Conservative anti-compassion has consequences in Manitoba. Is Moe next?
What Just Happened? | Stephen Whitworth
The Scott Moe government passed its human-rights-trashing pronoun legislation on Friday, Oct. 20 after a hard-fought week of playing Candy Crush on their phones and ignoring expert testimony and pleas to reason, compassion and common decency. It’s no coincidence that every photo taken of Premier Scott Moe this month depicts a glum-looking, shoulder-sagging sad sack who looks like he’d rather be anywhere other than the Legislature. Moe knows he and his government are the bad guys here, but I think he also suspects, correctly, that he blew this political play and made his party vulnerable. Regardless, people all over the world have learned Saskatchewan is more interested in making homophobes, zealots and deluded xenophobes comfortable in their ignorant, clammy skins than protecting its own kids. Good job, idiots. Clap.
Here’s some other stuff that happened in the last couple of weeks.
WEDNESDAY 11: NHL GOES “BRAWK BRAWK BRAAWK” You might recall earlier this year that several National Hockey League teams backed out of wearing promotional Pride jerseys during pre-game warm-ups. Some Russian players may have bailed on the long-running promotions over legitimate fear of reprisals from Vladimir Putin’s maliciously homophobic regime, and no one’s judging them. Others, however — including more than a few non-Russians — cited “personal faith reasons and stuff” as an excuse to skip the sweaters and turn their backs on LGBTQ hockey fans. As a result, the NHL banned ALL special jerseys at ALL theme nights. Which was garbage. Players, like everyone, have a right to hold bigoted beliefs but no one has a right to freedom from criticism for being a homophobic creep.
The NHL went one step further today, though, and flat-out banned its many 2SLGBTQ+ ally players from even wrapping their sticks with rainbow Pride tape. Commissioner Gary Bettman’s edict was widely (and correctly) condemned as a gutless attempt to duck criticism from knuckle-dragging hockey goons while giving cover to bigoted NHL players who would be better off pulling their heads out of their asses and joining the rest of us in the 21st century.
Anyway, it played out about how you’d expect. Arizona Coyotes defenceman Travis Dermott wrapped his stick in Pride tape, basically daring the NHL to discipline him for not being a homophobe.
Long story short, the NHL turtled faster than a Russian winger and rescinded its Pride tape ban on Oct. 24.
You’d think a league with teams that cover up sexual assaults in a sport with a long history of hazing, bullying, racism and rape might want to avoid looking like homophobes, but what does the What Just Happens Desk know?
WEDNESDAY 18: MEET THE NEW NEIGHBOURS Wab Kinew was sworn in today as Manitoba’s 25th premier and the first First Nations premier in Canadian history. Kinew’s NDP won the province’s October 3 election after the former Progressive Conservative government ran a bold campaign vowing to leave the bodies of murdered Indigenous women in landfills. No, really, that is true. What is wrong with conservatives? Are you paying attention, Scott “pronoun” Moe?
MONDAY 23: DID PUTIN HAVE A HEART ATTACK? Fake news. That guy doesn’t have a heart.
TUESDAY 24: STRIPED IN SASKATOON The Provincial government is taking a ton of social media flak over its decision to provide $120 thousand to Saskatoon’s Forestry Farm & Parks to keep five confiscated zebras over the winter. X-people and Facebooklers complaints are mostly along the lines of “the Sask. Party never has money for harm reduction, poverty, schools and hospitals but it has money for zebras? Give me a break.” The What Just Happens Desk, however, likes zebras and applauds the funds. Also, that $120,000 has nothing to do with the Sask. Party underfunding everything. Leave the zebras alone; Saskatchewan is falling apart because our incompetent and heartless government trashed the economy playing political games.
WE SAID TUESDAY, 24! Snow! Everywhere! Neat. The What Just Happened Desk thinks it’s very pretty.
What Just Happened is Prairie Dog’s far-from-comprehensive aggregation of Regina, Saskatchewan and world headlines and events, from earth-shaking news to pointless, indulgent and stupid digressions.