TORONTO (LifeSiteNews) – The NDP Party of Ontario, which is the province’s official opposition, introduced a bill that would in effect ban anyone from protesting within 100 meters of drag queen story times or other “2SLGBTQI+” designated events.
Bill 94, known as “Keeping 2SLGBTQI+ Communities Safe Act, 2023” was tabled by NDP MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam.
Those found to have performed an act of “intimidation” would be fined up to $25,000.
“The rise of hate and violence facing the 2SLGBTQI-plus communities, including the drag artists, happening across Ontario and right (across) the nation has been alarming,” Wong-Tam said at a press conference yesterday.
The bill “prohibits persons from performing an act of intimidation within 100 metres of the boundary of a property that is designated as a 2SLGBTQI+ community safety zone.
Further, the text of Bill 94 reads:
No person shall, within 100 metres of the boundary of a property where a 2SLGBTQI+ community safety zone is located, perform an act of intimidation, including,
(a) causing a disturbance within the meaning of the Criminal Code (Canada);
(b) distributing hate propaganda within the meaning of the Criminal Code (Canada);
(c) uttering threats or making offensive remarks, either verbally or in writing, with respect to matters of social orientation or gender roles; or
(d) engaging in a protest or demonstration for the purpose of furthering the objectives of homophobia and transphobia.
It remains unclear if the ruling Progressive Conservative government of Ontario under Premier Doug Ford will support the bill.
Bill 94 blasted as an attempt to normalize ‘institutionalized grooming’ and should be ‘strongly opposed’
The press conference for Wong-Tam’s bill included multiple so-called “drag queens” and others speak to Bill 94.
However, many prominent Canadian pundits and some politicians erupted with an immediate backlash to Bill 94, mocking the press conference as a display of forcing the “totalitarianism” transgender ideology on Canadians.
European MEP Christine Anderson, who was recently in Canada on tour, said the bill is about “totalitarianism.”
“That’s how totalitarianism works: If you can’t support your argument with facts, you simply criminalize and persecute everyone saying differently,” Anderson tweeted.
Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) political operations director Jack Fonseca said that “madness has been unleased on our country!”
CLC said Wednesday that Bill 94 must be “strongly opposed.”
“Forcing drag shows on children, then proposing legislation to prohibit criticism of drag shows for children … This is what institutionalized grooming looks like,” conservative commentator Viva Frei tweeted.
“Well done, Canada. We have truly become a beacon. Of something.”
Twitter user Christopher F. Rufo spared no words in calling out the display at the press conference advocating for Bill 94 as “using diversity as a mask for tyranny.”
“A nonbinary, a wizard, a witch, two drag queens, two maskers, an AWFL, a child, a disabled minority, and a cis white male just introduced legislation to make ‘offensive remarks’ near drag shows a violation of Canadian law,” Rufo tweeted.
“They’re using diversity as a mask for tyranny.”
Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada, lampooned the press conference.
“Did they move Halloween to April?” Bernier tweeted.
Bernier has consistently blasted the targeting of kids as a form of “incredibly irresponsible” gender “ideology” that “must stop.”
Canada’s Criminal Code already bans all forms of hate speech, including harassment, but laws like Bill 94 already exist in some Canadian cities such as Calgary.
In June 2022, the Calgary City Council, under its left-leaning Mayor Jyoti Gondek, amended the city’s bylaws to “specifically prohibit insulting or demeaning behavior, including unwanted sexual advances, or harassing anyone on the basis of age, race, sexual orientation, disability, gender, gender identity or gender expression, among others.”
Calgary’s new “Safe and Inclusive Access Bylaw” disallows “specified protests” both inside and outside all city-owned and affiliated public buildings. Gondek put her full support behind the buffer zone bylaw.
The bylaw means pastors or concerned parents protesting against pro-LGBT events at public buildings will be barred from getting within 100 meters of any such location.
LifeSiteNews reported about Christian pastor Derek Reimer, who in March was forcibly removed from a Calgary public library for protesting a drag queen story time at which he preached that “homosexuality is a sin.”
Last week, Canadian dad Chris Elston was violently assaulted by radical transgender activists in Vancouver for protesting gender ideology targeting kids.
Elson is an activist working to expose the extremism of the transgender movement and the dangers of “sex changes” for kids but was grabbed by the throat, then thrown to the ground and punched for opposing gender ideology.
In recent years, there has been a noticeable push in western nations to actively promote gender ideology to young people, particularly in the United States and Canada. A large part of promoting gender ideology is through drag queen story events, which have become prevalent throughout North America.
However, there are some jurisdictions that have banned kids from attending drag shows.
Recently, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill to ban minors from attending drag shows and other events that are classified as an “adult-oriented performance.”