The out MP talks international human rights work, the blood ban, HIV funding and more<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NDP MP (Esquimalt\u2014Saanich\u2014Sooke) Randall Garrison<\/a> says that after over 10 years on Parliament Hill, he\u2019s starting to feel a sense of accomplishment when it comes to the LGBTQ2S+ issues he\u2019s been championing since he was first elected. And, he says, it feels a little less lonely in Parliament as there are currently a record number of other out MPs and senators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have a few more queers in this Parliament,\u201d Garrison quips. \u201cAnd a bit more diversity, especially in our caucus, with Blake [Desjarlais], who is Two-Spirit, and Lisa Marie [Barron], who is bisexual. The usual joke is that there are three of us, so we can have a caucus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garrison says he never planned on being a politician, not thinking it was possible while growing up gay. He was recruited as a candidate by Jack Layton based on his 20 years of teaching criminal justice at Camosun College in Saanich, BC, and his international human rights work. He has been an MP and the federal NDP\u2019s spokesperson on LGBTS2S+ issues since 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garrison cites three particular international projects he was involved in before he got into politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI co-chaired the UN Human Rights observer mission for the referendum in East Timor on independence,\u201d Garrison says. \u201cI worked on a peace-building project in Indonesia, where I met my husband, and then I worked for Amnesty International in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garrison says that he was always out about his sexual orientation on these missions, but it may not have been the first thing he told people\u2014particularly in Afghanistan, because of the extreme hostility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was always part of human rights-observing that I did as part of those missions, which was to look at what was happening with queer people,\u201d Garrison says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since he\u2019s been an MP, Garrison says he has been working consistently to advance the LGBTQ2S+ rights agenda, This started with a commitment to a private members\u2019 bill to include gender identity and expression in the hate crimes section of the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act<\/em>, which passed the House of Commons under a Conservative majority, but it died in the Senate when there wasn\u2019t enough time for it to make it through committee before the 2015 election was called. It did pass as a government bill in the following Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have a few more queers in this Parliament.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m particularly proud of having worked with the transgender community on getting the major gap in human rights that was left in Canada filled,\u201d Garrison says. \u201cBut like everything, if people aren\u2019t in the community, aren\u2019t organizing and aren\u2019t stepping up, the work that I do here isn\u2019t really possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI worked with trans people from all across the country, and got a lot of them to see their Members of Parliament, in particular in the Conservative Party, and in the end, we got 18 Conservatives to vote for the bill,\u201d Garrison says. \u201cThat\u2019s how it got through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garrison also notes that he took on the blood ban\/deferral period for men who have sex with men early on in his time in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re almost at the finish line, but we\u2019re not there yet,\u201d Garrison says. \u201cIn 2014, I introduced the first motion in the House of Commons to end the ban, but I started talking to Canadian Blood Services in 2012, and have been working with them. But again, success in lifting the ban really came when the community got organized, and the All Blood Is Equal<\/a> campaign provided the impetus to get this done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garrison adds that he worked on the issue of ending conversion therapy<\/a>, and was happy to be one of the players who got that done in the current parliament, acting as a go-between with the Conservatives and the Liberals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garrison says that while he\u2019s glad to see these successes on initiatives he has worked on, there are still more issues he\u2019s trying to get action on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n