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OTTAWA, Ontario, December 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-family leaders are calling for Canadian Liberal party leader Michael Ignatieff’s removal after they say he made New Democrat MP Bill Siksay’s ‘transgender’ bill a “signature initiative” for the Liberal party on Wednesday.

In an unusual move, Ignatieff showed up yesterday to vote for Siksay’s private members bill, which passed report stage 143-131.  “We’re the party of the Charter,” he explained, according to the homosexualist news site Xtra.  “We’re the party of equality, we’re the party of reaching out and including all Canadians.”

The bill, he said, “seemed to be just where I’ve always been and where I’ll always be, and where our party will always be, so of course I was there. It was important to us.”

Gwen Landolt, national vice-president of REAL Women of Canada, accused Ignatieff of wanting to impose a radical agenda on the Liberal party and Canada that is “against family, against life, against Canadian values.”

“The implications of this bill are horrendous.  It changes the whole concept of gender,” she explained.  “This so-called equality is really a fundamental restructuring of society.  For whose benefit?”

Bill C-389, which now moves on to two hours of debate at third reading, seeks to add the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the Canada Human Rights Act and the hate crimes section of the Criminal Code.  Many have warned that the bill is highly unpredictable and “bad law” because the terms it proposes to add remain undefined and would be open to wide interpretations by both the courts and the human rights commissions.

Pro-family leaders have dubbed it a “bathroom bill” because it will grant male cross-dressers access to women’s bathrooms, which they warn could lead to increased bathroom attacks.

Ignatieff’s leadership of the Liberals has come under fire as the party has failed to make headway in the polls, despite concerted campaigns like his summer cross-Canada bus tour.

The Liberal leader, who has insisted his party will “take no step” to limit abortion, was labeled an “extremist” in February by pro-family leaders after he called for Third World abortion funding in the federal government’s G8 maternal health initiative.

“Ignatieff is obviously making this NDP bathroom bill a signature initiative for the Liberal party,” said Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition.  According to Hughes, Ignatieff has “once again shown himself to be a radical proponent of abortion and homosexuality during his tenure at the party’s helm.”

“The fact that he would back such a radical anti-family bill in the name of ‘equality’ shows how little he cares for the families and children of our country,” he continued.  “Ignatieff is not fit to lead the Liberal party, he is not fit to lead this country, and he should be removed at once.”

According to Landolt, Ignatieff is “out of touch” with Canadians and “doesn’t understand our desires, our beliefs, our values.”  “He’s coming in and superimposing his own superficial interpretation of what he wants Canada to be,” she said.

The vote yesterday was largely along party lines, being opposed by the Conservatives and favored by the Liberals, New Democrats, and Bloc Quebecois. 

It was, however, supported by five Conservatives – James Moore (Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam), Sylvie Boucher (Beauport), Gerald Keddy (South Shore-St. Margaret’s), Lawrence Cannon (Pontiac), and Shelley Glover (St. Boniface).  Also, it was opposed by three Liberals – Alan Tonks (York South-Weston), Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough-Agincourt), and Dan McTeague (Pickering-Scarborough East).  Xtra reports, further, that there were three abstentions – Francis Scarpaleggia (Lib, Lac-Saint-Louis), Lisa Raitt (Con, Halton), and Dona Cadman (Con, Surrey North).

The final debate and vote is expected to happen in late February or early March, unless it is killed by an election in the New Year.  If passed by the House of Commons, it will move to the Senate.