Received by atropos@aol.net  Sun May  8 22:05:41 1994

Generally bad news from Canada

1. In Alberta, the Crown is appealing a decision which would have
included sexual orientation in the provincial Human Rights Code. In
April, Madam Justice Anne Russell of the Alberta Court of Queen's
Bench rules that Delwin Vriend had been discriminated against when he
was fired in 1991 from King College for being gay.

She said that the Alberta Code was inconsistent with the Charter of
Rights and must be changed. The Crown is now arguing that the
provincial code need not mirror the federal law.

The Government caucus (Conservative) was split on letting the matter
drop or asking for an appeal. The majority, particularly those from rural
ridings, wanted to appeal.

Alberta, Newfoundland, PEI, and the NWT are the only jurisdictions
which do not contain sexual orientation in their rights legislation.

The Alberta Human Rights Commission recently studied the issue and
determined that if they handled cases based on sexual orientation,
such complaints would be about 11% of their caseload, the same as for
cases based on racial discrimination.

2. In Ontario, Divisional Court struck down on appeal a decision made
by a board of inquiry to grant family benefits to Elizabeth Clinton and
Laurie Anne Mercer. the earlier decision had ordered York County
Hospital, Clinton's employer, to extend family benefits to the couple. The
hospital's insurer, Blue Cross appealed the decision arguing that it
had followed the provincial human rights code's definition of spouse
and marital status. No decision has been made on whether to appeal
this latest decision.

3. The Ontario government is in the process of abandoning its long
professed commitment to same-sex benefits. The Attorney-General had
been prepared to proceed (she has been a strong supporter of gay
rights), but she failed to gain caucus support. {One wonder why someone
would run for office if they opposed the platform, but then again,
they didn't expect to win.) The Premier has been fairly indifferent
and refused to discipline one of his own MPPs who said that he would
not want his constituents to think that he was 'supporting queers'.

The Attorney General has been reduced to saying that possibly
legislation will be tabled before the end of the current session. It
is doubtful that she will do this. There is some muttering of a free
vote, which would be expected to be lost (i.e. no change).

The Government will have to call an election within a year or so.
Absolutely no one thinks they have a chance of winning again. The
interesting question is whether the Reform Party will mount a
provincial campaign pulling away right-wing votes from the
Conservatives, giving the Liberals an easy victory.

A recent by-election in Haliburton (a rural/cottage country area) was
won by the Conservatives. Gay rights was made an issue  of the
election. Both the Conservative and Liberal candidates were anti-gay;
the NDP candidate was vaguely pro-gay, but too weak to be relevant.
There had been no gay-related events or incidents which triggered this
emphasis.

Henry Rogers            rogers@epas.utoronto.ca
Dept. of Linguistics / Centre for Computing in the Humanities
University of Toronto                   vox: 416-978-1769
Toronto, Ont., Canada, M5S 1A1          fax: 416-978-8821