To discover exactly what these "substantial barriers" were for transgender people I did another ATIP to the PCO and asked for copies of these studies. The PCO responded with this:
"A thorough search of the records under the control of PCO was carried out on your behalf; however, no records relevant to your request were found. However, we recommend that you make the same request with Health Canada as they are more likely to hold material pertaining to the specifics of your request." (emphasis added)
The PCO advises the Prime Minister--allegedly based on studies--but they don't actually have any studies to back up their claim. What?
Next stop, I did an ATIP to Health Canada for these studies alleging that transgender people face "substantial barriers" to abortion services.
I received back two studies, both based on the same data. The title of the first study was "Abortion experiences and preference of transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive people in the United States". The second was "Abortion attempts without clinical supervision among transgender, non-binary and gender expansive people in the United States."
(The United States? They couldn't find any studies in Canada?)
So what are these alleged "substantial barriers" to transgender people wanting to kill their pre-born children? From the first study:
"To improve accessibility and quality of abortion care for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive patients, respondents most frequently recommended that abortion clinics adopt gender-neutral or gender-affirming intake forms, that providers use gender-neutral language, and that greater privacy be incorporated into the clinic." (emphasis added)
"The reported experiences highlight systemic discrimination and barriers to abortion care for TGE individuals and that clinicians, researchers, policymakers and advocates must urgently work to address."
But I couldn't find anything in the study to corroborate this statement; there were no examples of "systemic discrimination and barriers".