Questions for candidates
ELECTION 2008 / Two lists offer wide range of queer issues
Gareth Kirkby / National / Friday, October 03, 2008
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Looking for questions to ask candidates this federal election? Pondering the issues that confront the gay and lesbian, bisexual and trans communities after the vote?

Egale Canada has, as usual, put together a list of questions they're asking candidates to respond to.

And editors at Pink Triangle Press, after viewing the Egale list, came up with a supplementary list of questions they thought needed to be asked.

You may have others you'd like to contribute. Add them to the reader's comments.
 

The Egale list
The Editors' list
Would you support amending the Canadian Human Rights Act to explicitly add "gender identity" and "gender expression" to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination? Do you support the repeal of Canada's prostitution & bawdyhouse laws, which make sex work dangerous and may criminalize consensual activity in the country's bathhouses?
Would you support adding "gender identity" and "gender expression" as protected categories under the hate provisions of the Criminal Code? Do you support the extension of harm reduction strategies beyond Insite to reduce the spread of HIV in Canada?
Would you support reinstating the Court Challenges Program? Should Canada's polygamy law be repealed?
Do you support lifting reproductive restrictions which prohibit women without a male sexual partner from seeking accessible fertility services to use known sperm donors, including gay men? Do you support an overhaul of the Canada Border Services Agency, so that gay people and gay bookstores are no longer harassed by Canadian officials at the border?
Would you support lifting the ban which prohibits men who have sex with men from donating blood, organs, sperm, and bone marrow? Would you vote in favour of changes to the income tax act that allow ministers to deny film tax credits to projects that aren't "family friendly"?
Do you support the implementation of Egale's First National Survey on Homophobia and Transphobia in Canadian Schools? Do you support increasing the funding for AIDS service organizations to the levels promised to ACAP through public health?
What public statements have you made or actions have you taken to support equality and justice for LGBT persons? How will you protect Canada's sexual minorities from religious figures who seek to impose sexual morality laws?
Do you support the Yogyakarta Principles, a set of principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity? Do you support the Declaration of Sexual Rights, adopted after a long discussion at the Sex Panic Summit in San Diego in 1997?
  What should the age of consent be?
  What steps would you take to reverse the criminalization of HIV?

 



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Reader Comments


 
Leslie Blais
Regarding prostitution laws, readers may be interested to know that papers report that the presumably straight john Leslie Blais of Maple Ridge, B.C has decided to fight his charge of communicating for the purposes of prostitution. Good for him (assuming he's of sound mind). He's come out of a different closet. Is there a way we can support him in his challenge to the law?
Randy, Windsor Ontario
10/04/08 5:49 AM EST
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