Gender neutral language will soon appear in Saskatoon's bylaw language

Saskatoon city council will soon be updating some of its bylawsto incorporate gender neutral terms.

City councillors voted in favour of making changes to the bylaws at its council meeting on Monday.

For example, administration is recommending council consider the Amusement Tax bylaw be amended by replacing "him or her" with "the inspector."

Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark said it's important for the city to keep with changing policies around gender pronouns to ensure Saskatoon is up to speed on human rights legislation, but also to ensure everyone feels welcome.

"It's 2019 and we're wanting to keep up with the times. Keep up with different legislation and human rights legislation and also just the overall understanding of how you create a city that everyone feels welcome," said Clark following Monday's council meeting.

Clark explained when people are accessing civic services or reading civic bylaws, it's important they seethemselves reflected, as council wants all Saskatoon residents to know they have a place in the city.

"There's an understanding that people all belong and people have a place and people all contribute and we want that experience to be reflected in our bylaws as well," he said.

The Cannabis Business Licence Bylaw would see "his or her" changed to "their."

The Cemeteries Bylaw will change "his" to "the purchaser's" andThe Fire and Protective Services will be amended by striking out "journeyman" and substituting "journeyperson."

The bylaws are also being updated to reflect the city's new corporate structure and references to legislation and other organizations.

A total of 11 bylaws are being amended, eight of which involve changing language to be gender neutral. Because the changes were similar across many of the bylaws, they were approved as a groupby councillorson Monday.

A number of cities across North America, like Vancouver and Berkeley, Calif., have replaced gender-specific words in their city code with gender-neutral terms.