“I do believe this is an important decision made by the Federal Court, but the policy has not been cancelled. So I am waiting to see.”

Callas accused the department of discriminating against him on the basis of his sexual orientation in maintaining the Canadian Blood Service’s policy, which prohibits men who have sex with men from donating blood in Canada unless they have been alone for a while.

When Karas first applied to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, that period was one year; since then, it has been reduced to three months.

For many years, the non-profit Canadian Blood Service has believed that the extension is necessary because HIV is more prevalent among men who have sex with men—sometimes referred to as the MSM population.

Karas and his lawyer Gregory Ko argued that although Health Canada does not directly accept blood donations, it approved the screening by the Canadian Blood Service.

Health Canada disagrees, believing that it has never issued an order requiring Canadian blood services to adopt the ban. The department stated that it only reviews the policies and procedures of blood service agencies for safety reasons and does not have the legal power to instruct independent agencies to do anything.

In 2019, the Canadian Human Rights Commission forwarded Callas’ complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for further investigation, saying that preliminary evidence indicated that there is a relationship between Health Canada and CBS that needs to be investigated.

The judge found the opinion “convincing”

The Attorney General of Canada fought back on behalf of Health Canada and sought judicial review of the committee’s decision at the federal court level.

Later last week, Judge Richard Southcourt dismissed the request, saying that the Human Rights Commission’s assessment that the issue requires further investigation was valid.

He wrote: “I found these submissions convincing.”

“The evaluation report pointed out that the exact nature of the relationship between Health Canada and CBS appears to be a’live competition’, which is worthy of further investigation.”

Gregory Ko, a lawyer for Karas, said that the human rights process may still take years, which is why they want to see the Liberal government take action as soon as possible.

The Liberal Party promised to end what it calls a “discriminatory” blood donation ban in the 2015 and 2019 federal elections.

“I’m waiting to see the government take action, I don’t know why they don’t take action, because if they don’t take action, as the election approaches, it will only become more and more important politically,” Callas said.

Ko refers to the United Kingdom, which has recently lifted the ban on blood donation by sexually active men of men who have sex with men and switched to a behavioral model. Starting this week, all blood donors in the UK will be asked about their recent sexual activity, regardless of their sexual orientation.

“I suspect that given an obvious example where the blood supply system of a country is very similar to ours and has broken away from the model of Health Canada and the Canadian Blood Center, I suspect that it will be more difficult for Health Canada to prove that it is moving forward. Reasonable. The service has persisted for decades,” Gao said.

Earlier today, Conservative MP Eric Duncan filed a motion for private members, calling on the Liberal government to end the “discriminatory” blood ban.

He said in a statement: “It’s time to end Canada’s discriminatory blood ban. The Conservative Party has documented this change in a safe and simple way.”

“If the Liberal Party can promise to end the blood ban during the election, they should use the tools available to them to do so. Stop virtue signals and feel-good statements — and stick to this reasonable and long overdue change. “