Minister Suzanne Roy unveiled Tuesday the composition of the “committee of wise men” responsible for studying questions relating to gender identity. The government has decided not to include any trans or non-binary people, which worries those in the field.
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This committee will be chaired by the former president of the Council on the Status of Women, Diane Lavallée.
She will be supported by a family doctor and former deputy director general of the College of Physicians, Jean-Bernard Trudeau, and the professor of constitutional law, Patrick Taillon.
This group will have the mandate to “create a space for reflection to inform future government decisions” and to draft a report by winter 2025, explained the Minister of Families at a press conference, emphasizing that there “is no question of rolling back the existing rights of trans and non-binary people”.
“There are big steps that have been taken, and we are not going to debate them, and we are not going to go back,” said Ms. Roy.
The committee has a budget of $800,000 to carry out its work.
Concerns
Asked about her decision not to include any trans or non-binary person, the minister argued that it is not “a representation committee”, but rather a “committee of reflection, ‘analysis and work’.
She also specified that the “wise men” will work in concert with the Quebec LGBT Council.
However, no member of this organization was present at the press conference. Reached by telephone, the general director, James Galantino, explained his absence by saying that the council “does not have a problem with the mandate”, but that the composition of the committee is a source of “concern”.
“With the news breaking, there is a lot of rumbling and a lot of fear. These are people who are neither experts nor concerned. We don’t know what will come out of this work,” said Mr. Galantino.
“It’s something that devalues the experiential expertise of the people concerned, and those of experts in the field,” he added.
In recent weeks, the Quebec LGBT Council has raised these concerns with Minister Roy, without success.
“We were told that the committee would take place with or without us, so we preferred to be consulted,” explained Mr. Galantino when asked why the council was going to participate in the work despite everything.
“I believe in the benevolence of wise people, but if we do not have expertise or are not concerned, we have blind spots, we can propose things that will be damaging,” he said. he concluded.
The mandate of the Committee of Wise Men
- Paint a portrait of Quebec reality
- Identify Quebec public policies, practices and directives in several sectors (education, sports and leisure, family, health and social services, public security, etc.)
- Analyze their potential effects on Quebec society as a whole.
- Identify, compare and analyze the policies, directives and practices implemented in states comparable to Quebec.
- Identify the main issues to be explored further.
- Collaborate with the Quebec LGBT Council.