NDP's 'add queers to citizenship guide' motion adjourned

I have another brief up on the Xtra.ca national page today, this one relating to the motion that happened in the House of Commons after Question Period today. Chow tipped me off that it was going to happen, so I was able to be in the House for the debate.

Queer groups recommend changes to refugee reform bill

I have a new piece up on the national page of Xtra.ca today, which looks at the representations made before the Commons immigration committee by queer groups. This is part of the ongoing look at refugee policy in this country that I've been looking at, and I was glad to be able to attend the the hearing - even if the one I attended (the session on May 27th with the Rainbow Refugee Committee) was at eight o'clock at night. The hearings had been running in a marathon session, often holding two sittings in a day, each of them two-to-three hours long, so it's no surprise that the committee has been pretty exhausted by the end of it.

One thing that didn't make it into the story for lack of space was the way in which Conservative MP Alice Wong made a point of confirming that Egale Canada Executive Director Helen Kennedy once worked for NDP MP Olivia Chow, when Chow was a city councillor in Toronto. It was a transparent attempt at discrediting Kennedy's testimony, but it didn't go anywhere when Chow tried to challenge it. I also saw during the time I was at the committee that Wong was making disparaging remarks about other committee members, but when they tried to challenge her on it, Wong's Conservative colleagues tried to accuse the Liberals of "bulling her" because she's a woman. This isn't the first time they've tried this tactic, and it was interesting to watch it happen in front of me.

Harper's Malawi G20 meeting is a 'minimum,' say opposition MPs

I have a new piece up on Xtra.ca today which looks at the Canadian response to the story of the two gay men sentenced to 14 years in Malawi. This was probably the first piece where I was sourcing quotes from the PMO, which was a bit of an experience in and of itself, but nevertheless, they were fairly fast and efficient in getting back to me when I needed it. Add to that, doing a bit more research on the CIDA website, I was able to have a more informed take on Canada's aid commitments to Malawi than some other mainstream editorials had on the subject.

I also wanted to mention that some responses to previous iterations of the Malawi story have labelled one of the two men as trans, as he had described himself as the "wife" of the other. As of this time, I'm not going to include such a label because I don't know that it's necessarily accurate, or if they simply don't have a vocabulary for gay relationships in Malawi, where it is still underground and forbidden, and therefore they may engage in heterosexist terms like "husband and wife" rather than using a same-sex terminology.

Vaccine meeting spooks Tory cabinet ministers + Jail costs 'staggering'

I have two pieces reprinted in the current issue of Capital Xtra. The first is a reprint of my story on the third day of hearings for the CHVI study at the Commons health committee, and the second my latest piece on the costs of the Conservative "tough-on-crime" agenda.

Opposition supports trans rights bill in Commons debate

I have another piece upon the national page of Xtra.ca today, which was something I started work on yesterday, but given the two stories I was working on simultaneously yesterday, this was held off until today. It was one of those experiences where I was the only the only reporter in the House covering the debate, and I was virtually the only reporter covering the issue. The CBC did talk about it a little bit yesterday, but considering that I mentioned it to one of the producers I know, while I was in the Foyer waiting for one of my interviews, I'd like to think that I had a little to do with them picking up on the story.

Anti-gay ideology behind Pride Toronto funding snub, say opposition MPs

I have a new piece up on Xtra.ca's national page today, about the Toronto Pride funding issue that everyone is talking about - though I made sure to include mention of the two Montreal festivals vying for funding last year that also didn't get it this year. I was also glad that I got a few more sources this time around than just the same few gay and lesbian MPs, but rather the Liberal tourism critic was involved - in a full-blown foyer scrum no less - and I got Senator Nancy Ruth to give a quote, which isn't always easy to do. only one bit didn't survive the editing process that should have, which was the acknowledgement that this was only a two-year funding envelope that they would use to build toward World Pride in 2014, but otherwise this was a good story on a busy day.

'These are very dark days for women,' says Green leader

I have a new piece on Xtra.ca today, based on an interview I had with Green Party leader Elizabeth May on Monday, which was following a press conference she had (where I was only one of two journalists in attendance). It was my chance to get the Green position on the issues I've been reporting about lately, and touched on several key areas.

The final piece ended up trimming down the specifics on the tough-on-crime issues, which I'm including below:

May asserts that the government’s agenda will actually increase violent crime, especially as those who have been in prisons for victimless crimes – such as the proposals for mandatory minimum six-month sentences for growing as few as five marijuana plants – could be dealt better with restorative justice.

“The problem with penitentiaries and keeping people in jail longer, is you minimise the chance they could re-enter society and you maximise the chance that they’ve just gone to criminal school and learned other ways to survive on the streets illegally. And it brutalises people.”

The Green Party also supports the preservation of prison farms, and is in fact calling for an expansion of the program.

“The data on this is really encouraging – talk about trying to restore people’s sense of self-worth, working outdoors, growing things, has actually resulted in people who’d been hardened criminals actually finding that they could find some self-worth, that they could actually see another way of living.”

Same-sex marriage in Canada - Five Years Later + Thoughts From the Hill - May Edition

I have two new pieces in the May edition of Outlooks, which is now on the newsstands. My first piece, which is on the website, takes a look at the same-sex marriage fight in the Canadian House of Commons five years later. Given that we've already seen people taking this for granted, I wanted to do my part to help keep this history alive in the minds of Canadians, and to encourage those abroad who are still dealing with this issue.

The second piece, my usual panel of three out Parliamentarians, asked for their personal recollections of this particular fight, and I got some really great answers, especially from Senator Nancy Ruth, whose viewpoint was unique and nuanced in the way in which the battle played out.