Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre doubled down on his opposition to irreversible gender transitions for children, praising Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s “common-sense protections.”
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Poilievre shared a National Post article about a new poll showing that nearly half of Canadians support banning gender reassignment surgeries and cross-sex hormones for children.
“Canadians support Premier Smith’s common-sense protections of children. Trudeau must butt out,” wrote Poilievre
The Postmedia-Leger poll found that 45% of Canadians support a blanket ban on gender transitions for minors, while just 11% say children should be able to transition without the consent of their parents. Another 30% said they support medical interventions for trans-identified youth with parental consent.
On Jan. 31, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith became the first provincial leader in the country to announce a ban on gender reassignment surgeries for those under the age of 18, and a ban on cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers for those under the age of 16, along with several other parental rights and anti-gender ideology policies.
After avoiding the issue for a few days, Poilievre said for the first time on Feb. 7 that he opposed the use of puberty blockers on children.
He has now doubled down on that stance.
Responding to Poilievre’s statements, prominent parental rights advocate Chris Elston (commonly known as Billboard Chris) expressed optimism. Elston had previously criticized Poilievre for not speaking up on the issue.
“Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre spoke out against puberty blockers for the first time last week. Now he’s doubling down. Congratulations to all the Canadians who have been on the front lines raising awareness about this for years! We will end child transition in Canada!”
Meanwhile, controversial trans activist Fae Johnstone criticized Poilievre, and suggested that the party’s two openly gay MPs, Eric Duncan and Melissa Lantsman, do not care about the wellbeing of gender dysphoric children.
Lantsman fired back at Johnstone, accusing the militant activist of division.
“Pretty gross attack from someone the Liberals funded with $1 million tax dollars. Value for money isn’t there. You forgot to tag others who are openly gay and aren’t Tories. Never forget that Government funded radical ideologues are here to divide people.”
Wisdom2Action, a progressive organization co-owned by Johnstone, has received over one million dollars from the Trudeau government.
Grants and contributions posted on the government’s website include $994,661.00 to “address the capacity needs of 2SLGBTQ1+ organizations and youth-serving organizations in supporting young LBTQ+ women” and $97,745.00 to “undertake key activities to advance public legal education and information pertaining to conversion therapy.”
The organization also received several, smaller, thousand dollar grants.
Johnstone has been under fire several times for controversial comments.
Among other things, Johnstone has labelled feminists who support female only spaces and sports “TERFs” (trans-exclusionary radical feminists), accusing them of “acting as a smokescreen for far right extremism.” Johnstone has also called for these feminists to be “so vilified” that “they don’t dare speak their views publicly.”
Johnstone is a supporter of biological males being allowed in women’s prisons, but stated a preference for abolishing prisons altogether and has attempted to cancel a talk by renowned Canadian author and psychologist Jordan Peterson in Ottawa. Johnstone also shared calls to boycott a Regina small business after its female owner shared opposition to Johnstone being a keynote speaker at an event for women.
