International Day Against Homophobia - -> Information on Human Rights

The right to fight homophobia, and all different kinds of discrimination for that matter, is in itself a human right. In other words, everybody has the right to make sure that their and other people’s rights, including those of gays and lesbians, are respected. This section of the site provides information on the scope of the human rights protection offered in Canada and in Québec in general, and as it pertains to sexual orientation, homophobia and discrimination in particular.

Information on human rights in general (Charters)
The different human rights commissions in Canada
Human rights and sexual orientation
Publications and policies
Protection and recourses
Overview of gay and lesbian rights in Canada and Québec

I. Information on human rights in general (Charters)

II. The different human rights commissions in Canada

The Human rights commission of Canada and those of its provinces can provide you with countless information on their web site, and their personnel may help you find what you are looking for.

III. Human rights and sexual orientation

Canadian Sites

American Sites

Citizens against homophobia
GLSEN (The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network)
International gay and lesbian human rights commission
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) - A national organization that promotes fair, accurate and inclusive representation as a means of challenging discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity
Human Rights Campaign - The largest American lesbian and gay political organization. The HRC envisions an America where lesbian and gay people are ensured of their basic equal rights
American Civil Liberties Union
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force - A leading progressive civil rights organization that supports grassroots organizing and advocacy.

IV. Publications and policies

V. Protection and recourses

Court challenges program
See also each Human Rights Commission.
The 519

VI. Overview of gay and lesbian rights in Canada and Québec

The scope of human rights protection

The rights of gays and lesbians, like those of any minority, have been conquered slowly, and the pace of their achievement has tended to mirror the evolution of society. Suffice it to recall that women were denied the right to vote for a long time, that blacks have long suffered from discrimination, and that certain ethnic or religious groups, such as the Japanese and the Jews, have long been the objects of persecution before they were all able to have their rights recognized.

Québec and Canada are probably at the vanguard of the rest of the world with respect to the scope of the human rights protection they offer. Indeed, all Canadian provinces, as well as the federal government, are endowed with their own charter of rights and freedom protecting their citizens.

The Québec and Canadian charters provide for equality rights, social and economic rights, legal rights, political rights, citizenship rights (such as free speech, the rights to assemble and to dissent), and so on.

More specifically, these charters, either explicitly or through court decisions, forbid discrimination on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family situation or handicap.

Gay and lesbian rights in both Canada and Québec

Not before 1969, when homosexuality was finally decriminalized, have gays and lesbians in Canada seen their rights legally recognized, and begun benefiting from them.

Important dates

1969 - Prime Minister Trudeau introduces bill C-150 that amends the criminal code, and allows for private sexual activities between two consenting adults, regardless of their sex.
1972 - The American Psychiatrists Association withdraws homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses.
1977 - Québec becomes the first province to forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in its Charter of rights and freedoms.
1982 - The Canadian Parliament refuses to include sexual orientation as a forbidden motive of discrimination in the Charter of rights and freedoms it enshrines in the Canadian constitution. We will have to wait until 1996 before a court of law rules that the protection benefits of the Charter extend to sexual orientation.
1992 - Following the Supreme Court ruling in Douglas v. Canada, the Canadian government withdraws its policy preventing gays and lesbians to serve in the military.
1995 - The criminal code is amended to include sexual orientation as an aggravating factor in the sentencing for hate crimes.
May 1995 - The Supreme Court of Canada rules that sexual orientation is covered under section 15 of the Charter of rights and freedoms, which offers protection against discrimination. However, the Court does not recognize Jim Egan and Jack Nesbit as common law spouses for the purposes of the Old Age Security Act.
1996 - The Canadian Human Rights Act is amended to include sexual orientation.
June 1996 - The Canadian government accepts a Human Rights Tribunal decision (Moore & Akerstrom v. Canada) that extends federal employee benefits to same-sex couples. This includes health care and relocalisation benefits.
April 23, 1998 - In Cupe & Rosenburg v. Canada, the Appeals Court of Ontario rules that the definition of « spouse » in the Income Tax Act should include same-sex common law spouses.
September 14, 1999 - The Canadian Parliament amends the Public Service Superannuation Act to give same-sex spouses the same pension benefits as those received by heterosexual spouses.
2001 - Statistics Canada adds a question to its census dealing with common law spouses, including same-sex spouses.
2001 - The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act recognizes same-sex partners.
2003 - The Appeals Court of Ontario judges discriminatory the definition of marriage as “the union of one man and one woman”, and immediately allows same-sex couples to marry. The Appeals Court of British Columbia arrives at the same conclusion in July of the same year. The Québec appeals court studies a similar ruling by a Québec Superior Court judge.
2003 - The federal government decides not to appeal the Ontario and British Colombia rulings but refers the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada to validate the newly extended definition of marriage. Same-sex couples can legally marry in these two provinces.
March 19, 2004 - The Quebec appeals Court refuses to give standing to religious groups that wanted to appeal the Québec Superior Court ruling. Since both the Québec and Canadian government had already withdrawn from the case, same-sex marriage becomes legal in Québec and, from then on, for more than 71% of the Canadian population.
2004, December - In its opinion to the federal government on the draft of the Bill on the homosexual marriage, the Supreme Court of Canada confirms the judgments of lower courts according to which the ban on the marriages of persons of the same sex does not respect the Canadian Charter of Rights.
2005, February - The Martin government introduces the Bill on the civil marriage in the House of Commons.
2005, April - The MPs undo, 164 against 132, a motion from the Conservatives to maintain the traditional definition of marriage.
2005, June - the House of Commons adopts the bill authorizing the civil marriage of homosexual couples.
2005, July 20 - having been approved by the Canadian Senate, the bill receives the royal sanction. The gay marriage becomes law making Canada the fourth country in the world that officializes the marriages of homosexual couples after Belgium, Netherlands and Spain.
2006, December 7 - the motion against same-sex marriage, put forward by Conservative Party, failed in Parliament, with a vote of 123 for the motion and 175 MPs against.