|
BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE FINAL CHAPTER ON BILL C-250 HAS CONCLUDED
REAL Women has embarked on a long and treacherous
journey since that fateful day on May 29, 2001, when several
REAL Women members sat alone in the deserted public galleries
of the House of Commons and accidentally tripped over the
treachery of NDP MP Svend Robinson's Bill C-250. This bill
proposes amending the hate propaganda section of the Criminal
Code by adding sexual orientation to the prohibited identifiable
groups.
On that day, with the help of the Liberal
party, Mr. Robinson, with only a handful of MPs present, managed
to have his bill pass second reading and sent to the House
of Commons Justice Committee for review. There, under the
protection of former Liberal Justice Minister, Martin Cauchon,
the bill led a charmed life, with Mr. Robinson being permitted
to filibuster his bill so that it was returned to the House
of Commons unamended for third and final reading, despite
several prorogations (recesses) of Parliament between times.
In September 2003 when the vote on third reading of the bill
was called, Mr. Cauchon ordered all the Liberal MPs to vote
for Bill C-250. Despite 40 Liberal MPs refusing to follow
his orders, the bill passed the House of Commons nonetheless.
In the Senate, the bill was delayed several
months due to the heroic efforts of Senator Anne Cools. It
finally slipped into the Standing Senate Committee on Legal
and Constitutional Affairs for review in early February. All
the time the bill was proceeding through Parliament, the media
maintained a steely silence on the bill and its implications
with few Canadians knowing about it. To offset this, REAL
Women placed a full-page advertisement in the National Post
on March 17, 2004, in which we set out the dangers of the
bill. The advertisement was published on the second day of
hearings by the Senate Committee on the bill.
The advertisement included an internet address
to contact Senators on the bill, and over 2,000 individuals
who saw our advertisement did so.
On the same day the advertisement was published,
REAL Women appeared with other witnesses before the Standing
Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs to oppose
the bill. There were eights witnesses opposed to the bill
jammed together in two panels, each witness allowed only 5
- 10 minutes to state his position. The questions from the
Senators following the presentations were weak and disinterested.
The situation could be characterized as a "pro forma"
or for show, with the Senators having no genuine interest
in examining the bill.
The Committee had the obvious intention of
avoiding the multitude of requests by citizens to speak to
this bill by ruling that only the expenses of "organizations"
would be covered by the Senate, and not those of individuals.
This was an unprecedented decision to discourage Canadians
from speaking on this bill. To ignore the Canadian public
in order to push through politically correct legislation was
the constant mode of operation of former Prime Minister Jean
Chrétien - and now it appears that of current Prime
Minister Paul Martin as well.
According to an article dated March 16th,
2004 on The Dominion Daily Weblog, website (http://dominionpaper.ca/weblog),
homosexuals believed that their bill was at risk of being
lost. The weblog quoted email correspondence from MP Svend
Robinson to his supporters which confirmed this.
BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
|
