Calls grow for PM to end gay blood ban
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to make people sick across Canada, health authorities are imploring Canadians to donate blood — all Canadians except men who have had recent sex with other men, despite a 2015 Liberal pledge to end this ban.
NDP MP Randall Garrison is among a growing chorus of people saying it’s time for Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau to honour his promises and lift the gay blood ban in Canada.
The policy is discriminatory toward gay and bisexual men and promotes bias against gay men and transgender people, Garrison said.
“The ban actually perpetuates homophobia and transphobia,” he said.
“The evidence is everywhere this kind of ban doesn’t do anything but stigmatize people like myself who have been in a monogamous relationship for 20 years and not able to donate blood.”
The policy of excluding men who have had sex with men from donating blood or plasma — originally a lifetime ban — was implemented in 1992 after thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C through tainted blood products.
Donor eligibility criteria has changed since then, including last year when Health Canada approved requests from Canadian Blood Services and Hema-Quebec to decrease the deferral period for men who have sex with men from one year to three months. That is the period they must abstain from sex with other men before they can donate blood.
In the 2015 election that swept him into power, Trudeau pledged to eliminate the gay blood ban. Since then he has committed $3 million for research on moving toward more behaviour-based donation policies.
He once again promised to eliminate the ban in his 2019 election platform, and tasked Health Minister Patty Hajdu with making this happen in her mandate letter delivered last December. No movement has yet been made.
Garrison filed a motion in the House of Commons last week calling on the government to lift the ban, arguing it limits much-needed blood donations in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s the second motion on this issue he has tabled. The first was six years ago.
“They’ve got blood shortages, it’s national blood donor week and Canadian Blood Services has been all over the media here in Victoria begging people for donations. And I’m saying, here’s one way you can get more donations, you can lift this ban,” Garrison said.