Question
Question has been called. Motion is carried.
---Carried
Thank you, committee.
Committee, we have further decided to consider Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Vital Statistics Act. I'll ask the Minister responsible for the bill to introduce it. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm here to present Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Vital Statistics Act. The bill makes a number of amendments to the Vital Statistics Act. The Vital Statistics Act has been in force since 2013 and these are the first amendments to the act. Societal attitudes to transgender people are changing and it's also a time of reconciliation with Aboriginal people. The amendment to remove the requirement for gender reassignment surgery from the act brings the Northwest Territories in line with human rights decisions and progress in other provinces and territories.
Proof of completed gender reassignment surgery in order to process a change to the individual's sex designation on their birth registration and certificate is no longer accepted practice in Canada. Human rights decisions in a number of other provinces ordered governments to stop requiring proof of reassignment surgery for changes to sex designation.
When change in an individual's sex designation the amendments will allow the Registrar General of Vital Statistics to record a third sex designation. The options for sex designation will be male, female or X. The third designation is for those people whose gender identity is not exclusively male or female. Some transgender residents of the Northwest Territories have requested a non-binary option such as an X to better reflect them. The use of gender designation X is becoming increasingly available in many jurisdictions. Some provinces such as Ontario have adopted its use and the Government of Canada is proposing to allow X on federal identity documents, and a number of countries already utilize X on passports.
The other changes facilitate residential school survivors reclaiming names changed by residential school system. These amendments will fill a gap in the act that may prevent residential school survivors from reclaiming their previous name if they had a single name. The act currently mandates a first and last name and single names are not permitted. The amendments will allow a person to register with a single name if the single name is in accordance with the person's traditional culture.
The requirement for first and last name will still apply in the majority of cases. Revitalizing Aboriginal language is a priority of the 18th Legislative Assembly. Currently, the act does not allow the Registrar General to register a name unless it is written in the characters of the Roman alphabet. The Roman alphabet is used by many Western European languages including English and French. This may prevent residential school survivors from reclaiming their previous name. Removing the requirement for names to be registered in the Roman alphabet is the first step to registering names in Aboriginal languages with characters that do not exist in the Roman alphabet. An example is the glottal stop that represents a sound in Dene for correct pronunciation of the name.
Implementing these amendments in our electronic information system will present a significant technical challenge and we're working with partners on solutions. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank standing committee for the review of the bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. I will now turn to the chair of the Standing Committee on Social Development, the committee that considered the bill, for opening comments. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Standing Committee on Social Development concluded its review of Bill 8, An Act to Amend the Vital Statistics on October 25, 2016. In addition to soliciting written submissions, the committee had a public hearing at the Legislative Assembly building here in Yellowknife. The committee was pleased to receive a written submission from Dene Nahjo and to hear from members of the public who addressed the committee during the public hearing. Members, I also thank Shene Catholique-Valpy speaking as an individual, Coleen Canney and Teale MacIntosh from the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife, and Peter Redvers also speaking as an individual, for sharing their views and experiences at the public hearing. The residents' participation in the legislative process highlights the human face of Bill 5. This bill will have real and meaningful impact on the life of Northerners and their ability to use their true names, honouring their traditional culture and exercising self-determination in their identity. It is the beginning of a new era in the recognition of individuals by the governments that serve them.
Pending discussion in Committee of the Whole and third reading, the committee will follow the implementation of these amendments closely. Individual Members may have additional comments or questions as we proceed with the consideration of this bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister, would you like to bring witnesses into the Chamber?
I would, yes, please.
Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Minister, would you please introduce your witnesses to the committee.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me on my left is Ken Chutskoff, the legislative counsel, and on my left, Debbie DeLancey, deputy minister, Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Minister. Welcome to the witnesses. I will open the floor to general comments on Bill 5. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, today my remarks are specifically about the amendment with the designation 42(1). Do you want to hear those comments now?
You may proceed.
Thank you. As the chair of Social Development mentioned, we had several presentations at the public hearing at this bill, including one from the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife, which is a youth organization that supports people who are transgender and queer. I want to read a portion of their presentation because it helps to flesh out the section 42(1). So I'm quoting here: "Transgender identity at its core describes a person who feels like they are a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth by our medical system and/or by their caregivers or parents. There is no requirement of wanting to change one's body, nor is there any other requirement. The only thing that makes a person one gender over another is the feeling they have inside. Some trans people want to make changes to their bodies, and some do not. For any agency to place restrictions on a person's autonomy to control their identity is an invasion of individual human rights. Trans people should have the right to have vital statistics documents that reflect their identity."
I'll just pause here at the end of that quotation to say that the Minister has already acknowledged that he will recognize X as the alternative to male or female, and so I believe it addresses that point.
To continue quoting: "We are concerned that section 42(1) remains too vague and might end up meaning that the registrar requires, for example, a letter of confirmation from a medical professional that the applicant identifies as the sex that they claim to identify as. We believe that it is important that trans people are recognized as the sole experts of their own identities, and that medical professionals are not required to provide confirmation of identity for trans people. Furthermore, we hope that there will be explicit mention of not requiring medical confirmation of gender identity as to ensure that this barrier does not disallow people from changing their sex designation. We suggest requesting that the applicant be provided with a statutory declaration to sign that states that they identify as the sex that they are requesting to be designated on their documentation."
So, Mr. Chair, what all of this means is, as the Minister said, that trans people want self-determination in their identity. They want to be able to designate their own gender without needing an intervention in the form of a statutory declaration by a medical professional, with whom they might not have any relationship and with whom, quite frankly, trans people often have very troubled relationships. So the point here is that, if a person identifies as whatever gender they identify with, this should be taken at their word.
Now, I know that the legislation does not include that level of detail. It will be included in the regulations. But what I am seeking in this forum is a repetition from the Minister that the regulations will address this point of individuals being able to practise self-determination in their identity without the intervention or support of a medical practitioner? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member's comments. The Member has indicated that this particular area is something that was intended and will be addressed in the regulations. Originally, we are proposing regulations with respect to sex designation which was consistent with the majority of provinces and territories and the Northwest Territories. Specifically, that a statutory declaration that an individual lives full-time in the gender they want to change to, and that this is not the gender currently listed on their birth certificate, a statutory declaration from a doctor, a nurse practitioner, a psychologist or a social worker, that the person lives their desired gender full-time and it is not the gender on their birth certificate, consent of a legal guardian if the person changing their designation is a minor, payment of a fee, and obviously the return of the previous certificate.
During the public hearing, I made a commitment to do some additional research to determine why those are the regulations that we are proposing, and we have done some additional analysis. What we can say is the requirement for declaration of the health care professional is historical; it's something that exists in most provinces and territories. But this is a rapidly changing time. Every jurisdiction is working on what is the rationale for requirements for change of sex designation. Quebec, as an example, has taken out the requirement to have a doctor, physician, social worker, or other practitioner provide the statutory declaration. Instead, Quebec does ask that a declaration of a health care provider is necessary in cases of adults that have already previously changed their sex designation, and this is to preserve the integrity of changes made to the foundational identity document.
So in light of the argument that the Member has presented and the fantastic presentation provided during the public hearing, I have directed the Department of Health and Social Services to remove the requirement for adults to require a doctor, psychologist, social worker, or other practitioner to sign the statutory declaration indicating that this is the gender that the person lives in. So that will not be in the regulations.
I have not made the same direction for minors at this point. For minors, we need to make sure that we explore all the safeguards. I'm not saying that we won't make that direction, but I am certainly asking for more time to make sure that youth and minors are protected and safeguards are there to ensure their safety. We already require their guardian to provide, but I'm asking more time and I'm going to take more time to make sure that all those safeguards are in place. So what you will see in our regulations is no requirement for a doctor unless a person is going back to change their designation a second or third time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for making that commitment to remove the requirement for a statutory declaration from some kind of health professional in order for people to change their designation. I appreciate that the situation with minors is a little trickier because they're vulnerable people just by nature of their age, and I look forward to his further information on that pending his research. So my thanks to him and his officials, and my thanks as well to the Rainbow Coalition, Coleen Canney and Teale MacIntosh who made this original presentation to us on Wednesday night. That's everything.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Mr. Testart, do you have any more comments?
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I was going to speak to the amendment that my colleague just spoke of, but it seems like there's no need for that, and I'd like to applaud the Minister for being progressive on this issue. You know, in following suit with Quebec, the North is on the progressive edge of this issue and moving forward, and it's always nice to feel like Canada's catching up with you rather than us catching up with Canada. So I applaud this decision and I think it very much supports what the standing committee heard when this bill was reviewed in public.
The other component of this bill is of course directly in line with this government's commitments to the Truth and Reconciliation recommendations and also to our stated political objective of reconciliation by allowing Indigenous peoples to reclaim names that have been lost to them, and I think this bill shows that we are a government that understands the dynamics of reconciliation are actively moving to pursue it and as someone personally who holds rights in very high, individual rights and freedoms and very value, I'm very pleased to support this bill and the amendments to the Act.
I think the community did a very good job at bringing some of the issues to light, and I thank the Minister for being willing to work with committee, willing to work with the people of the Northwest Territories and willing to be progressive for the sake of all Northerners. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I support the self-determination of individuals in terms of their gender identity and I was pleased to hear that the Minister has agreed to be more flexible on that matter when it comes to the actual regulation, so I'm glad to hear that and I understand you'll come back, look for other information, perhaps options, position on how to handle that in the case of minors. So we look forward to getting that information from the Minister. I have one other issue though with regard to this bill. I'm just wondering how the issue of place names on birth certificates are going to be dealt with? We've got a number of official names for our community, some of which may not use Roman Orthography as their official name, so I'm just wondering is that issue dealt with in this bill or is it dealt with somewhere else, Mr. Chair? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this bill will allow us to use traditional fonts, but the place names are legal name. We will be using the official place names or official community names. If those community names include traditional fonts, then certainly those will be on the birth certificate.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I apologize. I wasn't at the hearing, and I'm probably springing this on the Minister and staff, but I'll give an example if that's okay. It's my understanding that the official name does not just exclusively use Roman Orthography, so in our documents that we issue as a government people will be able to have that appear as their place of birth perhaps and those will be accepted then by the federal government into the international system. Is that what I'm hearing? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister.
Thank you Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Department of Health and Social Services isn’t the registrar of office names of locations, communities, towns, villages, et cetera. Those names are registered using fonts or not using. If they have fonts, traditional fonts in them, the birth certificate will now be able to include it. If the name as registered does not include those fonts, then we would be required to use the legal name of the community as registered, and if it does include fonts, it won't.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm just curious, do we now have the ability then to use non-Roman Orthography fonts on birth certificates to indicate the official place names of communities? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Would the Minister clarify?
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and as I said during the public hearing, the Department of Health and Social Services is not the expert on languages or fonts. Education, Culture and Employment certainly has a lot more of knowledge and awareness in this area. I do know that fonts are available. They exist in different formats and databases that are used across the Northwest Territories by different groups of bodies, and there are keyboards with different fonts on them. So, you know, I imagine fonts can be used in many, many different avenues other than just birth certificates. But for us, if someone's going to register their name and put it on a birth certificate we are open to using the traditional fonts, but other components like the date of their birth or their birth community, still have to be based on the official names and this does not require us to change official names as registered of communities.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.
Mr. Chair, yes, look, I'm not asking the Minister to change official names of communities. What I'm wondering is if someone wants to get a birth certificate now, and they were born in Lutselk'e, and I'm not even going to say the name quite correctly, how does that appear on the birth certificate as their place of birth? Is it exclusively in Roman orthography right now or does it use the appropriate Denesuline fonts? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. So you're asking if the legal name of a community uses non-Roman orthography, will that non-Roman orthography appear on the birth certificate if that is the official legal name. Minister Abernethy, yes or no?
Once this passes and comes into effect, we'll be able to put any of the supported or any of the information in the appropriate fonts. If the registered name of community does not include a font, it will not include it on the birth certificate.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I think we're getting to the bottom of this. So we don’t have the ability now to issue a birth certificate with the official names on it if they include non-Roman orthography fonts? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister. That is what the Minister just stated. Would the Minister like to clarify that?
Birth certificates today do not include anything other than the Roman fonts.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Does the Minister of staff know how long it's going to take then to have the ability to do that for the official name portion of the birth certificate? Presumably it's going to happen at the same time that we fix this up for the names that can go on the birth certificate. I was just wondering when this is going to take place, when we can make this shift. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister.
Just to be clear, we will put the legal registered name of a community on birth certificates, so if it has font we'll make sure that happens. If it does not have font in the legal registered name then it won't obviously. Going live on this particular component of this legislation, we talked about this at length at the hearing. There is a significant amount of work that needs to be done in order to make sure that we are not putting residents of the Northwest Territories in harm's way by limiting their ability to get passports, social insurance numbers.
Also eliminating their ability to travel anywhere. Once we move and move this into effect and someone uses traditional fonts on their local driver's licence, it will limit their ability to travel within Canada. So there's a significant amount of work that we have to do in order to create transliteration guides and other work that will ensure that when someone presents with a birth certificate from the Northwest Territories, they're other legal documents like passports can include a Roman alphabet interpretation in that is legal.
So we anticipate it's going to take us quite a bit of time to finish negotiations with the Government of Canada, work with Education, Culture and Employment to bring this component to reality.
Thank you, Minister. I'd just like to remind the Minister, when you're done speaking please conclude with a thank you, just so the sound techs know to switch the microphones. Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the response from the Minister. So just in case anybody comes away with the wrong impression, I strongly support these changes to the Vital Statistics Act, and I appreciate the efforts of the Minister and his staff to do this. I just want to make sure that we're going to be able to do it in terms of the official names as well. I'm a very strong advocate for Aboriginal languages, all official languages, and I do appreciate the work of the department and look forward to having this sorted out soon. Thanks.
Thank you very much, Mr. O'Reilly. Next, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I speak in favour of Bill 5, the Vital Statistics Act, more particularly for the Aboriginal languages, an opportunity for people that make a choice to formally register their Aboriginal names. I applaud the department for taking those steps. Particularly so for the young individual person that took the steps to ensure that this legislation was amended. I'd like to draw her name, Shene Catholique-Valpy that took the steps to try to, you know, have her children's traditional name recognized in vital statistics, and she couldn't do it. So this is her effort in terms of making changes to legislation. It opens the door in terms of First Nations taking the steps and choice to register their traditional names.
At the same time, you know, it also sets the stage for self-identity of First Nations people. You know, the irony of our existence in North America and the world stage is that we all have Anglicized names and Christian names. Our culture is not really reflected in our English names. So this provides an opportunity for people to distinguish themselves as First Nations and Indigenous First Nations around the world.
I understand this passage of this legislation is still not complete, there's still an exercise in terms of sorting how, you know, the technical aspect of registering your names would work. But it's a small step through reconciliation. We still have a long ways to go. Hopefully, this is not just lip service, that it will indeed be committing this department, along with other departments in this government, to provide that opportunity for people to ensure that, you know, they're recognized in their formal traditional names in their self-identity. So with that, I just wanted to speak in favour of this legislation. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Would the Minister like to make any response?
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the Member's comments. I just want to be clear that this is not lip service, this demonstrates our commitment to making this a reality and making this happen. With respect to change of sex designation, gender, we believe that we will be able to do the work necessary to put this into effect by April of 2017. The same is true for single names, we believe that we should be able to get the work done through regulations and others to make it official and effective in April, 2017.
Implementing Aboriginal fonts is not as simple. The department has been reaching out to the federal government over the past year about the use of Aboriginal fonts here in the Northwest Territories. Unfortunately, we were really only able to have some successful discussions as of September. To be clear, having this bill drafted and passed, in my opinion, speaks to our commitment to making this happen. Unfortunately, it will take some time. If we implement the use of Aboriginal fonts today, those residents who choose to use Aboriginal fonts on their birth certificate would be at a real disadvantage. This is the first jurisdiction in the country to do this. Granted, we are only one of two jurisdictions that recognizes languages other than English and/or French.
To make this happen, we have to do a significant amount of technical work to have these fonts recognized in electronic systems used in the Northwest Territories, in Canada, and essentially around the world. Those systems are used in social insurance numbers, passports, healthcare cards, other documents, to name just a few. If we don't do the work and we move ahead with the fonts before the work is done, our residents who utilize the fonts won't be able to get passports, they won't be able to get social insurance numbers. They won't even be able to travel outside of the Northwest Territories with a driver's licence because those driver's licences will not be consistent with the name on a boarding pass. We've all been there; they look at our driver's licence, they look at the boarding pass, if the names aren't the same, you don't get on the plane, and other jurisdictions aren't going to have our fonts.
So the work needs to be done on the transliteration guides. We also have to look at a number of databases and other programs we're using in the Northwest Territories. We anticipate there's as many as 400 databases being used by the government alone that will have to have the fonts incorporated. So it is a significant amount of work, we have nine official languages, other than French and English, that we have to incorporate into this, and we need the federal government to be supportive.
So we are committed, the department is already starting the work, they've already been in touch with Education, Culture and Employment, they've already been in touch with the feds. I'd love to say we can make this happen tomorrow, I really would, but the reality is it's going to take some time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
