Election 2021 SRHR Party Promises

Le Bloc Québécois réitère et défend le droit inaliénable des femmes à disposer de leur corps. [Bloc Quebecois reaffirms and defends the inalienable right of women over their own body].

• A Conservative Government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion.
• We will protect the conscience rights of healthcare professionals.
• We will expand the Canada Child Benefit by allowing benefits to begin at the 7th month of pregnancy rather than at childbirth.
• [COMMENT NOT FROM PLATFORM] If an anti-abortion bill is passed in the Provinces, the Conservatives will respect Provincial jurisdiction. For more information see, https://www.cpac.ca/episode?id=8fe24d5c-99a7-4565-a2f0-e803064a8a84 comment begins at 20:52 mark. *We have chosen to include this comment because it directly addresses SRHR.

• Oppose any possible government move to diminish access to safe, legal abortion.

• Provide up to $10 million to Health Canada to develop an easily accessible portal that provides accurate, judgement-free, and evidence-based information on sexual and reproductive health and rights, which will include a section that counters misinformation about abortion.
• Establish regulations under the Canada Health Act governing accessibility for sexual and reproductive health services so there is no question, that no matter where someone lives, that they have access to publicly available sexual and reproductive health services. Failure on the part of a province to meet this standard would result in an automatic penalty applied against federal health transfers.
• No longer provide charity status to anti-abortion organizations (for example, Crisis Pregnancy Centres) that provide dishonest counseling to women about their rights and about the options available to them at all stages of the pregnancy.

• Everyone deserves safe, accessible abortion and reproductive healthcare services – no matter where they live or how much money they make. It’s not enough for elected officials to say that they won’t reopen the abortion debate – we need leaders to take action to improve access to services.
• New Democrats will enforce the Canada Health Act to make sure that the provinces make medical and surgical abortion available in all parts of the country, without barriers.

• This is a human rights issue that is long overdue. We will finally end it.

• End the discriminatory blood ban.

• A New Democrat government will immediately end the discriminatory blood ban and put in place policies based in public health evidence to secure the blood supply.

• Convert the Child Care Expense deduction into a refundable tax credit covering up to 75% of the cost of child care for lower income families. This will increase the support that lower income families receive by thousands of dollars per year and provide more assistance to almost all families.

• Dedicate additional resources to making a universal, affordable, early learning and child-care (ELCC) system a reality Collaborate with provinces/territories, local communities, Indigenous communities and the child-care sector to ensure that a comprehensive short-, medium- and long-term policy road map – based on the principles of universality, affordability, quality, inclusivity, accessibility, and equity – finally becomes a reality.
• Immediately begin to ramp up federal child care funding to achieve the international benchmark of at least one per cent of GDP annually.
• Long-term, stable, national funding must be made available and be sufficient to meet the standards of the guiding principles. It must also be secure and predictable enough to permit the long-term planning and sustainability of the programs.
• Ensure the training, recruitment and retention of well-paid and professional staff.
• Eliminate GST on all construction costs related to child care spaces
• Build on the Multilateral Framework on Early Learning and Child Care and the accompanying bilateral agreements that have been negotiated with every province and territory, as well as with the First Nation, Inuit and Métis Peoples to ensure solutions are meeting their needs.
• Ensure equitable access to high-quality, culturally appropriate ELCC programmes for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children.

• Deliver a 50% cut in child care fees next year, and deliver $10 a day care in five years or less.

• Work with other levels of government, Indigenous communities, families and child care workers to ensure that care is inclusive and responsive to the needs of all Canadian children. And we’ll introduce legislation that enshrines Canada’s commitment to high-quality, public child care in law. Public early childhood education and child care that is affordable and available to all families is critical to our economic recovery, and gives parents real choices.
• Take immediate action to save not-for-profit child care centres that are at risk of closure with relief fund to re-open spaces that were lost during COVID-19. From there, we’ll immediately work with the provinces to build a universal, $10 a day child- care system that’s there for all parents, no matter where you live. New Democrats will actually create enough spaces so families don’t spend months on wait lists, and ensure that child care workers are paid a fair, living wage.

• Expand programs in reproductive health, rights, and in sexual and reproductive health education

[Answer from Action Canada Political Party Questionnaire] We believe that no Canadian should have to choose between paying for prescription drugs-- including contraception medication-- and putting food on the table. That is why we support the continued work to develop a universal national pharmacare policy that expands drug coverage and reduces the costs of prescription drugs for all Canadians, including for sexual and reproductive health medications. The Liberal Party is committed to pharmacare and has begun work with the provinces, territories and stakeholders to advance the implementation of national universal pharmacare so that Canadians have the drug coverage they need. Most recently, the Liberal government took a significant first step in launching its first pharmacare demonstration initiative in partnership with Prince Edward Island. Through this initiative, PEI and its residents will see the expansion of the drugs covered by public plans and improved affordability of drug plans. This initiative will provide important insights to inform the implementation of national universal pharmacare in other willing provinces and territories. A re-elected Liberal government will continue this important work so that Canadians have the drug coverage they need. This includes establishing a Canadian Drug Agency to negotiate drug prices on behalf of Canada’s drug plans to help lower drug costs for Canadians by up to $3 billion per year in the long term, as well as developing a national formulary – a comprehensive, evidence-based list of prescription drugs, including contraceptives – which would help promote coverage that is more consistent across the country.

• We will ensure that a full range of prescription contraceptive and reproductive health care options are easily accessible at no cost through Medicare and our national pharmacare program, and work with the provinces, territories and Indigenous governments to end period poverty.

• Banning conversion therapy. Conservatives have been clear in our opposition to conversion therapy and attempts to forcibly change a person’s sexual orientation. We will implement the ban promised by the Trudeau Liberals but repeatedly delayed by them for political reasons. Using the Justice Department’s explanatory language about the intention of the ban, we will clarify that the ban does not criminalize non-coercive conversations, giving comfort to parents and others who fear that legitimate conversations might be criminalized.

• Ban and condemn the practice of conversion therapy, in all its forms.

• Conversion therapy has not only been scientifically discredited, but it also perpetuates harmful anti-LGBTQ2 stereotypes and exacerbates rates of LGBTQ2 poverty, discrimination, homelessness, and suicide. More than half of sitting Conservative Members of Parliament voted against our bill to ban this harmful practice.
• A re-elected Liberal government will: Re-introduce legislation within the first 100 days in office, to eliminate the practice of conversion therapy for everyone, and extend coverage of the ban to include people over 18 years of age.

• When it comes to sexual orientation and gender expression, damaging practices such as so-called “conversion therapy” have no place in Canada. Unlike the Liberals, who stalled for six years on this issue, we will immediately legislate a ban on conversion therapy in Canada, and work with provinces and territories to support eliminating this practice in all parts of the country.

• Restore Canadian leadership in advocating for persecuted sexual minorities in the face of repression. The Trudeau government has dispensed with standing as strong allies of LGBTQ advocates, bowing before authoritarians. A Conservative government will speak clearly and confidently for the inalienable human dignity of LGBTQ people and deploy resources to help their activists.
• [COMMENT NOT FROM PLATFORM] During the party's leadership race, O'Toole said he supported Harper's approach and would keep it in place. *We have chosen to include this comment because it directly addresses SRHR.
• We will reform, not reduce, international development assistance - maintaining current aid levels while increasing the effectiveness of Canadian aid and expanding engagement with the Canadian development sector, the private sector, and diaspora communities.

• Articulate a plan to meet Canada’s commitment to achieve the target of 0.7% of GDP to ODA by 2030.
• Ensure a COVID-19 recovery plan that addresses the growing gap in the care economy, particularly magnified through the pandemic, and that provides more resources to women and girls around the world so they are able to access education, health care, proper nutrition and maintain autonomy over their sexual and reproductive rights.

• Enable staff at Canada’s embassies around the world to support the work of feminists, LGBTQ2 activists, and human rights defenders by quadrupling our annual investment in the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives.
• Support women leaders and feminist groups who are leading efforts to promote peace and protect the rights of women and vulnerable groups, including new funding through the Women’s Voice and Leadership program.
• Increase Canada’s international development assistance every year towards 2030 to realize the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
• Double our funding to grassroots women’s rights organizations and continue to make significant investments in comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services as well as the global care economy.

• A New Democrat government is committed to boosting Canada’s international development assistance, with the goal of contributing 0.7 percent of our Gross National Income to international aid.
• Canada must also do our fair share to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, including alleviating poverty, ensuring decent work, protecting the rights of Indigenous communities and supporting global peace and justice.
• Canada should also contribute more to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to end these epidemics and support heath care systems in developing countries.
• Upholding the rights of women and girls will always be central to New Democrat foreign policy, and we will step up efforts to promote gender equality abroad with a strong international agenda to promote rights and security and access to education for women and girls, including ensuring that women have a seat at the peace table.

• Establish a funding program within Health Canada to support community-based organizations offering targeted LGBTQI2+ youth’s mental health and well-being programs, including suicide prevention, peer support, coming out, and counselling.
• Fund community-driven education and awareness programs that lead to a greater understanding of intersex realities and the diversity of sexualities and gender identities, and referral programs to direct for trans*, non-binary and Two Spirit people to appropriate services.

• Provide up to $10 million over 3 years to youth-led grassroots organizations that respond to the unique sexual and reproductive health needs of young people.
• Provide $40 million over 4 years starting in 2021- 2022 for capacity funding to Canadian LGBTQ2 service organizations.

• Our vision of Canada is one where women’s organizations have stable core funding so that women can access the support and advocacy they need, when they need it.

Le Bloc Québécois déplore et dénonce la violence envers les femmes, la violence conjugale et les féminicides, qui connaissent une triste et inacceptable recrudescence durant cette pandémie. Le Bloc Québécois proposera des peines mieux adaptées et plus sévères pour les crimes liés à la violence familiale et inscrira ce type de crimes en tant que facteur aggravant dans le Code criminel, modifiant également la Loi sur les jeunes contrevenants.Le Bloc Québécois proposera la tenue d’une commission d’enquête sur la prévention, l’encadrement législatif et la coercition des violences familiales qualifiées de « crimes d’honneur ». Le Bloc Québécois exigera que le fédéral contribue financièrement aux efforts du gouvernement du Québec en matière de prévention de la violence, notamment quant à l’étude de mise en place d’un tribunal spécialisé en matière de crimes sexuels et de violence conjugale.

• Amending the Criminal Code so that it is an aggravating factor on sentencing for assault where the victim is in a domestic or dependent relationship with the person.
• Adding a provision to the Criminal Code that specifies the offence is an indictable offence and provides for a mandatory minimum penalty of two years where the Crown can show that an offence of assault, assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm, or aggravated assault is part of a pattern of conduct with the victim, with the Crown required to give notice before trial of its intention to seek this elevated sentence.
• Prohibiting those under peace bond or the subject of a protective order from possessing a “firearm, crossbow, prohibited weapon, restricted weapon, prohibited device, ammunition, prohibited ammunition or explosive substance, or all such thing”.
• Enacting Clare’s Law so that when police investigate a complaint of alleged domestic violence, they are required to notify the victim of the suspect’s relevant criminal history.
• Expanding the Canada Child Benefit by $500 per month per child for the first year and $250 per month per child for the second year for women with children living in women’s shelters to help them transition to more long-term housing.
• Creating a fund to incentivize educational institutions and private sector organizations to partner with women’s shelters to provide career training for the women they serve

• In collaboration with women’s and Indigenous organizations, develop a comprehensive Canada-wide plan of action – with a timetable and dedicated funding – to eliminate violence against women, girls and gender-diverse people.
• Implement all the recommendations of the Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
• Increase access to shelters by investing $40 million over four years in the Shelter Enhancement Program, providing more than 2,100 new and renovated spaces in first-stage shelters and hundreds of spaces in transition houses.

• Continue to move forward on the development of a 10-year National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence and begin negotiations with the provinces and territories within a year.
• Accelerate the establishment of the Secretariat announced in Budget 2021 and put in place an accountability framework to ensure anyone facing gender-based violence has reliable and timely access to services, no matter where they live.
• Work with community-based anti-violence experts to track progress of the National Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence.
• Work with provinces and territories to enact Clare’s Law so that domestic partners who fear for their safety can request from police information about their partner’s violent history, whether that includes sexual assault, domestic violence, convictions, arrests, or restraining orders.
• Work with provinces and territories to support the development of specialized sexual violence courts.

• We will tackle femicide and we’ll deliver a National Action Plan to end gender-based violence, backed by funding to ensure that shelter services and other programs are available in all regions of the country, especially areas that have traditionally been under-served. New Democrats will update the Canada Labour Code to include ten days of paid leave for those dealing with family and domestic violence, improve police training on sexual assault, and require universities to develop plans to end sexual violence on campus. And we’ll address violence against Indigenous women, girls and LGBTQI2S+ people by working with Indigenous peoples to implement all the Calls for Justice of the National Inquiry.

• Ban and condemn the practice of medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex children.

• Work with social services, community supports, emergency shelters and other frontline organizations to ensure that all LGBTQI2+ young people are cared for and protected
• Support the 23 recommendations outlined in the LGBT Purge Fund’s report entitled Emerging from the Purge which highlights the reality that LGBTQI2+ people continue to experience significant discrimination in federal workplaces
• Ensure access to comprehensive sexual health care and gender affirming health care, including hormone treatments and blockers, and gender confirmation surgeries.
• Ensure that trans, non-binary, and Two Spirit people, without undertaking surgeries, are able to alter their sex designation on all federally-issued official documents, consistent with their gender identity.

• To better support LGBTQ2 people and build a society where everyone has equal rights and opportunities, a reelected Liberal government will: Complete the Federal Action Plan within the first 100 days in office.
• Provide $40 million over 4 years starting in 2021- 2022 for capacity funding to Canadian LGBTQ2 service organizations.
• More and more Canadians are becoming parents via adoption or surrogacy. For LGBTQ2 people, it is often the only way they can have the family they have always wanted. But there are still many barriers these couples face. A re-elected Liberal government will:
  • Ensure the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF) becomes an eligible health expenditure under the Assisted Human Reproduction Act.
  • Expand the Medical Expense Tax Credit to include costs that have been reimbursed to a surrogate mother for her IVF expenses.
  • Move forward on providing adoptive parents an additional 15-weeks of leave to make sure they get the same level of support to care for their children as other parents.

• A New Democrat government will add sexual orientation, gender identity and expression to the Employment Equity Act, in order to address the disadvantages experienced by the LGBTQI2S+ communities – and particularly transgender people – in finding work.

• We will support parents who have experienced the trauma of miscarriage by allowing them to receive three days of paid bereavement leave.  

• Make parental leave more inclusive so it covers leave following miscarriages.

• Ensure access to comprehensive sexual health care and gender affirming health care, including hormone treatments and blockers, and gender confirmation surgeries.
• Ensure that trans*, non-binary, and Two Spirit people, without undertaking surgeries, are able to alter their sex designation on all federally-issued official documents, consistent with their gender identity.

• New Democrats will work with the provinces make sure that there is equal access to gender confirming surgery across the country, and that these procedures and medications are covered by public health plans. We will also review and eliminate systemic barriers related to gender in the delivery of federal public services, and provide funding to support the creation and expansion of shelters for trans youth.

• Amend the Criminal Code by adding procuring offences to the list of designated offences that may be subject to the forfeiture of proceeds of crime. This will ensure that those who profit off sexual exploitation can have their profits seized, the same as drug dealers or criminal organizations.
• Strengthen human trafficking laws by making them consistent with the Palermo Protocol and removing the requirement to prove that a trafficker exercised fear or intimidation over a victim.
• Eliminate Preliminary Inquiries in cases of sexual assault to prevent the revictimization of individual victims, including children, who deserve our protection.
• Amend the Criminal Code to clarify that an offence takes place in Canada where, at the time of the offence, the victim was present in Canada.
• Implement legislation to ensure human traffickers serve consecutive sentences for multiple human trafficking offences. 
   

• Sex workers still live and work under a criminal regime. In March 2021, The Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform, which represents 25 groups that work with members of the sex trade, launched a constitutional challenge in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. They argue the laws violate provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and have launched a constitutional challenge to most of the sex-work provisions that were implemented in 2014 under the Protection for Communities and Exploited Persons Act. Despite voting against Stephen Harper’s Bill C-36, and after two terms, the Liberals have yet to take action regarding Bill C-36 or the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act.
• Reform sex work laws in Canada with a clear focus on harm reduction, given the dangers that sex trade workers face. Making the industry legal and public will allow sex workers to access law enforcement and social services when needed.
• Increase funding of community organizations providing services to those driven to sex work by economic deprivation.

• [Answer from Action Canada Political Party Questionnaire] With respect to the current laws, we support the commencement of the five year Parliamentary review of the former Bill C-36. The review will serve as the appropriate forum for Parliamentarians to examine the full range of effects that this legislation has had since its coming into force. It will also provide an opportunity for sex workers, stakeholder groups, and civil society more generally to share their perspectives. At the conclusion of the review, the committee will have an opportunity to provide recommendations to the government based on their findings.

• Ensure that the national census is designed to reflect the diversity of sex and gender and ask appropriate questions to ensure adequate, safe and effective data collection.

• A New Democrat government will prioritize the collection of race-based data on health, employment, policing and more with the goal of improving outcomes for racialized communities.