Nancy Hamzawi, the Liberal-appointed president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, was unable to provide a coherent definition of the word “woman” during a session of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research on 3 November, after Conservative MP Vincent Neil Ho pressed her on the agency’s adoption of what it terms “gender-additive language” in public health guidance.
Ho, who represents Richmond Hill South and has made the question of biological sex in official communications a recurring parliamentary focus, asked Hamzawi to offer Canadians a plain-language definition of “pregnant person,” the term her agency now uses in place of “pregnant woman.” Her initial response, that “a pregnant person is a person who is pregnant,” drew audible laughter from those present in the committee room. When Ho followed up by asking how a pregnant person differs medically from a pregnant woman, Hamzawi replied, “A person may choose to, um, a pregnant person is a pregnant person,” before being interrupted. Asked directly whether a man could become pregnant, she answered: “A person who identifies as a man who has the biological capability to get pregnant, is pregnant.”
The exchange was the second of its kind at the same committee. In June, Ho had asked a scientist appearing before the committee to define the word “woman,” at which point Liberal MPs informed him the question itself was “highly offensive.” Tuesday’s session suggested the intervening months had done little to sharpen the government’s position.
A Policy Built on Contested Ground
The terminology at issue derives from an official PHAC guidance document that replaces “pregnant woman” with “pregnant person” and substitutes “birth parent” for “mother,” on the stated basis that not everyone giving birth will identify as a woman. Hamzawi declined to use the word “mother” when Ho raised the point directly, consistent with the agency’s published position. Ho subsequently posted on X that the Public Health Agency “can’t even clearly define the language it publishes in its public health guidance, or tell Canadians whether a man can get pregnant.” The agency’s approach reflects a broader federal government effort to align medical communications with gender identity frameworks, a policy direction that has attracted sustained criticism from Conservative parliamentarians on grounds of scientific clarity.
Hamzawi’s credentials are not in question. She holds a Master of Applied Science and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Chemical Engineering, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, all from the University of Ottawa. She has served as Executive Vice-President of PHAC since February 2023, and previously held senior roles at Health Canada, including Assistant Deputy Minister of the COVID-19 Testing Secretariat between 2020 and 2021 and Assistant Deputy Minister at the Health Products and Food Branch from 2022 to 2023. She was appointed to the presidency in 2025. The contrast between that scientific formation and her reluctance to engage with elementary biological questions was not lost on observers. Census data, for context, records approximately 0.33 per cent of Canadians aged 15 and older as transgender or non-binary, a figure that raises legitimate questions about whether wholesale revision of public health language serves the broader population’s need for clear, unambiguous medical communication.