MONCTON, New Brunswick (LifeSiteNews) — Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to “butt out” of New Brunswick’s decision to add parental protections to its Gender Identity policy for public schools.
During a June 27 news conference in Moncton, New Brunswick, Poilievre blasted Trudeau for condemning New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs for changing the province’s Gender Identity policy in order to keep parents informed if their child “changes” genders at school.
“I know that Justin Trudeau has butted into that,” Poilievre stated. “The prime minister has no business in decisions that should rest with provinces and parents.”
“So my message to Justin Trudeau is, ’Butt out and let provinces run schools and let parents raise kids,'” he continued.
In May, Higgs came under fire from LGBT activists and Trudeau after he announced a review of Policy 713, the province’s public school Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity policy.
“For [a wish to be identified with the opposite sex] purposefully to be hidden from the parents, that’s a problem,” Higgs told reporters, as Policy 713 currently requires children give consent for their parents to be informed if they decide to change their genders at school.
“To suggest that it’s okay that parents don’t need to know — just stop and think about that question for a moment,” he added.
Under the new policy, parental consent would be necessary for teachers to use different names or pronouns for students under 16.
Higgs’ defense of children and parental rights was condemned by Trudeau, who claimed, “Right now, trans kids in New Brunswick are being told they don’t have the right to be their true selves, that they need to ask permission.”
While Poilievre seems to support Higgs by condemning Trudeau, Poilievre’s voting record and statements regarding the dignity of human life and the traditional family show a lack of concern with core conservative values that Canadians cannot afford to overlook.
In January 2020, Poilievre gave an interview to the French-language La Presse, in which he lamented the fact that he voted against gay marriage “15 years ago.”
Moreover, Poilievre followed up his pro-LGBT change of heart to a change in action, and in 2021 voted in favor of the Trudeau government’s pro-LGBT “conversion therapy ban,” which used a broad and ambiguous definition of “conversion therapy” that includes any attempt to “repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior or non-cisgender gender expression.”
Furthermore, Poilievre stated that his government would “never” introduce legislation seeking to restrict abortion, and if a private member’s bill was introduced to that effect, he would ensure its failure.
In similar fashion to his newfound fondness of homosexual “marriage,” shortly after clarifying his pro-abortion views, Poilievre voted against a bill seeking to ban sex-selective abortion in Canada.