Lukewarm LGBTQ+ Lip Service from Canadian Government

We need to go beyond simply “nice”

Amid calls for action from advocacy groups Canadians United Against Hate and Momentum, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the Canadian Liberal Party and New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh issued statements in support of the 2SLGBTQI+ community marking the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, observed on May 17.

Two Conservative Party MPs, Michelle Rempel Garner and Scott Aitchison, tweeted support as well, reports Senior Digital Parliamentary Reporter Rachel Aiello for CTV News:

“Even in Canada, LGBTQI+ persons still experience higher levels of violence than others,” posted Rempel Garner. “On this International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, let’s recommit to eliminating hate, violence and discrimination.”

“You belong. You matter. No matter who you are. No matter who you love,” said Aitchison.

While I cannot imagine any Republican politician in the US even saying that much, it is also telling that the Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre said nothing at all.

Trudeau and Singh’s words are nice. I appreciate them. But we need more from our leaders. We need action.

Canada vs US

When we look South across the border, Canadians often feel smug and superior, secure in our famous niceness. It is true that we have a history of being more progressive than the US. However, we are more like our Southern neighbours than some of us would like to admit.

Canada legalized same sex marriage in 2005, ten years before the US Supreme Court’s famous Obergefell vs Hodges case made marriage equality the law of the land in the United States. It wasn’t even a big deal here. In 2015, a conservative Christian Canadian friend of mine posted something alarmist about Obergefell and I told her we’d had marriage equality for ten years and she was stunned. She’d had no idea.

But we cannot rest on our laurels, such as they are. Canadians watch a lot of American television (not to mention using American websites), and we have a tendency to be influenced by US culture and values. I have noticed more and more Canadians lately spelling words like ‘neighbour’ and ‘labour’ without the ‘u’ and pronouncing ‘z’ as ‘zee’ instead of ‘zed.’

This regrettable loss of our culture, however, is not as disquieting as the hatred infecting Canada.

I won’t pretend that Canada would be perfect and pure as the new-driven snow without US influence. We have always had our share of bigots and racists here. Our history with our Indigenous peoples is unpleasant to say the least. But the Evangelical Christian Church has never had the foothold here that it does in the US.

Nice vs Kind

I recently encountered a fascinating idea in the novel The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna. The main character of the novel, Mika Moon, has the philosophy that ‘nice’ and ‘kind’ are very different things, that niceness is surface level including politeness and manners, while kindness is deeper and more important. She points out that one character is both kind and nice, while another character is not nice but is kind.

Canadians are famous for being nice. We say “excuse me” and “sorry” when someone else bumps into us. We wave and smile at strangers. We say “please” and “thank you” to the Tim Horton’s barista. But are we kind?

Government leaders issuing statements condemning bigotry and supporting LGBTQ+ people is nice. Action to stop the hatred would be kind.

Niceness is not enough. Lip service is not enough. We need kindness. We need action.

Esther learned to read when she was four years old, and began writing shortly thereafter. She is a Canadian queer Christian poet, crafting with words to create art and music.

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