Bill 2: Quebec adopts family law reform


Non-binary Quebecers will be able to choose ‘X’ as their sex designation on official government documents.

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Non-binary Quebecers will now be able to change their sex designation to “X” on official government documents and will be able to identify as “parent” rather than “mother” or “father” on their children’s birth certificates.

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The update is the result of the adoption of Bill 2 at the National Assembly on Tuesday. First tabled in October 2021, the bill’s goal was to carry out an in-depth reform of family law, which hadn’t been updated in about 40 years.

The new law addresses many social subjects. Last week, however, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette decided to withdraw two important aspects of the reform: the rules surrounding filiation and the supervision of surrogacy, including contracts between parents-to-be and surrogate mothers.

If Jolin-Barrette hadn’t removed those elements, he may have seen the bill — which spans some 360 ​​articles — die on paper. He had no choice but to legislate now, at least on the issue of gender identity, to conform to a Superior Court decision by Judge Gregory Moore, which rendered several articles of the Civil Code null because they were deemed discriminatory. Moore’s judgment stated that Quebec should ensure all forms of discrimination relating to gender designation on official documents are eliminated.

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Jolin-Barrette technically only had until Dec. 31, 2021 to do so, but requested an extension until June 17.

In the beginning, Jolin-Barrette wanted to impose gender-affirming surgery on people who want to change their sex designation on official documents, or otherwise have separate categories for “sex” and “gender.” Faced with backlash from the LGBTQ2+ community, who pointed out the rule would force people to come out, the minister backed down and removed the controversial articles.

Throughout the process, opposition parties criticized Jolin-Barrette for delaying the tabling of the bill because there wasn’t enough time for serious clause-by-clause consideration. They considered the situation all the more deplorable since Jolin-Barrette is also the House leader of the government, meaning he’s responsible for setting legislative priorities and managing the work schedule. Parties had less than four weeks to review the bill.

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Liberal MP Jennifer Maccarone called Jolin-Barrette’s way of handling the file “regrettable.” In her final remarks ahead of its passage Tuesday, she said many people in the LGBTQ2+ community will be disappointed to find several aspects of the reform had to be set aside due to the management of parliamentary business.

“They waited three and a half years to start work,” added Parti Québecois MNA Véronique Hivon, who was also disappointed with how the file was handled.

Along with Bill 96, the reform of family law was of major focus this year. The next government will have to summarize the process for the parts of the law that had to be put aside — in particular, the part affecting surrogate mothers. Currently, agreements between them and parents-to-be have no legal value. Opposition MNAs also expressed concern about the issue of the commodification of women’s bodies.

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Family law reform was also supposed to include a revision of the rules of conjugality, in particular surrounding the rights and obligations of de facto spouses compared with married couples.

The reform, which was expected for years, was based on an extensive report on the issue produced by Université de Montréal law professor Alain Roy in 2015, which was shelved by the Liberal government at the time. The report was centered on the child, their interests de ella and their right to know their origins de ella, regardless of the circumstances surrounding their conception.

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