Recent photos of Pierre Poilievre and one of his most important MPs taken with individuals in controversial t-shirts at the Calgary Stampede have brought the debate surrounding LGBTQ rights and the theory of gender.
Last week, a man was pictured alongside the Tory leader wearing a t-shirt that read ‘Straight pride’, which can be translated as ‘straight pride’. Mr. Poilievre’s office eventually issued a statement in which he said he “did not agree with the message” conveyed.
Conservative MP Jasraj Singh Hallan, meanwhile, posed with a person whose shirt reads, “Leave our kids alone.”
Photo taken from Twitter
Then, on Sunday, a photo circulated of his finance spokesman, Jasraj Singh Hallan, flanked by two men with t-shirts that read “Leave our kids alone”, or “Leave our children alone”, accompanied by an image of a family protected by a rainbow, an LGBTQ symbol, by an umbrella.
The Conservative Party preferred not to comment this time.
“The great challenge that this poses [à Poilievre]it’s the fact that it brings the Conservative Party back to issues related to social and religious conservatism,” observed Frédéric Boily, political scientist at the University of Alberta.
Issues related to gender theory, at the heart of the “cultural war” as it unfolds today in the West, “risk distorting its message, which is mainly articulated around the economy, the cost of living, of inflation”.
“At the same time, he cannot completely close the door to all that precisely because as a good curator, he is supposed to denounce Wokism, to use this expression,” he added.
One of the activists against universal teaching of gender theory and the rights of LGBTQ people in schools, Jeff Park, minimizes the scope of the slogan.
“I don’t understand what’s so controversial about the ‘Leave our children alone’ slogan. It’s just politics,” Jeff Park, executive director of the Alberta Parents’ Union, said over the phone.
Facebook screenshot Jeff Park
The father-of-four founded the organization in May 2022 with the goal of “making the voice of parents heard in the education of their children”.
“It’s very simple: Parents are the only real experts on their own children, and their voice deserves to be included in the discussion,” said Park, who lives in Calgary Forest Lawn, where the MP sits. Hallan.
Park protests Justin Trudeau called ‘extreme right’ a New Brunswick government initiative that would force schools to seek parental consent if their child under 16 wants to change their name or identity of gender.
“Tell Trudeau: Parents’ rights aren’t far-right, they’re human rights!” reads the webpage of a petition launched by his organization.
But Professor Kristopher Wells of MacEwan University in Alberta says politicians who take pictures with anti-LGBTQ activists are “completely irresponsible.”
Facebook screenshot Kristopher Wells
“When straight guys can’t walk down the street holding their partner’s hand because they fear they’ll be attacked, maybe it’s worth celebrating ‘straight pride’,” he said.
But in the meantime, according to him, his followers are “often linked to the extreme right” and like to make the LGBTQ community a “scapegoat”.
“These groups assume that there are no LGBTQ children, but that they magically appear as adults,” said the professor who holds the Canada Research Chair in Public Understanding. young people from sexual and gender minorities.
According to the latter, “children are identifying as LGBTQ earlier and earlier”, around ten years old for sexual orientation and “five or six years old” for “gender identity”.