In the 1953-54 parliamentary session, the Criminal Code was amended to also criminalize homosexuality between women. The amendment took effect in the summer of 1954.

In 1890, the House of Commons introduced a new offence called “gross indecency." The new offence made it easier to charge suspected sodomites.

In 1893, the gross indecency law became part of the country’s first Criminal Code. The original language of the law referred only to homosexual acts between men, as sex between women was typically ignored at the time.

In 1648, the first documented case of a sodomy conviction occurred.

The military drummer, who was the man convicted, was found guilty and was sentenced to death. However, Jesuits stepped in and were able to transfer the case to Québec City, where his life was sparred.

From then until 1893, few known cases exist of homosexuals being sentenced to death.

On June 10th, 2003, Ontario became the first province in Canada to legalize civil unions for gay couples. The second province to legalize it was British Columbia less than a month later on July 8th, 2003.

On 1999 at the M. v. H. Ruling as The Supreme Court ruled that defining spousal support exclusively for opposite-sex couples violated the equality guarantees of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This required governments to extend marriage-like economic and legal rights to unregistered cohabiting same-sex partners and following the 1999 ruling the federal government and various provinces (such as Ontario, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia) passed omnibus legislation to update hundreds of laws, granting same-sex common-law couples equal access to public benefits, tax status, pensions, and inheritance rules upon meeting specific cohabitation timeframes (typically one to three years) in Canada.

In Canada, marriage is define to be "the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others" making it only a union for one man and one woman.

Until 2012, Canada federally required surgery for gender recognition on passports. However, until 2017, gender recognition elsewhere generally varied by province and territory.

Gender recognition was first provided on a state-by-state basis in 1978 with Quebec and Ontario.

Until 1978, there was no legal gender recognition provided in Canada.

On June 27, 2025, the Alberta Court of King’s Bench issued an injunction preventing the ban from going into effect and restoring care until December.

Gender Affirming Care is legal for adults in all provinces, however, with the passage of the Health Statues Amendment Act (No 2), 2024 in the Alberta Legislature, Hormone Therapy and Puberty Blockers are banned for minors under the age of 16, and Gender Affirming Surgeries are banned for all individuals under the age of 18 in Alberta.

Gender-affirming care falls under provincial jurisdiction. Currently no province or territory restricts it, however some provinces like Alberta have spoken about restricting or outright banning care for minors in the future.

In 1969, the first gender identity clinic opened in Toronto at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and the first gender-affirming surgery in Canada was performed in 1970.

To qualify, applicants had to be employed, be straight, never have been convicted of a crime, have lived as their identified gender for at least two years, and have changed all their legal documents.

On July 28th, 2017, the Government of Northwest Territories became the first jurisdiction in Canada to offer a third gender option.

Before July 28th, 2017, no jurisdictions in Canada allowed a third gender option.

In 2004, the Criminal Code was amended to include sexual orientation as a protected characteristic under hate propaganda laws.

In 1996, Crucially, Section 718.2(a)(i) was created to specifically address hate-motivated crimes toward sexual orientation. It stated that a judge must consider it an aggravating circumstance if:"there is evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or any other similar factor."

Before 1996, there is no hate crimes protections for LGBTQIA+ individuals in Canada.

Before the 2017 amendment, only sexual orientation was included as a protected class.

In Canada, on 1977 Quebec passed a historic law in that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation, making it the first province in Canada (and the first large jurisdiction in North America) to do so before 1985 while no other Canadian province or the federal government include protections for LGBTQIA+ people.

In Canada, there is no protections for LGBTQIA+ people from discrimination prior to 1977.

Federal human rights law applies directly to only federal government employment and employers which fall under federal jurisdiction. Gender identity is only implicitly protected under interpretation of the law by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Attempts have been made to have gender identity and gender expression added as protected classes to both the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code, though none of these attempts so far has been successful.

Provincial human rights acts are separate, but Supreme Court precedent exists for requiring provinces to protect the same classes as the Canadian Human Rights Act. At this time all provinces protect against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Of the provinces only Ontario has explicit protection on the basis of both gender identity and gender expression in its human rights code, though several provide implicit protections on the basis of gender identity or "transsexualism" under the category of "sex" or "gender".

In Canada, Quebec prohibited employment discrimination target at sexual orientation on 1977, Ontario also prohibited employment discrimination target toward sexual orientation too in 1986, while other provinces/territories prohibited employment discrimination targeted at sexual orientation but it was not nationwide protections before 1996.

In Canada, before 1977 there is no protections for LGBTQIA+ people from employment discrimination.

In Canada, on 1996 at federal law sexual orientation was protected from housing discrimination.

In Canada, protections for sexual orientation on housing discrimination was varied by regions with the following are: Quebec: 1977 (First in Canada) Ontario: 1986 Manitoba: 1987 Yukon: 1987 Nova Scotia: 1991 New Brunswick: 1992 British Columbia: 1992 Saskatchewan: 1993 Newfoundland and Labrador: 1995 while there no protections for LGBTQIA+ people from housing discrimination anywhere else not listed.

Before 1977, there is absolutely no protections for LGBTQIA+ people from housing discrimination in Canada.

Before 2011, not all Canadian states and provinces had changed their regulations to allow same-sex adoption. The first to fully allow it was Quebec in 1982.

Before Douglas v Canada LGBT individuals were banned from serving in the Canadian military.

In 2019, Health Canada lessened their deferral period to 3 months for men who have sex with men.

Health Canada approved Canadian Blood Services’ proposal to reduce the blood donation ineligibility period for men who have sex with men from five years to one year.

Health Canada changed the indefinite deferral period to a 5-year deferral, effective May 22, 2013.

Men who had sex with men, even just once, were banned indefinitely from donating blood in Canada from 1977 to 2013.

Before the 1977 ban, there were no restrictions on men who had sex with men from donating blood in Canada.

Ontario became the first province in 2015 to ban conversion therapy.

It only became banned federally in 2022.

Until June 4th 2015, conversion therapy was not banned anywhere in Canada.

The age of consent in for anal sex in Canada is 18, whereas the age of consent for acts of sex is 16.

In Canada, on 1988 the age of consents for homosexuals is moved to just 18 year old while heterosexual contacts is still at just 14.

In Canada, homosexual activities was decriminalized but the age of consent was different for both homosexual and heterosexual contacts is different with heterosexual being 14 and homosexual being 21.

Homosexuality was illegal so no age of consent in Canada prior to 1969.

In Canada, male homosexuality was illegal meaning no age of consent for them but female homosexuality was legal although they were ignored by the law.