UPDATE - MAY 10: Read our recap of the first hour of debate on the trans rights bill.

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NDP MP Bill Siksay's Private Members' Bill, C-389, is coming up for its first hour of debate on Monday, making it the first time trans rights have been debated in the House of Commons. Xtra's Dale Smith caught up with Siksay after Question Period on Thursday to ask him about his preparations for the debate.

Q: Monday is the first hour of debate for your bill. How are your preparations coming along for that? And consultations with other members – how is that going?
A: It’s good, and I’m very optimistic about the prospects of the bill at this point. I’m looking forward to the first hour of debate on Monday. I haven’t got my speech done yet, but I’m looking forward to doing that. I’m feeling some pressure, frankly, because this is a debate about a group of people who aren’t represented that we know of in the House of Commons – there’s no out representative of the trans community, and I feel that responsibility very heavily at this point, and how I represent the situation of a group of people of which I’m not a member. That’ll be the challenge for the speech, but hopefully I’ll do right by the community.

Q: What’s the feedback you’ve heard so far from other MPs?
A: I think it’s fairly typical of the kinds of questions that you get asked about it. I think there is broad support in opposition parties. There are questions on the government side, but they’re not surprising questions – they’re reasonable questions that I’ve heard so far. We’ll have to see how the debate unfolds in terms of where the tangible support is, where the lack of support is. I’m very hopeful that it’s going to get to committee at this point.

Q: Do you have any idea of how long until the second hour of debate is going to roll around?
A: No.

Q: Do you think it’ll happen before the summer break?
A: I think they’re scheduled until around the 4th of June, and the next schedule I haven’t seen yet, and I don’t know how many bills are before me coming for a second hour, so I don’t know yet. The House is scheduled to rise on the 23rd, so that’s about two or three weeks for scheduling stuff. The House sometimes rises early, so there are lots of questions about that and I don’t have an idea yet.

Q: I have heard some grassroots people talking about your bill coming up, and to have people start phoning their MPs. What would you suggest that people do if they want to get involved?
A: All along we’ve said it’s really important that folks talk to their MPs. Whether they’re from the trans community, or just an ally of the trans community, or they’re friends or family of the trans community, it would be really important for them to talk to MPs, to let them know that this is important legislation to them, and that goes without saying that it would be very helpful. That lobby should continue, and those are good lobbyists that we want to encourage [laughs].

Find your MP's contact information here 

Dale Smith will be in the House to cover the debate on Monday morning, when debate gets underway at 11 am.

Dale Smith is Xtra's federal politics reporter. Read his blog Hill Queeries every weekday.

Michaëlle Jean, Canada's Governor General, is currently on a series of state visits to the sub-Saharan African countries of Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Cape Verde.

“I wanted to visit central Africa to encourage the efforts to bring peace to the region, to rebuild and to restore the ties of trust and the rule of law,” Jean said in a press release.

Sub-Saharan Africa has recently been in the news for a proposed anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda, arrests of gay men in Kenya and Malawi and for a recent US State Department human rights report on Zimbabwe, which detailed the practice of “corrective rape” being perpetrated against gays and lesbians. Last year, nine gay men were given eight-year prison sentences in Senegal for "indecent acts."

Jean’s office would not confirm the content of any of her speeches during the tour, but according to the itinerary, Jean will be addressing the topic of sexual violence during a stop in Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tues, April 20th. There, Jean will visit the HEAL Africa hospital, which receives funds from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The visit will be followed up by a roundtable discussion on sexual violence, something especially relevant to the country, which has been through a major civil war.

Jean’s stop in Kigali, Rwanda, the following day will also include a youth discussion on reconciliation and has the topic of human rights listed on the agenda.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has previously condemned the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda and raised the issue with the country’s president.


 

The Commons citizenship and immigration committee passed a motion Thursday calling on the government to restore the references to gay rights and history to the new citizenship guide. 

The motion, put forward by NDP MP Olivia Chow, read as follows:

"That, in the opinion of this Committee, the Minister and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration should, in its next update of the citizenship guide, include references to gay rights and gay history; that the Committee adopt this recommendation as a report to the House and that, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1), the Chair present it to the House."

The motion had been amended from its original text of demanding that the guide be updated and reissued immediately, to the final version of seeing the mentions returned in the next update.

Members of all opposition parties had previously asked about this issue when Immigration Minister Jason Kenney came before the committee for the business of the supplementary estimates, even though Kenney avoided answering the questions.
 
Dale Smith is Xtra's federal politics reporter. Read his blog Hill Queeries every weekday.

Read more:

• Kenney dodges more questions about gays and citizenship guide
• A disaster week for Jason Kenney and Egale
  
• Twittersphere slams Egale's response to citizenship guide issue
  
• Queer MPs criticize Kenney's decision to edit gays out of citizenship guide
  

 

During daily proceedings after Question Period in the House of Commons today, NDP MP Bill Siksay presented a motion on the topic of Uganda. The motion read:

That this House commends the Government of Canada for the clear position it has taken against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill currently being debated in the Parliament of Uganda and encourages continued direct diplomatic efforts in conjunction with other countries and organizations to see the bill withdrawn, homosexuality fully decriminalized in Uganda, and the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and transsexual Ugandans fully respected.

Motions like these need the unanimous consent of the House to pass, which means a single "nay" could kill it.
 
The motion passed unanimously.
 
Shortly thereafter, Siksay released a statement on the passage of the motion.
 
"I very much appreciate the co-operation of the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québecois and the Liberal Party. All parties in the House worked together to take a stand against this regressive bill and in solidarity with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and transsexual community in Uganda," said Siksay. "Given this strong all-party commitment to GLBTT rights, I hope that the government will continue to pursue this issue at all possible levels."

"This bill is an attack on human rights and civil liberties. Canada must continue to do all it can to see that it is withdrawn," concluded Siksay.

(UPDATE: Xtra's federal politics reporter Dale spoke to Siksay following the passage of the motion. Read how Siksay got unanimous support and what's next for Canada's efforts to stop Uganda's anti-gay bill.)

In November 2009, Prime Minister Stephen Harper privately spoke to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni about the anti-gay bill. Though the bill has not yet been stopped, Museveni has acknowledged the international pressure from Western leaders, including Harper, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British PM Gordon Brown. 

Xtra caught up with Siksay at a recent Toronto fundraiser for queer Ugandans. Watch the video:

Read more on Xtra.ca:

• Xtra freelance writer Kaj Hasselriis reports from inside Uganda
  

 

The character of Sam Adama on Caprica, the series that serves as a sort of prequel to Battlestar Galactica, is a Tauron immigrant to the planet Caprica, and serves as a mob enforcer. But he’s got a little more going on than just slitting the throats of wily politicians who dare to double-cross his bosses.

"Sam's gay, and he's married," Canadian actor Sasha Roiz told SciFi Wire. "I think it's great, because in Caprica there isn't any prejudice or stigma attached to it."

Canadian actor Sasha Roiz plays Sam Adama on TV's Caprica
Pic via poptower.com

Like Battlestar, Caprica — which is filmed in Vancouver — takes on a host of heavy real-world issues like artificial intelligence, the corruption of technology, religious terrorism, and racism with plenty of moral conflict and betrayal to go around. And like its predecessor, Caprica gives rise to a whole palette of shades of grey where a character like Sam Adama can exist — neither evil nor saintly like most gay depictions tend to alternate between. But treating gay sexuality as a non-issue makes a statement in and of itself, just like Battlestar did with its portrayal a society characterized by gender equality.

No word yet on who plays Sam’s husband.

Caprica can be seen on Space, Friday nights at 10pm ET. The unrated two-hour pilot episode is also available on DVD.

Editor's note: Dale Smith can usually be found blogging at Hill Queeries, Xtra.ca's federal politics blog. But when he's not giving sartorial snaps to MPs, he likes to catch up on geeky television.