Canada's "commitment" to queer rights abroad

I got an email from a reader this morning, who forwarded on to me a question he sent to the Prime Minister around the issue of those two gay men in Malawi who were imprisoned, and the response he received. While the situation has since been resolved (they were released thanks to international pressure, but the pair have since broken up). With his permission, I’m reposting the exchange here....

Note that Cannon didn’t actually address the issue of rescinding the invitation for the President of Malawi, which was something that had been discussed at the time. Instead, he gave bland assertions that Canada speaks out against human rights violations on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. What’s interesting is that for all their “commitment” to queer rights abroad, their track record at home is not exactly consistent. After all, this is the government that scrubbed references to gay rights and same-sex marriage from their citizenship guide, that has turned a blind eye to the question of veterans discharged from the military for their sexual orientation pre-1992, and which is currently opposing Bill Siksay’s Private Member’s Bill on trans rights, which enshrines protection for gender identity and gender expression.

Sure, it’s one thing to encourage states to decriminalise same-sex activity between consenting adults, but here at home, we don’t yet have an equal age of consent. They also operate on this notion that being queer is something that is a private matter for behind the bedroom door – best not seen in public (so let’s not fund Pride celebrations). And while I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of international diplomacy, note that Harper only ever committed to raising the issue of queer rights in private, both with the president of Malawi, and the President of Uganda on the anti-homosexuality bill in that country. Who knows what actually gets said behind closed doors? Suffice to say, that Cannon’s words and his government’s actions have a fairly wide gulf between them.