Parliament ‘Catering’ to Transgender Visitors by Installing Gender-Neutral Washrooms, Says Senate Opposition Leader

Conservative Sen. Don Plett in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

Parliament is “catering” to transgender visitors by mandating the installation of gender-neutral washrooms, says Sen. Don Plett, the leader of the official opposition in the Senate. He also called on the government to acknowledge the real “reasons” for installing the new washrooms.

“Why don’t we call a spade a spade every so often instead of skirting around issues?” Plett said during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Internal Economy on June 15, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

“For the life of me, I don’t know why we have to call a washroom a ’self-contained washroom.' Why can’t we just not call it what it is, a washroom?”

Plett was referring to extensive renovations in Parliament’s Centre Block, which has been closed since 2019, and to new plans by the Department of Public Works to install gender-neutral “self-contained washrooms” in the renovated building.

“The last suggestion was, well, let’s call it the ... non-gender washroom. To which I said, well then I don’t have a washroom to go into because I have a gender. So now we come up with something like self contained washroom,” he said.

Plett said there are “reasons” for the changes beyond what the federal government has officially stated, which have nothing to do with  “shorter wait times” and “a greater number of accessible washrooms at more convenient locations.”

“That is absolutely not true. We are trying to sugarcoat and skirt around the problem that we have here,” he said, adding that the changes are due solely to the “gender issue.”

“That’s the only reason, the one and only reason, we’re doing it. Let’s at least have the courage to admit that that’s what we’re doing—that we’re catering to a group of people who say, ‘I want to go into a washroom that I don’t belong in.’”

Sen. Scott Tannas, the chair of a Senate subcommittee on building renovations, responded by saying the decision on the washrooms was to make them accessible to any visitors to Parliament.

Tannas said the House of Commons agreed to “use the term ’self-contained washroom unit' for washrooms that can be used by all persons.”

He added that “some experts” gave the Senate advice on the washroom issue, but did not name them.

“I think we found the right place and sometimes you find the right place when you wouldn’t have been looking for it otherwise,” Tannas said.