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Bill C-11: The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act
Bill C-389: Support Gender Equity in the Canadian Human Rights Act
Criminalization of HIV
The PTC is very concerned about the trend in Canada to criminalize the transmission of HIV. The British policy is as follows:
You may be guilty of reckless HIV transmission if all five points below applied to you at the time of the alleged offence:
You knew you had HIV
You understood how HIV is transmitted
You had sex with someone who didn’t know you had HIV
You had sex without a condom
You transmitted HIV to that person.
For more information on the British policy:
http://www.tht.org.uk/binarylibrary/policy/nat-thtguidereprosecutionsmay2010.pdf
For the Canadian context, see this Xtra! article:
http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Criminalizing_HIV_may_only_fuel_the_epidemic-5153.aspx
Bill C-11: The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act
The PTC is working to support Egale on this issue.
For more information from the Egale website:
http://egale.ca/index.asp?lang=E&menu=32&item=933
Bill C-389: Support Gender Equity in the Canadian Human Rights Act
PTC is working with CUPE National Trans Rep, Martine Stonehouse, to support federal legislation for legal protection for the trans community.
For updated information check Xtra.ca.
http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/C389_passes_but_faces_further_delays-9536.aspx
Same Sex Partner Abuse
Members of the PTC represent social service workers and have been involved with developing the following resources. These pamphlets are easily downloaded and printed to be distributed at your workplace.
http://www.fsatoronto.com/programs/dks/resources_samesex.html
Safe Schools
The PTC is very concerned about the safety of queer students, children of queer and trans parents, and staff in schools in Ontario. CUPE Ontario has supported the work of queer youth serving agencies and the development of gender based violence and harassment policies. 56,000 school support workers are CUPE members.
The committee is supporting the mygsa.ca campaign of Egale Canada.
CUPE 4400 has worked with the TDSB to develop resources. Check out this article and the TDSB gender based violence department website below:
http://www.tdsb.on.ca/_site/ViewItem.asp?siteid=10471&menuid=25649&pageid=22158
Censorship
Members of The PTC worked with The Coalition for Free Speech in Toronto to ensure the participation of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid were permitted to walk in Pride Toronto in June 2010. See Pride Celebrations
http://www.facebook.com/pride.coalition.for.free.speech
Sex Laws
Members of PTC support sex workers organizations for recognition of sex work as work and issues that relate to work place safety. We strongly support the legal challenges to make sex work legal in Canada.
Poverty / Employment Issues:
Addressing issues of poverty in all forms and how it impacts our community.
Take Action and work in coalition with anti-poverty, employment rights, and employment equity campaigns.
Toronto Disaster Relief Committee