Liberal Leader Mark Carney was unable to answer whether biological women should have the right to their own sex-segregated spaces free from biological males during the French federal leadership debate in Montreal.
True North journalist Alex Zoltan asked Carney whether he believed that biological women should “have the right to their own spaces,” including in sports, change rooms, washrooms, prisons and homeless shelters.
“This is Canada,” answered Carney. “That as a general objective, yes. We…work…where we value all Canadians…for who they are and we’ll continue to do so.”
Zoltan also asked Carney point blank, “How many genders are there?”
After taking a moment to gather his thoughts, Carney responded by saying, ”In terms of sex, there are two, thank you.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called the notion of male offenders expecting they can self-identify their way into female prisons “surreal” in December and has pledged to keep men out.
His comments were prompted by a triple murderer’s request to be incarcerated among women.
Mohamad Al Ballouz was sentenced to life in prison last year after being convicted of the 2022 murders of his wife, Synthia Bussieres, and the couple’s five-year-old and two-year-old sons Eliam and Zac.
Al Ballouz then claimed to be a woman going by the name Levana, and requested to serve his sentence at the Joliette Institution for Women in Quebec.
“Surreal: A man who killed his wife and two kids now claims he is a woman to go to a female prison,” Poilievre wrote on social media. “I can’t believe I have to say this: but when I’m prime minister, there will be no male prisoners in female jails. Period.”
While this is the first time Poilievre has made such a specific commitment, he’s been clear that “female spaces should be exclusively for females, not for biological males.”
“Female sports, female change rooms, female bathrooms should be for females, not for biological males,” he said at the time.
Correctional Service Canada, which oversees federal prisons, says it strives to “meet the needs of gender diverse offenders”
“We place them in institutions aligned with their gender identity (men, women, non-binary, etc.) or expression, if they prefer, regardless of their sex (anatomy), the gender or sex marker on their identity documents.”
The correctional service said it applies “fair and impartial decision-making methods” to meet these needs.
The government’s data says that 1% of federal Canadian inmates have “self-disclosed gender accommodation needs.” Current numbers are not available, but the number of incarcerated federal inmates in Canada often falls between 12,000 and 15,000.