Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve asked a question of the Minister of Justice about amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act in this House on March 18, 1994, as he mentioned.
In the throne speech the Prime Minister committed the government to amending the Canadian Human Rights Act. These amendments will add the ground of sexual orientation to the 10 grounds on which discrimination is prohibited in the federal public and private sectors under the act as it currently stands in the statute books.
In fact, on August 6, 1992 a case brought under the equality guarantees of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Haig and Birch v. Canada, the Court of Appeal of Ontario ordered that the Canadian Human Rights Act must be read to include that ground as of that date. The Attorney General of Canada at the time did not appeal the order to the Supreme Court of Canada. The government views this as the current and correct state of the law.
Therefore the amendment to which this government is committed to making would give Parliament the opportunity of bringing the act up to date.
I want to add that this government views this amendment as a matter of fundamental justice and not as a matter of conferring special rights to a particular group in Canada. The amendment would ensure gays and lesbians and moreover heterosexuals protection against discrimination in the areas of services and employment and against hate propaganda which are covered by the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Such an amendment would not be a departure from what has been going on in other jurisdictions of our country. Eight provinces and territories, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Yukon, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, have already amended their human rights legislation to add the ground of sexual orientation.
The level of protection is now the norm in Canada. This government wants to add the federal laws against discrimination to this list and thereby assure Canadians-