years. My dissertation talked about Moroccan people in Quebec who experienced discrimination within the LGBTQ+ communities. They had to deal with racism, Islamophobia and so on. There's also a sense of not being part of the community.
In short, there are more rights and freedoms here, but there are also inherent challenges.
Conservative
Dominique Vien Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Okay.
Mr. Tremblay and Ms. de Repentigny-Corbeil, you may remember the drag story hour in Quebec. Schools, community centres or municipalities—I don't remember which—invited drag queens to come and read stories to children.
Conservative
Dominique Vien Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
I think that it was in communities, actually. It caused quite an uproar in Quebec. I don't want to get into the details and I don't want to point fingers, but did this surprise you?
I've had discussions with people close to me, and they had quite strong opinions. I'm talking about people who are the same age. People in their thirties were for it and others were against it.
What do you think accounts for this?
Director, Alliance Arc-en-ciel de Québec
Honestly, I was surprised that the matter took on such proportions. Naively, I wasn't expecting that. It was linked to a petition submitted to the National Assembly calling for a ban on the practice. The petition garnered tens of thousands of signatures.
This goes back to the point about misinformation. That's what happened here. People practically thought that we were promoting homosexuality and trying to convince young people to become homosexual or transgender. This led to demonstrations in front of places where Barbada, a drag queen, was scheduled to do story time.
The National Assembly ultimately passed a unanimous motion to reaffirm its confidence in Barbada. Barbada is portrayed by elementary school teacher Sébastien Potvin. He's used to working with young people and conveying sensitive messages in the right way. A great deal of misinformation was involved in all this.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Shelby Kramp-Neuman
Thank you.
MP Hepfner, you have the last round. You have five minutes.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
That's great. Thank you very much, Chair.
This has been a super conversation.
Pam, I really appreciate that you brought up how impactful the national action plan to end gender-based violence has been one year in. It's very gratifying to hear that it's already having an impact on the ground.
Ms. Dike-Hart, I believe your organization recently received some WAGE funding to fight rising hate against the 2SLGBTQI+ community. Would you tell us more about what your organization is planning to do with that funding? I think it was about $366,000.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Black Pride YYC
Yes. Once we're done with negotiations, we're hitting the ground running.
One of the first things we're doing is creating a workshop for conversion therapy victims. This workshop will help them understand their rights from a legal standpoint and how to care for themselves from a mental health standpoint. To do that, we're going to be collaborating with professionals in that field.
Another thing we're trying to do is ensure we keep the history of the Black 2SLGBTQ community alive by implementing an online archive of Black 2SLGBTQ historians. It's about people who are older and who experienced how the Black queer community has changed from before we had rights to now that we have rights. What was it like living in the sixties? It's things like that. We will tell our own stories so that the younger generation can see what it was like to be Canadian at that time. It's very essential, because Canada was the first country in North America to legalize same-sex marriage. We should be the pioneers of this. Sometimes it feels like we're going back as opposed to forward. It's very painful that we have to do the work to ensure that people know about this journey.
Another thing we're trying to do is work with other professionals and researchers to understand people in the community and see exactly what the discrimination looks like. What hate are you facing on the ground? That way, we can come up with different strategies on how to bridge that gap and ensure you feel safe and secure as a Black 2SLGBTQ community member.
These are just a few of the ways we're going to be kicking things off in January, all the way to 2027.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
That's amazing. It's very important work. I thank you very much for that work.
I'm going back over to Mr. Jason Schilling.
You're in Alberta.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
When we talk about activists who are against transgender people and about the sort of legislation we're seeing in places like Alberta, I hear that teachers are being blamed for this a lot. It seems to me that provincial governments are attacking school systems and the way schools are run when they take up these anti-trans agendas.
Is it fair to put it on teachers? Do you know what I'm talking about? Have you felt this as well? Do you feel like you are taking the weight of this?
President, The Alberta Teachers' Association
That's a great question.
To a certain degree, it's yes.
We had a protest just outside of our headquarters here in Edmonton, at Barnett House, last year. It was a “let kids be kids” kind of thing. I think it was called the “1 Million March 4 Children”, which happened across Canada. It was here.
There were a lot of lies, accusations and mistruths about what's happening in schools. To counter that, we have a curriculum that was approved by government, with resources approved by government, that teachers teach in schools. Simple conversations among parents, teachers and schools about what is happening are what need to be there.
A lot of the colleagues I talk to are frustrated that sometimes we hear lies perpetuated by candidates who want to run for political parties, such as that we're showing pornography in schools or that schools have Kitty Litter boxes in them. None of these things are true, but they perpetuate misinformation.
Then you see online hatred as well. I've lost track of how many times I've been called a groomer or a pedophile on social media just for the simple fact that I'm a teacher standing up with my colleagues for the protection of our most vulnerable youth.
Teachers feel the weight of that. That's why they're concerned about the legislation going forward.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
I'm sorry. I'm out of time, but that's really important evidence, Jason.
Thank you very much for sharing that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Shelby Kramp-Neuman
That does conclude our panel for today.
On behalf of the committee, I would also like to offer a heartfelt thank you for being here with us today. To those of you online, thank you for your time.
At this point, I have just a few notes for the committee.
On Monday, we will have another meeting and we'll be continuing this study. Then from there, moving into January, be mindful that the committee work will begin with consideration of version one of the report on coercive control. What will happen is that the report will be distributed to committee members a week before our return so that you will have an opportunity to review it.
Then additionally, the committee will be juggling a few different things when we're back. It will be a combination of wrapping up the study on 2SLGBTQI+ and....
Go ahead, Ms. Hepfner.