Hon. Frances Lankin: Senator Gold, thank you for your speech. You raised a number of important considerations that we all need to take into account. I appreciate all the other contributors to the conversation tonight.

I am, on the one hand, very attracted by the amendment — and by the essence, goal and spirit behind our approach in this chamber of supporting equality measures; however, I’m very troubled by the points that you bring forward with respect to federal-provincial jurisdictional issues.

Having been in a provincial government and knowing when we railed against the feds for stepping into our territory, and knowing this is the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces, I think that we may be in danger of doing what we believe from a policy perspective would improve the bill. But is that our job here from a policy perspective? If it could endanger the bill or its effectiveness, I want to know more.

Can you be more explicit about why this could be detrimental to the goal that we’re all expressing support for here in terms of Senator Cormier’s amendment? Are there other related examples, like health care — where the provinces deliver most of it, but it is a bit of a shared jurisdiction compared to others — or immigration or climate control agreements with the provinces, or is there something different about how this has been constructed? If this is different, tell us. If it is not different, then I may start to question supporting the amendment because maybe it’s just not our jurisdiction.