Mr. Speaker, the fourth United Nations conference on women will be held in Beijing this September. The purpose of this conference is to review the status of women worldwide and to place women's equality high on the global agenda.
At this conference Canada will propose a paragraph for the final communiqué stating that women face many barriers to equality, one of which is discrimination due to sexual orientation.
Some have resisted inclusion of this paragraph in the final communiqué. However, this position is consistent with the domestic situation in Canada where the human rights codes of seven provinces and Yukon already include sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination. The federal government has stated its intention to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination.
Domestically and internationally the government remains committed to the equality of all people and I am proud we will be taking a leading role in Beijing on this issue. It is the right and decent thing to do.