Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for his speech and support of the bill in principle, and I respect the sincerity with which he has offered his comments.
He has made the argument that the bill is really unnecessary, which we have heard each time it has come before the House. I wonder whether he is familiar with the position of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which have both said repeatedly that there are gaps in the current legislation and that there are good legal reasons for amending the Criminal Code hate crimes section and the Canadian Human Rights Act to make sure that transgendered Canadians are explicitly covered. Those are the legal arguments they have both made.
He also said that doing things symbolically in the Criminal Code is not a good idea. However, the previous Conservative government spent a lot of time saying it is important for the Criminal Code to denounce unacceptable behaviour in our society. I submit that the bill is very similar to lots of legislation introduced by the previous government, which sought to label certain behaviour as not acceptable in our society.