Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the late show here tonight to follow up on my questions to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health on ending the blood ban in Canada.
This is timely, and this has been said in many speeches today, as tomorrow marks the beginning of pride month. It is the second year in a row we will be celebrating pride month in a different forum. We are not going to have our usual parades, pride events and brunches in every city and many small towns across this country. Rather, what we need to have this year, in lieu of all that, is actual action from this government.
I will remind the government that, in 2015, it promised to put an end to the discriminatory and homophobic blood ban for men in this country who have sex with men. Four years of a majority government, and the Liberals did not do it. In 2019, they promised again to do it, and we are no closer than we were six years ago.
They did not promise to study it. They did not promise to look at it. They did not promise to provide funding. They promised to end it, full stop. During an election, they told gay, bi and trans men in this country that they would get it done. After the election, they claimed that it is out of their hands and there is nothing they can do. If that is the case, and if it is not in their ability to do so, why did they promise to end it in the first place?
People wonder why LGBTQ Canadians look to elected officials, people in positions of authority and power, and do not trust them. They wonder why elected officials and politicians have a bad name. If one is a monogamous gay man in a committed relationship in this country wanting to donate blood and wanting to make a difference, who may have voted for this government in the belief that it would be allowed, that government continues, six years later, to let them down.
With all due respect to the government, there are a lot of members on that side who are the first to show up to a photo op, the first to show up to a pride parade and the first ones to make a statement that makes us feel good, but when they sit on those government benches and have the ability to actually effect a tangible change in this country to the single biggest piece of discrimination that I believe exists in the LGBTQ community today, they stay silent. They attack us, premiers and everybody else, but they do not talk about what they can do to actually resolve this issue.
Conservative governments of the past made a step, and we are now saying that, as the Conservative Party, the tools are here and the solutions are here to be able to do this. The science is clear. The solutions are endorsed by the Canadian Medical Association, the All Blood is Equal campaign, our Conservative caucus, the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and the Green Party, but there is silence from those on the government benches, and they could actually end this.
The minister has the ability, through the Food and Drugs Act, to remove it. Section 5 says, “The Minister may, by notice in writing, remove a term or condition from an authorization if she or he determines that the term or condition is no longer necessary to prevent a compromise to human safety or the safety of blood.”
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and the Minister of Health know that this tool is available to them. We can change it from being based on sexual orientation and ask that it be based on gender-neutral behaviour.
I ask the government again. I implore the government again to stop the feel-good statements and stop the attacks on everybody else. The parliamentary secretary and the Minister of Health on the government side have the ability to get it done. Pride month is here. It is time for action.