Some of the drag artists the leader was speaking about are specifically in the House today. Scarlett BoBo, Crystal Quartz, and a number of other drag performers prominent across Ontario and Canada are here.

Speaker, they have been asking and calling for action from this government now for months. They are asking for help. Their shows are being targeted. Their audience is being discriminated against—as well as harassment being targeted at the venues, the businesses that are hosting these events.

Because there has been no action and no real response from the government, we’re putting together a private member’s bill that will specifically address the hatred targeting the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in Ontario. I need to know, and we all need to know today: Will you be working with us to make sure that this bill becomes law to protect this community?

Yes, thank you so much to the member from London West for the question. What we heard—and I think what every study has shown us now, especially the ones that are created in the university and college climate—is that it’s actually the faculty, the students and the administrators; everyone is asking for consent education. Creating that culture of consent is how we actually prevent the more costly approach of reaction to sexual violence and harassment when it takes place.

One thing I would say is that not every act of sexual violence or harassment is going to lead to rape. It’s not. So being able to step up and intervene before it happens is actually a much more caring and compassionate and less costly way of responding.

I’m not here to defend rapists or abusers, and neither should any of us.

You will not find a single administrator or president of a university or their governors or even their student leaders that will reject minimum standards when it comes to how they approach, define sexual violence and harassment, and the response and protocol for investigations. Every single one of them will support it.

I would also say that the other thing that’s absolutely critical, because we’ve heard this language used before, is it has to be survivor-centric and it has to be trauma-informed. The bill does not get to the heart of that and that’s why it could be strengthened and it should have been strengthened.