In the past, courts and human rights tribunals in Canada have generally decided to hear cases involving transgender people, but they did so on the basis of broad provisions in existing law prohibiting discrimination based on sex, said Brenda Cossman, a law professor at the University of Toronto and the director of its Mark S. Bonham Center for Sexual Diversity Studies.
"This just makes that crystal clear," Cossman said, adding that she believed it was nevertheless a significant step.
The government's proposals include changes to both the federal criminal code and the Canadian Human Rights Act. The changes to the criminal code will have a broader effect, because criminal law is solely a federal responsibility in Canada, while each province has its own human rights charter.
Current law makes it a crime to make "hate propaganda" against members of specific groups; the proposed legislation would add transgender people to the list. It would also oblige judges to consider in sentencing decisions whether crimes were caused by or aggravated because of discrimination against transgender people.
Though the federal human rights act applies only to citizens' interactions with the federal government or with federally regulated industries like airlines and phone companies, Cossman said that the proposed revisions would still bring significant changes, and that the federal government was "leading by example."
She said that only eight of Canada's 13 provinces and territories specifically included transgender people under their human rights laws, and that only five covered both gender identity and gender expression.
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