The bill adds “gender expression” and “gender identity” to Canada’s Human Rights Code and to the Criminal Code’s hate crime section. With the Senate clearing the bill with no amendments, it requires only royal assent in the House of Commons to become law.
Canada’s Senate passed the Justin Trudeau Liberals’ transgender rights bill unamended this afternoon by a vote of 67 to 11, with three abstentions.
The bill adds “gender expression” and “gender identity” to Canada’s Human Rights Code and to the Criminal Code’s hate crime section. With the Senate clearing the bill with no amendments, it requires only royal assent in the House of Commons to become law.
Critics warn that under Bill C-16, Canadians who deny gender theory could be charged with hate crimes, fined, jailed, and compelled to undergo anti-bias training.
Foremost among these critics is University of Toronto psychology professor Dr. Jordan Peterson, who along with lawyer D. Jared Brown, told the Senate committee that Bill C-16 is an unprecedented threat to freedom of expression and codifies a spurious ideology of gender identity in law.
Peterson was invited to the committee by Manitoba Senator Don Plett, who voted against the bill.
Plett unsuccessfully proposed amending Bill C-16 to add: “For greater certainty, nothing in this Act requires the use of a particular word or expression that corresponds to the gender identity or expression of any person.”
Immediately after news of Bill C-16 passing, Twittersphere erupted with hateful attacks against Plett.
Senators who voted against the bill along with Plett are David Tkachuk, Yonah Martin, Richard Neufeld, Leo Housakos, Betty Unger, Norman Doyle, Tobias C. Enverga, Thanh Hai Ngo, Lynn Beyak, and Denise Batters. They are all Conservatives.
Senators who abstained are Anne Cools (independent) and Conservatives Larry Smith, and Michael MacDonald.
Prime Minister Trudeau praised the bill’s passage as “great news.”
Great news: Bill C-16 has passed the Senate – making it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression. #LoveisLove
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) June 16, 2017
But Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of Canada’s pro-life movement, condemned the passage of Bill C-16.
“This tyrannical bill is nothing but social engineering to the nth degree, all in the name of political correctness,” Campaign Life’s Toronto vice president Jeff Gunnarson told LifeSiteNews.
Jack Fonseca, Campaign Life’s senior political strategist, said the bill will be used to attack Christian belief.
“Mark my words, this law will not be used as some sort of ‘shield’ to defend vulnerable transsexuals, but rather as a weapon with which to bludgeon people of faith and free-thinking Canadians who refuse to deny truth,” he told LifeSiteNews.
Peterson tweeted that Canadians will come to “seriously regret” the bill’s passage.
Senate passes Bill C16 without amendment 67 for 11 against. Compelled speech has come to Canada. We will seriously regret this.
— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) June 15, 2017
Peterson told the Senate committee last month that he believes “ideologues” are “using unsuspecting and sometimes complicit members of the so-called transgender community to push their ideological vanguard forward.”
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