At the Canadian Medical Association meeting in Saskatoon, Liberal MP – and honorary drag queen – Hedy Fry spoke about the way that trans people are being underserved by our medical system. Fry says she believes it to be the last piece of discrimination in our publicly funded health care system, and she quite correctly points out that coverage across the country is spotty at best. I’m pretty sure that this means that Bill Siksay can count on her support for his trans rights bill.
Michael Ignatieff has announced his delegation for his trip to China, and Scott Brison will be on it as he previously mentioned. Also on the trip will be John McCallum, Ujjal Dosanjh and Alexandra Mendes.
Speaking of Brison, an interview he did with Chinese-language Fairchild TV has been posted, and it’s pretty interesting to see some of the questions that the interviewer asks. For example, when Brison talks about the importance of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to all Canadians, she insists that Chinese-Canadians haven’t been discriminated against since 1947, so it was largely irrelevant to them. Seriously. She takes shots at Brison’s religion, saying that many Christians wouldn’t consider the United Church to be a “real” Christian faith and she also says that more Chinese-Canadians would vote for the Liberals if only they would be more socially conservative. Also – apparently they liked showing all those crazy pictures from Pride parades to get Brison to try to denounce them (which he doesn’t really do). Anyway, worth checking out.
While on his big tour of the North, the Prime Minister held a Cabinet meeting in Iqaluit, and made a big show of eating seal meat. Except that at this point, after Her Excellency got all the media attention for it, Harper just looks like he’s desperately chasing after old trends. (Kind of like how he’s still taking cues from the Karl Rove Republican playbook).
The Cabinet gets a taste of seal meat.
Meanwhile, there was a bit of a flap when the PMO misspelled Iqaluit on their press release as “Iqualuit.” The correct spelling means “many fish.” The incorrect spelling means “people with unwiped bums.” So what did the PMO do when presented with this evidence? Put out a press release that showed how many other media outlets misspelled it, as well as the paperwork from a trip Prime Minister Paul Martin took to the region. That’s our spokesperson Dimitri Soudas – Klass-with-a-k all the way.
And finally, Suaad Hagi Mohamud’s lawyer is demanding that her passport be returned – oh, and a little compensation for all the inconvenience she was put through wouldn’t hurt either.
Why you can trust Xtra
