WINNIPEG, Manitoba (LifeSiteNews) –– Only four members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) from Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative (PC) Party broke ranks to vote against a bill that will permanently designate one day a year as “transgender and two-spirit day.”
Last Thursday, all MLAs from Manitoba’s ruling New Democratic Party (NDP), under its new pro-abortion Premier Wab Kinew, along with nine PC MLAs, voted to pass Bill 208, or the “Two-Spirit and Transgender Day of Visibility” bill. This bill establishes March 31 to be known as the “Two-Spirit and Transgender Day of Visibility” every year.
“Two-Spirit,” similar to the term “transgender,” refers to a person of one sex who, in defiance of reality, “identifies” as the opposite sex or neither sex. Radical gender ideologues in Canada have included the term in the LGBT acronym for years, purporting it has connection to Native American culture.
The Private Members bill was put forth by NDP MLA Logan Oxenham. The four PC MLAs who voted against the bill were Kelvin Goertzen, Josh Guenter, Konrad Narth and Ron Schuler.
According to MLA Narth, who serves the La Verendrye constituency just south of Winnipeg, the reason he voted against the bill was not that he was against recognizing a “transgender” day per se, but rather due to a clause in the bill that states that youth have complete agency over their lives, and implies that kids understand what so-called gender identity is.
“I have some issue with, [and] constituents that I represent have some issue with, youth and the terminology of youth being able to make the decisions on altering their identity,” he told reporters.
The bill was supported by the PC’s interim leader Wayne Ewasko, who allowed his MLAs a free vote on the measure. Overall, nine PC MLAs voted for the bill, with 8 abstentions.
“We had a free vote today and our caucus members respect each other’s voices and votes,” Ewasko told reporters.
PC MLA Goertzen, who voted against the bill, expressed the same concerns as Narth, saying it “contained within it language that expressed support for youth – often defined as young as 12 or 13 – to have sex-affirming procedures, medical or otherwise, without any stated limitation to age or parental knowledge.”
“I believe that this is an important matter of public policy that deserves both study and public input and not to be inserted into the preamble of a bill that otherwise would find support,” he noted.
Kinew accused the PC MLAs, who were exercising their democratic right to vote how they choose in representation of their constituents, of engaging in an “act of hate.”
During debate on the bill, Kinew told the dissenters that nobody is “asking for you to be gay.”
Kinew’s NDP government has taken a stance like that of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government when it comes to going all in on radical transgender ideology, including the so-called “transitioning” of minors, while at the same time introducing laws that on the surface appear to be about helping children.
The Trudeau government has gone all in on promoting transgenderism and gender ideology, as can be seen from its federal “2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan,” which gives $100 million in funding over five years for homosexual and “transgender” initiatives.
As so-called LGBT “pride” continues to ramp up in Canada each June, so has the pushback from citizens.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, for the second year in a row Canadians from across the country have pulled their kids from school at the start of June in protest of so-called “pride” month.