The Canadian Federal Election and the Wall of Silence

The following is a cleaned-up text of the talk I gave to WDI’s Feminist Question Time on July 5, 2025.

There was a federal election in Canada in April. The Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, were expected to win, as Liberal support had tanked. As a result of that tanking, the wildly unpopular “feminist” Justin Trudeau had stepped down and been replaced by Mark Carney, former governor of both the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada.

Prior to the election there were two leadership debates, the first in French and the second in English. Scrums for the journalists were scheduled for after each debate, in which journalists could ask whatever questions they wanted. All journalists had been vetted. At the scrum after the first debate, some journalists from the independent media – that is from conservative online platforms – surprised the members of the mainstream by getting to the microphones ahead of everyone else. They asked questions on subjects the mainstream media has been suppressing for years. In particular, Alex Zoltan of True North asked Mark Carney how many sexes there are. Carney replied there were two. Zoltan then asked him if women, biological women, were entitled to their own spaces, sports, changing rooms, etc. Carney gave a word salad sort of answer culminating in “this is Canada, we value all Canadians for who they are and will continue to do so.” Carney has a daughter who identifies as “non-binary.”

The mainstream media were so incensed by the temerity of these independent journos to bring up a subject they didn’t want to cover, that while they were all waiting in a media room prior to the next debate, the English language debate, one verbally attacked the indies for hogging all the question time. As Ezra Levant of Rebel News pointed out, the indies got four questions and the mainstream got four. Later in a corridor there was an actual physical altercation, or there may have been, video evidence is pretty murky. The debates commission responded by cancelling that evening’s scrum. The two major TV networks, CBC and CTV, broadcast that this was because of “safety issues”, implying that the indie media had caused an environment that was no longer safe.

It’s worth mentioning that the indie media, Rebel News and True North, had sued the debates commission in previous years for the right to be accredited and they had won. But the mainstream media accuses them of being profit-driven advertising platforms, or platforms driven by ideology rather than “true journalists.” (I’ve seen both criticisms) But what is the mainstream media in Canada? The three largest television networks, CTV, Global and CBC, get huge government grants – the CBC is actually a public broadcaster. The press in Canada is likewise indebted to government for funding to keep publishing. This has led to so much bias, or potential bias that former journos are starting podcasts and substacks where they advertise that they have refused all government funding so that they can remain independent. One such podcaster, Trish Wood, former host of the prestigious documentary series Fifth Estate, now calls the MSM “Cartel Media” who work together as a block to suppress free speech.

There is no critical coverage of gender medicine or gender ideology, or the policy changes that resulted from the government’s adoption of gender over sex as the major means by which people are categorized – and has not been since the liberals, under Justin Trudeau instituted these changes in 2016. The CBC in particular is fond of running sob stories about poor young men who claim to be women trapped in male bodies.

The cancellation of the second scrum at the debates, caused by MSM outrage over the indies asking “illicit” questions, strongly suggests that the MSM is in league with government to create the only agenda, the only narrative that is allowed. In Canada that narrative is that men can be women, women can be men, and it’s imperative that children be allowed to become their “authentic” selves through injections of puberty blockers, wrong-sex hormones and mutilating body modifications that will render them infertile, inorgasmic, and unlikely to find romantic partners among the sex of their choice. (But nobody in Canada is allowed to choose romantic partners by sex anymore. That would be transphobic. We choose our partners based on gender.)

The media, as a bloc, decided that the important election issues were the ones that Carney was campaigning on, which were economic issues, particularly the threat of US President Trump and his tariffs. In their coverage they resembled a circle of schoolboys cheering on a fight between two others, in this case Carney and Trump. Again and again Carney flipped the bird at his opponent in a display of male aggression-posturing. When he hit on the hockey term, “elbows up,” he was successfully able to elbow the actual opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, aside and hook hockey-loving moms and dads into rooting for his team.

This was not an election about issues – it was about which man could man-up enough to beat up another man who was not even running. Conservative leader Poilievre couldn’t even enter the ring, being painted as the runt version of Trump. When the dust settled and Carney had won the election, conservative commentators could blame the moms, the boomer women who voted for him, as the problem. There’s always a mom to blame, isn’t there? For liberals, Carney was the hockey dad, the backyard barbecue Dad – I was waiting for them to put him in a cardigan, but then they dressed him up in a hockey jersey for the win. It wasn’t an election, it was a virtual Canada vs US hockey game.

This is what patriarchy looks like. “Good dads” are still powerful patriarchs and they exercise their power by dominating other patriarchs. The issues are not important, the impression of toughness and power is.

For many, many Canadians, particularly women, the election was about women’s rights – our rights to be sole proprieters of the term “woman”, to exclude all males from this category, and the rights of children to grow up with the truth about sex and bodies, and the relation between the body and sex. Both the conservatives and the liberals had platform items about gender, the obstacle to these rights.

The Liberal platform made multiple references to “diversity” on its election platform. More specifically, it listed:

1. Standing up for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, protecting the values it was founded on – which are under threat – and ensuring the protection of women, people with disabilities, racialized and Indigenous communities, and 2SLGBTQI+ people.

2. Investing in women’s sexual and reproductive health care and health research, including for those within the 2SLGBTQI+ community.

3. Making funding permanent for the 2SLGBTQI+ Community Capacity Fund.

4. Adding additional funding for the LGBTQI+ International Assistance Program.

The Conservative platform contained a tiny splinter in the plank it labelled “Restoring Public Safety”. Specifically:

What these two platforms show is that for the Liberals, gender as a category includes women and trans-id people with no recognition of conflict between those groups, or of incompatibility between them. The Conservatives on the other hand recognize that women are in danger from gender id policies that lump women in with trans-id males.

However, neither leader wanted to talk about this subject, nor did the mainstream media. Poilievre could have come out against trans ideology, or for women’s sex-based rights, as the most recent conservative convention had passed two resolutions on the subject, one of them initiated by our Coach Linda Blade. The two resolutions were: to limit transgender health care for minors (69% support) and to ensure single-sex spaces for women (87% support), defined as “female persons” to exclude transgender individuals. These policies aimed to prohibit “life-altering medicinal or surgical interventions” for gender-diverse youth and protect spaces like women’s prisons and bathrooms.

Canadian gender critical women did everything we could on social media, particularly twitterX, to persuade Poilievre to speak up about this tiny portion of his platform, but to no avail. If leaders don’t want to bring up a subject, and the media don’t want that subject advertised or promoted, then silence wins out.

In one of his first speeches after winning election, Carney warned that “online American platforms” are becoming “seas of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, islamophobia and hate in all its forms” and promised his government would act. This was a reference to the Online Harms Act, which the previous Trudeau government had been attempting to pass.

As Amy Hamm wrote in The National Post:

“Carney has hinted that his Liberal government will bring back some iteration of Trudeau’s tyrannical — there is no other word for it — Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, which was killed when the former prime minister prorogued parliament this January. You will recall that this now-defunct legislation would have granted judges the ability to mete out life sentences for hate speech, and would have created a government “Digital Safety Commission” to police Canadians’ speech, and impose life-destroying fines upon those whose speech was deemed hateful by our government censors.”

Information was also provided by a law firm analyzing the repercussions of the Bill:

“Bill C-63 introduces significant changes to the Criminal Code, including a new definition of “hatred,” a new hate crime of “offence motivated by hatred” carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and stronger sentences for existing hate propaganda offences (including a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for advocating or promoting genocide).

“It also amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to add the “communication of hate speech” by means of the Internet or any other means of telecommunication as a discriminatory practice. The amendments will provide individuals with the right to bring a related complaint before the Canadian Human Rights Commission and authorize the Commission to assess penalties of up to $50,000. These amendments focus on public communications by users, and do not apply to private communications (e.g., direct messages), nor to operators of social media services, broadcast undertakings, telecommunication service providers, or intermediaries hosting, caching or indicating the existence or location of hate speech.)

That means any individual can bring forward a complaint against any other individual, who could face a $50,000 fine.

Just this week, Global News reported that the Carney government was indeed considering bringing back the Online Harms Bill, perhaps as is, perhaps with changes.

In another article a couple of weeks after Hamm’s article, journalist Tristan Hopper wrote about the upcoming implementation of the Online Streaming Act, a 2023 law that gives the federal government the ability to control the content of the internet in Canada. Basically it requires them to follow the same rules for Canadian content as radio and tv.

But the language of the Online Streaming Act also goes beyond mere Canadian content by hinting that streamers may also be subject to “inclusive” mandates on their content. It specifically requires broadcasters to produce content that reflects “Black or other racialized communities,” as well as Canadians of “diverse … sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions.”

So, the government is poised to impose censorship with regards to gender ideology, and to force the creation of propaganda with regards to the same thing. Ban the facts, force the fictions.

In the real world, Carney’s government continues along the trajectory of the Trudeau version. In June, the liberal party X account put out this message:

Notice that it’s about Pride Season – not just Pride month.

Carney raised the Progress flag on Parliament Hill and wished Canadians Happy Pride. His government gave extra funding of $1.5 million to the Fierte Society to enhance safety and security at Pride events, “reflecting a response to increasing backlash against LGBTQ+ rights”. NO QUESTIONING OF WHY THERE IS A BACKLASH.

Rechie Valdez, the new Minister of Women and Gender Identity (WAGE), issued this communique on Pride:

“The Government of Canada is removing barriers still faced by 2SLGBTQI+ communities — from safe access to gender-affirming care to opportunities in entrepreneurship and skilled trades. Through the Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan and Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate, we’re funding solutions that improve safety, support mental health, and strengthen community resilience.

“That includes a $25 million federal investment in Canada’s first-ever 2SLGBTQI+ Entrepreneurship Program — launched in partnership with the Canadian 2SLGBTQI+ Chamber of Commerce.

“Pride is both a celebration and a call to action – and the Government will continue to stand with 2SLGBTQI+ communities to build a safer, more inclusive, and more equitable Canada for all.”

WAGE’s Departmental Plan for 2025, also issued by Valdez, incorporates 2SLGBTQI+ into it’s mandate.

From the plan:

“Addressing discrimination against 2SLGBTQI+ communities continues to be a key focus. In times where 2SLGBTQI+ rights are being threatened, WAGE will lead the rollout of Canada’s first 2SLGBTQI+ national survey to further understand the current needs of the community. As well, we will provide $1.5 million in funding to meet security needs for Pride festivals and continue to promote the 2SLGBTQI+ anti-stigma campaign: Unity.”

All the trans/queer initiatives are located within the department that is supposed to be about and for women:

This placement reflects a governmental belief that there is no conflict between women and men who claim to be women. Support for the 2SLGBTQI+ falls naturally to women, support for one is support for the other. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that is where we still are. And one could be forgiven for thinking that WAGE is more than that, that it is the department of non-white, non-straight, non-men. Has everyone in Canada other than the dominant demographic been dumped into one “other” category in which the differences between us don’t matter?

Carney has appointed former Justice Minister David Lametti as his Principal Secretary. Lametti shepherded the anti-conversion therapy bill through parliament, the one that criminalizes all therapeutic interventions for gender-confused children and forces Canadians to “affirm” the lie that they are the sex they’re not, and importantly to have NO PREFERENCE for natural children. He also had a role in the Emergencies Act invoked to stop the Covid protestors and freeze the bank accounts of the truckers -- in other words, to criminalize protest.

So, what has changed since I last spoke here on FQT in 2022?

The government’s position is intractable. It still holds to the beliefs it held in 2016 when Trudeau brought his plan to replace sex with gender for all legal and administrative purposes out of hiding through Bill C16. It was a government coup against the people.

One promising new organization is the Free Speech Union of Canada, led by Executive Director Lisa Bildy, the lawyer who has been working on behalf of Amy Hamm in her interminably long employment tribunal. In an interview with Meghan Murphy, Bildy laid out the four areas of engagement that the Free Speech Union will pursue: it will build a community of people aware of the need for freedom of expression and the dangers that will follow if it’s lost, create a legal network of lawyers with the desire and experience in pursuing court cases when someone’s freedom of expression seems to have been curtailed, campaign against harmful legislation, and work with international sister organizations. All of these things are vital at this time, when it seems people just aren’t aware of the need for vigorous debate about all kinds of issues. Democracy hinges on it.

The National Post, one of two national newspapers, is increasing its coverage of criticisms of gender ideology, moving from tentative efforts to offer “balance” to outright criticism. It now platforms both Amy Hamm and Mia Hughes, author of The WPath Files, in addition to intermittent others.

Hamm, Hughes and Bildy are women to watch. Linda Blade is still a force too, but she is currently living in India. We need people, particularly women with voices, with the ability to be heard. That’s what we have not had. We can’t change minds in Canada as long as our voices are censored. That’s where we have to focus our attention. The lies and falsehoods of the trans cult have been exposed in the US and the UK – with the help of the right-wing press. We don’t have the rabid far right media that they have in the US, and I don’t think anybody seriously wants it -- but we need to find ways to force our governments to listen. And we need to do that before they clamp down via an Online Harms Act, more hate speech legislation and forced propaganda.

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