Justice committee  —but those rates increased.

Justice committee  I don't know that legislation can give people courage. What I do know is that making it explicit will, in itself, help to educate people that they do have rights. To give you an example—I'm afraid I don't have the statistics on me right now—we conducted a survey of schools acros

Justice committee  I would certainly agree with both Hershel and Erin. What I would add is that, in my opinion, hate crime in particular is in part a result of us as a society believing, or not challenging, the notion that some people are less human than others, or less worthy of protection than

Justice committee  Absolutely more training, along with all of those things that you just said, are important. Absolutely they would be effective. However, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. As I stated earlier, I think it's very difficult to make that argument, or to make it convincingly, if

Justice committee  First of all, I think that's a very complex question that is perhaps better addressed by a lawyer. I'm a public policy professional, not a lawyer; however, I'm happy to speak briefly to it. My understanding, from speaking with our lawyers and given the way the Canadian system w

Justice committee  Sure. The best way I can explain that is with a very brief story. During my tour across Canada interviewing LGB and trans people, I spoke with one young trans guy who was assaulted by three men in a bathroom at his university for using the men's bathroom. It was a quite horrify

Justice committee  First, my reference to the education system was with regard to the question of secondary victimization. I understand it's not covered by this bill. In my opening statement, I was addressing my statements largely towards the Criminal Code. If I could make a very quick reference

Justice committee  Okay. The direct impact there, even though much of law enforcement is not directly under federal jurisdiction, is that if gender identity and expression are explicit within the Criminal Code, there will be a direct impact on the training that police services receive and on their

Justice committee  Really short? Okay. I'd like to speak to this later on, perhaps if there's a question that relates to it. But I would argue that this bill is not symbolic. It will in fact fill a gap. It will fill in a problem with the law as it currently stands. I would argue that the current l

Justice committee  There are a number of areas we could discuss. The one that I briefly mentioned is the fear of victimization when reporting an incident to the police. As I said, we have some wonderful police officers in this country, but there are instances where some law enforcement officers m

Justice committee  Thank you. I'd like to round out our opening statements from Egale Canada to directly yet briefly address a number of suggestions that have been made here today, as well as earlier on, those being the suggestions that this bill is unnecessary or that it is in fact redundant. I'd

Justice committee  Is it possible for us to split the time?

Justice committee  Okay. That was our intention.