Invisible populations: LGBTQ people and federal health policy in Canada

This article reviews the state of federal health policy discourse toward the LGBTQ population in Canada. Despite the advent of greater attention to diversity and gender mainstreaming in federal public policy and the shift to legalized rights protections for LGBTQ people, symbolized by policies such as same‐sex marriage, LGBTQ health concerns continue to be marginalized in federal health policy. Based on a systematic review of federal policy documents and websites as well as a small number of interviews with federal policy‐makers, the research demonstrates the extent to which LGBTQ health concerns are rendered invisible in federal health policy. The article suggests several ways in which a commitment to gender‐based policy analysis could be expanded to take account of diverse health needs of LGBTQ Canadians.     

Introduction: shifting meanings of home

The studies and narratives collected in this special volume acknowledge "home" as a complex, ambiguous notion and reality. The contributors pay tribute to different ways of experiencing home, and to multiple connections to place and time. They illustrate how home is a social edifice, how it embodies different meanings and values, how it demarcates individual and social or national identities, and how a longing for home permeates experiences of homelessness as well as cultural, spatial, linguistic, and economic transitions.