{"id":226995,"date":"2022-07-18T13:36:40","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T17:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/?p=226995"},"modified":"2022-07-18T15:05:37","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T19:05:37","slug":"rob-oliphant-parliamentary-secretary-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/power\/politics\/rob-oliphant-parliamentary-secretary-africa-226995","title":{"rendered":"Rob Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs, raises LGBTQ+ issues in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Xtra catches up with the out gay Liberal MP on this initiative and more<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently caught up with veteran out Liberal MP Rob Oliphant, who is relishing his duties as parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have a great minister,\u201d Oliphant says of foreign affairs minister M\u00e9lanie Joly, and that it makes the work more enjoyable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oliphant was first elected in 2008 in the Toronto riding of Don Valley West. He was defeated in 2011, returned to the House of Commons in 2015 and has won every election since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had five elections, and won four. Winning\u2019s better,\u201d Oliphant quips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to that, Oliphant spent most of his career, some 24 years, as a United Church minister after a brief stint as an accountant, but says he enjoys being an elected politician, particularly with his work as parliamentary secretary. Lately, he has been undertaking a series of official visits to countries in Africa, including Senegal, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania, which have given him an opportunity to raise LGBTQ+ issues in those places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is raised in every forum,\u201d Oliphant says. \u201cRight now, I am working on the strategy of Canada\u2019s foreign policy for Africa\u2014I\u2019ve had three trips in the last seven weeks [as of the interview in late June] and I\u2019ll be going back again. Of course, those issues are economic, they are bolstering people\u2019s understanding of the war in Ukraine by Russia\u2014for African countries to understand the position we have. I look at issues of human security, food security, military issues in different countries, but human rights issues play strongly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCanada\u2019s got a strong agenda both on women\u2019s rights and LGBTQ+ rights, and they\u2019re raised on every trip,\u201d Oliphant says. \u201cWe\u2019ll celebrate a country like Angola, which has decriminalized [homosexuality] and we will push other countries that continue to penalize.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of Oliphant\u2019s recent trips was to Egypt, a country notorious<\/a> for its treatment of LGBTQ+ people, who can face arbitrary arrest, detention in inhumane conditions and ill treatment, including torture, while guards incite fellow inmates to abuse them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was there five years ago, and I raised the generic issue of human rights quite strongly with the president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi,\u201d Oliphant says. \u201cHe was concerned about education, healthcare and business growth, and he was going to wait to do a human rights agenda. I suggested to him that you can\u2019t wait to do human rights because they go hand in hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou build your economy and you build your prosperity by having a human rights regime that attracts investment,\u201d Oliphant continues. \u201cCanadian firms do not want to invest in a country with fragile human rights regimes. They want to invest where there is going to be transparency, social responsibility and LGBTQ+ rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oliphant says that there has been progress in Egypt in those five years, and on his most recent trip, he met with the chair and one of the vice-chairs of the newly established Human Rights Commission, which did not exist previously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe talked about the human rights agenda\u2014it\u2019s very slow, but there is now a commission that\u2019s charged with doing it,\u201d Oliphant says. \u201cOn that first trip to Egypt, I also talked to head of the Coptic church and the head of the Sunni religious sect in Egypt, because you realize that secular society and religious society are woven together in these countries, and when you\u2019re talking human rights, you can\u2019t just talk to government\u2014you have to talk to others as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oliphant says that over his time as an MP, he\u2019s also served as the chair of the public safety and national security committee, as well as the immigration committee, and he still keeps tabs on some of the issues, such as the conditions in prisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI continually follow up on that to ensure that we have humane and good treatment of prisoners, and also of PTSD treatment for corrections officers, police officers and emergency responders,\u201d Oliphant says. \u201cThose are issues I cared about then, and I still follow up on. I was constantly trying to renew our immigration system. I\u2019ve always said we need an immigration system that starts with yes, not with no.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oliphant notes Canada\u2019s current labour shortage and an aging population, which ties to the government\u2019s Africa strategy, as they have a younger population. Oliphant also notes his work on the issue of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), as well as genetic discrimination, where he sponsored the Senate bill in the House of Commons. Then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould objected to the legislation, prompting Cabinet to vote against it, but it passed and has since survived a challenge<\/a> at the Supreme Court of Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was proven right on that,\u201d Oliphant notes. \u201cI said we wouldn\u2019t have a prosecution and we haven\u2019t had a prosecution, because insurance companies want to follow the law. It\u2019s a sea change for people who were facing genetic discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to his work as an MP in Toronto\u2019s Don Valley West riding, Oliphant notes that he has a riding that is very north-south\u2014the north is quite wealthy, while the south has a lot of poverty. When it comes to the southern portion of the riding, Oliphant says the change over the past 14 years has been dramatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can attribute it mostly to the Canada Child Benefit,\u201d Oliphant says. \u201cI see families that now have income that they\u2019ve never had before. It\u2019s quite incredible that the lower-income families have kids with the right clothes, school materials and future opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to LGBTQ2S+ issues that Oliphant has been working on, he lists the conversion therapy ban as one success, particularly that the second bill was stronger than the first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe raised the issue and we\u2019re now taking it around the world,\u201d Oliphant says. \u201cI\u2019m encouraging parliamentarians in other countries to take on the issue of conversion therapy. The blood ban is something that we\u2019re still not there yet, but we\u2019re getting close. We\u2019ve now changed the mindset so that it should be a behavioural model as opposed to an orientation model, but it\u2019s taken a long time. I\u2019m looking forward to giving blood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that, Oliphant has to leave the interview to shepherd two interns from the Danish embassy around Parliament Hill, the work of parliamentary diplomacy never stopping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Xtra catches up with the out gay Liberal MP on this initiative and more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":835,"featured_media":226998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editorial_slug":"5","_editorial_slug":"5","exclude_from_latest_block":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2],"contributors":[281],"topic":[67,76,78,95],"clients":[],"series":[],"timeliness":[60],"editorial_format":[31],"type-of-work":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226995"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/835"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226995"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227005,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226995\/revisions\/227005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226995"},{"taxonomy":"contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributors?post=226995"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=226995"},{"taxonomy":"clients","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/clients?post=226995"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=226995"},{"taxonomy":"timeliness","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/timeliness?post=226995"},{"taxonomy":"editorial_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial_format?post=226995"},{"taxonomy":"type-of-work","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-of-work?post=226995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}