Former Irishman/Canadian PM Leaves Pot Of Gold At End Of Gay Rainbow
One million more in the name of love.
Progressive Canadians made such a mad dash to vote for the Mark Carney-led Liberals in the last election instead of the NDP or Greens out of fear of Pierre Poilievre and his maple MAGA Conservatives that nobody had much of a chance to truly check the Catholic superbanker’s bonafides as a small L liberal.
Fiscal conservatives who aren’t also social conservatives are increasingly unicorns, so some people might be sleeping a bit easier after he cut a cheque for $1.5 million CAD to various Pride events across the country this month after former deep-pocketed corporate donors such as Google and Home Depot took the mad king’s decree DEI is DOA to heart.
“One of the strengths of Canada is recognizing that people can be who they want to be and love who they want to love,” said the prime minister at a recent Pride flag-raising event on Parliament Hill. “Unfortunately, around the world, there's a backlash struggling against the progress that has been made. In this time, Canada will always stand up for the vulnerable and the equal rights we cherish. We can take pride in how far we've come but we should also recognize there's far more to do.”
Not that Google aren’t still allies in spirit, they want us to know! Maybe even two-spirits. A press release assured the company has supported Pride for many, many years but this time it’ll be limited to employees who want to march in the parade.
“We will also continue to celebrate heritage and community moments throughout the company, including Pride,” stated the statement, although a much clearer message was sent by search suggestions for “why did google stop sponsoring pri…”
It’s frankly a bit surprising Home Depot was ever considered an ally in the first place despite what used to be considered good corporate PR. Bernie Marcus, the company's co-founder and former chairman, was one of Sundowning Sauron's earliest and biggest backers, donating more than $14 million to support his 2016 campaign. The old bastard didn’t live to see the irony of his company becoming ground zero for the Gestapopo kidnapping innocent people in its parking lots though, with the Florida Man having died the day before the November 5 election at age 95.
The money is being given to Fierté Canada Pride, the party-planners representing local groups across the country, to make them a bit safer from all the hate crimes on the rise, particularly regarding sexual orientation. (Random fact: The word “fierce” is derived from the French fierté for pride.) According to the latest figures from Statistics Canada, there were 860 hate crimes targeting queer folk reported to police in 2024, a 69 percent increase from the year before. And they were not coincidentally most likely to occur during Pride month, with 224 reported in June of 2023, about four times higher than the average.
The orcs could probably only hate Pride more if they find out the U2 anthem of the same name is about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Which may come as a surprise even to non-bigots as shots did not, in fact, ring out in the Memphis sky “early morning April 4” but instead around 6pm when MLK was murdered by proto-Trumpers.
At least one Irishman is getting things right. Or a former Irishman, as Carney revoked his citizenship after he got his new gig and never acquired a decent brogue anyway. He also has skin in the game as one of his four kids is non-binary, although little is publicly known about Sasha Carney, who legally changed their name four years ago. The children of politicians, even adult children, are still considered off-limits in Canada as private citizens no matter how huge their dongs or drug problems are, and about all I could find out about Sasha was they apparently once wrote an essay titled “Mumsnet, and Transmasculine Childhood” for the magazine Authenticity about their experience at the Tavistock Centre, the UK’s only and soon-to-be-closed youth gender clinic. Not the essay itself, mind you, and the magazine seems to be kaput, just claims of its existence from rabid rightwing Canadian media who tried their best to make this a thing.
But maybe Big Daddy Carney can have a word with Elon Musk if he somehow shows at the G7 summit beginning today in Alberta about how to be a less shitty father to his trans daughter.
[CBC / Statistics Canada / BBC / Teen Vogue / BlueSky]
I hadn't really considered the effects on law & policy when powerful politicians have kids come out as trans. It's never going to be a huge thing... at 1% and with 2 kids per household, that's only 1 in 50-ish politicians.
But still. it's one in 50, and there are very nearly 200 heads of state around the world. I should have considered that a couple were going to have trans kids, and that the ones most likely to come out would be the ones from developed, queer-friendly nations.
Just goes to show that after decades of this work, a person can still have blind spots.
LOL. I had an aunt. Actually a great aunt or something. She was an ex school teacher. Anyway she claimed to have driven past the end of a rainbow one day. You know, fifty feet of red, then fifty feet of orange, and fifty feet of yellow etc. I was only about seven years old and knew that a rainbow is an optical phenomenon and you can only see it from from a distance from the side because of the way light is refracted. I had enough wisdom at that age to keep my mouth shut and humor her.