Comox Valley Pride critical of Conservative MLA Brennan Day over ‘bigoted’ OneBC bill
MLA Brennan Day’s ‘yea’ vote has caused a ripple effect in the Comox Valley, Pride Society says. (Hansard Services)
On October 8th, at the Legislative Assembly in Victoria, a private members bill put forward by Tara Armstrong of OneBC for introduction and first reading. The bill intituled Protecting Minors from Gender Transition Act received a call for division and with 48 votes against the motion was defeated.
Among those voting in favour of the introduction and first reading was Conservative Brennan Day, MLA for Courtenay-Comox. On October 22nd, the Pride Society of the Comox Valley publicly shared a letter addressed to MLA Brennan Day, dated October 20th, citing concern at the representative’s decision to support the first reading. The letter states, “even at this early stage, the introduction of such a bill threatens the safety, dignity, and autonomy of transgender, Two-Spirit, and non-binary youth across British Columbia.”
A director on the Pride Society’s board spoke with CHLY and DIG FM about the letter.
“What led us to write this letter is we've done a lot of work with the Pride Society of the Comox Valley around what our strategic priorities are, and education and advocacy are some of our main priorities. And so when harm is done to our community, we believe it's our position to [educate and advocate], and we've been told by doing a whole bunch of consultation in the community that that's what's needed from the Pride Society. So yeah, we've heard loud and clear that that's our role within this community, and so we decided to advocate after hearing that Mr. Brennan Day had supported the first reading of a bill that we believe is bigoted,” the representative said.
Noting a rise in hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity, both locally and globally, the director speaking on behalf of the Pride Society asked to keep their name confidential.
The representative explained the society’s intention in sharing their letter to MLA Day:
“The goal of the letter was to hold Brennan Day accountable as our representative. Now, the Comox Valley also consists of Cumberland, and Josie Osborne did not vote yes to reading this harmful bill, so that's why the letter was only directed towards Mr. Day. And the goal was to sort of raise awareness that he's doing this without any form of consultation; he ran on a platform that he was gonna be free to vote in any way that his conscience desired. But what we're seeing is what looks like a lot of whipped voting, in which case, is Mr. Day the representative for the Comox Valley or is it the leader of his party? And we wanted some answers from Mr. Day as to whether he was allowed to vote with his conscience and whether he consulted with experts, 'cause we didn't hear from him,” the Pride Society director said.
The director explained that something many people may not know is that Pride societies are volunteer run, not funded by local governments or businesses, so when local queer communities are impacted negatively, the work to support these communities falls to volunteers.
“And so when Mr. Day made the decision to vote yes to reading this harmful bill, what happened was we had over 300 interactions within the community, where we heard from parents, from people who are directly affected, from youth. And so when he does this, what he does is he creates a whole lot of extra work and emotional labour for people who are already experiencing marginalization and hate crimes at an all time high. So we really wanted to bring to his attention what would've been a proper process, which would've been to consult with us. We do have a group that runs monthly, a support group for parents of trans and non-binary children, and their voices weren't heard in any of this, and so we wanted him to be aware that there's resources here. Before you go and make decisions that affect the lives of families, you should probably speak to those families,” the representative said.
MLA Brennan Day responded to the letter with one of his own, which he shared with CHLY and DIG FM. In the letter Day thanked the Pride Society for their care and passion, and stated his vote for the first reading of the bill was “not an endorsement of the bill's contents or any one side of the debate.” The letter continued, “first reading is a procedural step that simply allows a bill to be tabled and debated publicly. Its contents are not available until it has passed first reading. Democracy depends on open debate, even on deeply personal issues, guided by evidence, compassion, and respect.”
It is worth noting that in the motion to introduce and read the bill, MLA Tara Armstrong did share a brief overview of the contents prior to the vote, including the following quote which contradicts health information shared by the Government of Canada and Vancouver Coastal Health.
“Members, I stand before you today not only as a member at this Legislature but as a mother. British Columbia is sleepwalking through the greatest medical scandal in modern history, and it’s our kids who are at risk. In B.C. today, doctors are causing irreversible harm to children with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries. These interventions rob children of the human right to grow up with their bodies intact and to one day have children of their own,” Tara Armstrong said in her presentation to the Legislative Assembly.
According to the Government of Canada, puberty blockers, or hormone blockers, are a reversible treatment that suppress the signs of puberty once it begins, whether preventing the voice from deepening and limiting the growth of muscle tissue, or stopping ovulation and menstruation. They are not only used by trans youth, but also cisgender youth, for reasons including menstrual pain, acne treatment, and early puberty.
Further, according to Vancouver Coastal Health, “the age for access to lower gender-affirming surgery is the age of the majority, which in British Columbia is 19 years of age.” Additionally, in 2016 under the then governing centre-right BC Liberals, the B.C. Human Rights Code was updated to include explicit protection for gender identity and expression, with unanimous support of parties in the legislature.
MLA Brennan Day clarified his stance in a conversation with CHLY and DIG FM, acknowledging that “direction from the party is always an issue, with party politics,” but reiterating that voting for the first reading is not necessarily equivalent to supporting the bill.
“We don't get to see the bill in its entirety until it passes first reading. So at that point, it just opens up the potential for debate. Most first readings pass and they never see debate, that's up to the government to call them. So, it's my position that British Columbians do deserve to see what's being discussed because obviously this is quite a politically charged issue,” Day said.
MLA Day elaborated further on his stance as a representative of constituents in the Comox Valley:
“Obviously I represent everybody here in the Comox Valley, every background, every belief. My job is to make sure that every voice is heard respectfully. And I do feel, especially in charged situations like this, it's important that we come together and have those discussions in full view of the public and make sure that we understand each other's positions and make sure that we find a middle ground. Not having these conversations is what's got us to this place, and I think it's really important we continue those discussions going forward,” Day said.
Responding to the suggestion that this conversation should be heard out through open debate, the Pride Society said that is unhelpful and inappropriate.
“I think if you just take the word ‘trans’ out and use a different type of marginalization, so if we say the rights of black kids and the rights of families of black kids, people would maybe have an idea of how absurd it sounds to target out a single group and discuss their rights as though they're not entitled to the same rights as everybody else. And I don't believe that that's true. And if that was Mr. Brennan Day's intention was to have these chats and, ‘oh, it's so good and healthy, these debates,’ we've seen a lot of hate speech coming from the party that he lives within or from members of that party. And we haven't seen it shut down in a way that we feel was meaningful or appropriate. And I think if that was actually true, he would come and talk,” the Pride Society representative said.
In Day’s letter he said that he “welcome[s] the opportunity to meet with your group. My door is open, and I would be glad to sit down with your members to listen and learn firsthand.”
The Pride Society has not yet arranged a meeting with Day, as they are consulting with other groups and organizations in the community to find a way to share information with the MLA that keeps vulnerable members of the community safe.
“We've asked parents, and perhaps their children, if they want to write impact statements. One of the biggest concerns around this is that we know the suicide rate for people who are in [the trans] community, and we want to keep kids safe just as much as Brennan Day claims he does. So he needs to be aware that when he allows for harm to be read and this rhetoric that's, you know, just flaming these divisive misinformation campaigns, it has a really serious impact on people, and a lot of them are youth,” the director said.
“And so, yes, we're happy to meet with him. He does need to recognize that it's not the job of queer people to educate him; queer people and trans people are already overburdened with the work that comes along with standing up for rights every day, and it's not our job to teach him. There's a lot of free ways he could: UBC has a course available on this, and we were considering asking him to take that before he meets with us so that there's some safety around that meeting, because I don't think he is aware yet of the type of harm that this caused, and the impact,” they said.
The Pride Society representative also noted that MLA Day’s absence was felt at the Comox Valley Pride parade this August:
“I do want Mr. Brennan Day to know that his absence at Pride this year was very much noted, and there were thousands of people that he represents there who were asking where he was, and we'd like to know as well. He was at Canada Day, he was at other events, and whether or not he's intentionally not coming or if it was just maybe a scheduling error and we can expect to see him there next year, because we would absolutely welcome him to come to join in the parade, to speak to people and celebrate with us,” the Pride Society of the Comox Valley representative said.
Brennan Day responded to this question in his conversation with CHLY and DIG FM:
“The letter from Pride did say that I had not reached out to them – the telephones work both ways, I was not invited to Pride and I didn't think that it would be appropriate to attend without an invitation. I know that there's obviously a lot of politics around that here in the Comox Valley, more broadly in the community, but should they invite me I'd be happy to attend. That's a community that I have a lot of respect for, and it works both ways. I've sent a letter to invite them for a meeting to discuss the letter, and I hope they take me up on that offer,” MLA Brennan Day said.
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada. Reporting done in the Comox Valley is done in partnership with DIG FM.