Egale Canada
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Egale Canada was founded in 1986 to advance equality for Canadian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people and their families, across Canada. Egale's work includes: carrying out political action to lobby for more equitable laws for LGBT people; intervening in legal cases that have an impact on human rights and equality; increasing public education and awareness by providing information to individuals, groups and media. Egale has over 3,300 members including people in each and every province and territory of Canada.
The organisation was initially named "Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere". As they began to also lobby for bisexual and transgendered issues, it was felt that the acronym was uninclusive, therefore the change from the acronym E.G.A.L.E. to simply "Egale". (égale being the French word for "equal")
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Proudest achievements
Relationship recognition
They successfully lobbied for the introduction and passage of Bill C-23, which amended some 68 federal statutes to treat same-sex couples equally with opposite-sex married couples. They supported union activities and lobbied the federal government in support of equal employment benefits to those in same-sex relationships; coordinated coalitions of equality groups in cases on same-sex pension benefits and equal funeral leave for same-sex families. They intervened before the Supreme Court of Canada to challenge the opposite-sex definition of "spouse" in the Old Age Security Act (Egan v. Canada); though unsuccessful, this case did set a unanimous precedent by which sexual orientation is read into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a forbidden grounds of discrimination. They also successfully challenged the opposite-sex definition of "spouse" in Ontario’s Family Law Act (M & H v Ontario), which extended the right to common-law marriage to same-sex couples. They convinced Statistics Canada to include same-sex families in the nation-wide census, and worked with LEGIT to advance equal immigration rights for gays and lesbians.
Combating Censorship and Promoting Freedom
Egale intervened to support efforts to have Pride officially proclaimed in many cities; supported community initiatives in response to the Calgary bathhouse raids; decried the heavy-handed censorship practices of Canada Customs and helped Little Sisters Bookstore win their court case.
Youth, Education and Families
They were involved in cases like the Jane Doe alternative insemination challenge; supported a number of legal challenges involving the rights of youth in the education system, especially the case of Marc Hall who wanted to bring a same-sex date to his prom; fought against the ban by the Surrey School Board of books depicting same-sex families.
Human Rights Protection and Combating Hate Crimes
Egale successfully lobbied the federal government to add “sexual orientation” to the Canadian Human Rights Act to protect lesbians, gays and bisexuals from discrimination; lent support to many provincial and territorial efforts to have equal rights enshrined in legislation across the country; lobbied the Government to introduce more severe penalties for those convicted of gay-bashing and other hate crimes; supported the addition of “sexual orientation” to the grounds covered by hate propaganda legislation; intervened in the Nixon case to support the rights of transgendered people.
Community outreach and public education
They developed fact sheets on current issues affecting the LGBT communities; established a Website and manages six e-mail discussion groups to help keep our communities informed across the country; hosted an historic national conference in Montreal (Rainbow Visions); testified before the CRTC in support of diversity in Canada’s broadcasting policy and to oppose the limitation of access to lesbian and gay materials on the Internet through restrictive regulations; presented to the plenary session of the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna and participated in the World Conference on Women in Beijing.
External links
- Egale's Website (http://www.egale.ca)