Wednesday, January 14, 2026

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Orlando mass shooting may be watershed moment in U.S. presidential campaign

In the U.S., Trump has been using the Orlando shooting to bolster his anti-Muslim, anti-immigration rhetoric. By coincidence, two reports urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to issue an official apology for the discrimination long endured by Canada's LGBTQ community have just landed on the government's desk. Post-Orlando, it may be hard to ignore those calls.

When former prime minister Jean Chrétien set out to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in 1996, a pitched battle ensued in the House of Commons. So divided were his own MPs that Chrétien had to allow a free vote to avoid a rebellion of the social conservatives within his caucus. In hindsight, it is hard to believe that 53 MPs voted against protecting Canada's LGBTQ community from discrimination or that about the same number believed the risks to freedom of speech offset the need to protect gay Canadians—as a group—from hate speech. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

Opinion
BY CHANTAL HÉBERT
June 20, 2016

Opinion | BY CHANTAL HÉBERT | June 20, 2016

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