Nunavut avoids embarrassment

This week, by a narrow margin of only two swing votes, Nunavut barely avoided the shame of becoming the only jurisdiction in Canada without a human rights law.

Luckily, those of us who believe that Nunavut residents deserve a good law to protect them from discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, disability — and sexual orientation — have something to be pleased about this week.

But those of us who are concerned about the quality of Government in Nunavut, especially within the legislative assembly, still have much to worry about, based on the spectacle that MLAs put on for us this past Tuesday.

Because the real division in the legislature this week was not between those who wish to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination and those who don’t. Nor was it between those who oppose same-sex marriage and those who don’t.

The real division was between those MLAs who read and understood the bill they were about to vote on, and those who had not.
“I can say that I don’t know much about the contents of this bill…” admitted one MLA, Jobie Nutarak of Pond Inlet.

There is no reason why this should be so. The purpose of Bill 12 is simple.

It’s to protect people from being denied jobs, housing and retail services because of how they were born.

Like all other provincial and territorial human rights laws, it’s list of grounds for discrimination includes “sexual orientation.” That means that you cannot deny a job, an apartment or service in a restaurant or store to a person simply because they are gay or lesbian.

And that’s all it means. It does not contain an endorsement of same-sex marriage, an important but entirely separate issue that is not even within the jurisdiction of the Nunavut government. Neither does it represent an endorsement of homosexuality. It simply means that those who are born gay or lesbian should not be forced to live their lives in a state of fear and degradation.

If MLAs — who have access to research staff, interpreter-translators, and many other forms of support — are incapable of working hard enough to understand the simple meaning of simple words that have been put in front of them to be voted on, then they were never fit to serve as MLAs in the first place.

JB