It was a warm summer day when in July 2005, Canada passed Bill C-38, the Civil Marriage Act making it so same-sex couples were now recognized as couples that can legally get married and receive the same legal benefits as their different-sex counterparts.
This marked the fourth country in the world to legalize same sex marriage, marking a monumental and historical moment for the gay community.
This was supposed to mark the moment when wringing hands over the issue was to end. Unfortunately, this was not the last time this conversation would be brought up.
Growing up is always challenging for every kid. Figuring out where you belong, who you like, and for some which gender you like, can be scary when predominantly surrounded by straight people.
The harder one tries to fit in, the less they feel connected to their peers.
Despite everyone calling and avoiding me in elementary school when I was labelled as the “gay kid” before I even knew what the word meant. Finding myself took years and the path wasn’t linear, but I finally found comfort in discovering liking both genders was a thing. Finally, I felt like there was a community I could be a part of and accepted.
Thoughts of marriage rarely crossed my mind while in high school in Burlington, Ont. But now marriage comes and goes in my mind because the law says I can. Relationships between men and women are rarely highlighted in debates, so why is my relationship with another man a recurring topic of debate?
Bill C-389 was proposed in March 2010. Following its second reading in March 2011, a bill that sought to alter the Canadian Human Rights Act which forbids discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression was tabled in the House of Commons but would fall short and fail to pass the Senate and
While the bill may not have been successful, there was one person who voted nay for both Bill C-38 and C-389.
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Despite his adoptive father being gay who attempted to marry a man in 2005, Poilievre voted against the bill, stating marriage should be preserved as a union between one man and one woman.
It left people puzzled. In a statement sent to CTV news in June of 2024, Poilievre stated he would uphold same sex marriage “full stop.”
“Canadians are free to love and marry who they choose. Same sex marriage is legal and it will remain legal when I am prime minister," he said. While Poilievre claims he’s in support of gay marriage, his true motives become more questionable when in April 2023 welcomed himself into a trailer with a Diagolon symbol drawn on the front door.
Poilievre was also seen to have met and shaken hands with the group leader in 2022 posted on the Diagolon leaders’ public telegram channel, with images shared on a Global News article.
Many would be left scratching their heads after Poilievre claimed not to know of the group’s existence in a one-on-one with Sudbury.com despite acknowledging the group previously.
Podcaster Jeremy Mackenzie founded in 2020 the far-right Diagolon, a neo-Nazi adjacent Canadian group that targets communism, promotes violence and whose motto is “by gun or rope” describing how their enemies can choose to die.
The group has also made remarks and protested the LGBTQ+ community, more particularly transgender people.
These remarks have been echoed by Poilievre, saying trans folk have no space in women's bathrooms, change rooms or sporting competitions among other places, saying “biological males” should be banned from these spaces according to Amnesty International Canada and CBC.
Transgender people have and continue to face the brunt of scrutiny from Conservatives. It seems as though if Poilievre was elected prime minister, we would see a regression of gender identity and expression.
Despite Bill C-389 not making it past the Senate, lawmakers kept pushing more legislation. This time in a positive direction.
Bill C-279 was proposed in September 2011 to protect transgender persons from discrimination and hate crimes, by including gender identity as prohibited grounds of discrimination, and violence against transgender persons labelled as a hate crime under Canada’s Criminal Code.
While a poll tracker from the CBC displays a solid majority of Canadians leaning conservative for the next government, I fear Poilievre is the wrong candidate to run one of the world's most progressive countries. The country is ninth on the LGBTQ+ Equality Index.
As prime minister, he could spell disaster for the entire LGBTQ+ community and a country that worked diligently to enact laws that benefited not just themselves, but everyone.
