Premier visits Steinbach Pride with ministers, says ‘Love is love.’

Premier Wab Kinew came to Steinbach Pride on Saturday bringing along with him his ministers with a message that the province supports the LGBTQ+ community and especially LGBTQ+ students in the Hanover School Division.

From the start, Kinew got the roughly 200-person crowd cheering with his speech on inclusion and acceptance.

“Menno Simons (said), ‘Our weapons are not swords and spears, but patience, silence, and hope, and the word of God.’ So, let us be patient and hopeful. I skipped over the silent part a little bit. Don’t be silent. Be loud. Be proud…,” he said. “Love that neighbour. It’s all about love. Love is love, as they say.”

Steinbach Pride president Chris Plett echoed Kinew’s words of love and acceptance as being takeaways from the event. Pride for Plett means being your authentic self and being able to educate people who might not understand what it is to be your authentic self.

“And then also a big thing for us is that being able to have a moment to feel like you belong, if it’s just a moment, but to also…to understand that you always belong and you’re part of this community…And so you need to be proud of who you are and stand up for who you are,” he said.

Plett noted there were only three Pride events in Manitoba 10 years ago (Winnipeg, Brandon, and Steinbach) and now there are 31.

Affirmation of the LGBTQ+ community is something the United Church has officially been in support of since 1988, but only since 2021 in Steinbach. The church opened its doors to Band of Colours, a queer resource centre, to set up shop when it was first trying to get established.

“Pride, we were here at the very first one. We will continue to be here to support (it),” said church member Gay Boese, who noted the atmosphere at the event was “fantastic” with “a lot of energy.”

“I think it was fantastic that we had all the (provincial) politicians here. Our locals (politicians) don’t come, which is really disappointing. But to have the Manitoba government represented the way they were, it’s just been (a) really wonderful energy. So encouraging for this community,” said Boese.

Town of Ste Anne Coun. Jason Einarson was at the event and he said this year’s Pride theme of change was really important.

“We haven’t always been in a good place. And, you know, we’re much better than we were 10 years ago, 20 years ago. But if I look into the future, I think for my children and my grandchildren, they’re going to be able to live their life and just feel like they belong,” he said.

Regarding change, Plett said there have been a lot of changes this year for Steinbach Pride, one of which was security at the event. He said there is a security council on the Pride board now and organizers are working closer with the RCMP than before.

Pride was cancelled last year after threats were made following the death of American far-right Conservative Charlie Kirk, who was murdered during a speaking engagement at a university. Kirk was known to spread homophobic and misogynistic views online and in interviews with the media. Plett said the intolerance from the United States has given some people permission to be emboldened and aggressive here in Canada.

“We see (change) here in Canada. There’s a lot of – it’s not always good change. Some of it’s negative change. And we also see the need to have change. Some of these things that are going on right now, they’re super negative. We would like to see that change,” said Plett.

Band of Colours executive director and founder Angelica Brunger said in the past five years attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community in Steinbach have progressed tremendously as more and more Steinbachers become allies. Despite this, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.

“When we talk about progress, I think we need to be able to hold two truths at the same time. Steinbach has come an incredibly long way and Steinbach still has a long way to go. Five years of significant progress does not automatically put us on equal footing with the rest of Manitoba,” she said, noting when a queer teen has the same opportunity, safety, support, and is celebrated like any other Manitoba teen, then there is real change.

During his speech to the crowd, Kinew noted the first time he got to speak in the Legislature was when he was elected 10 years ago and he asked a question about the Hanover School Division and its violation of the rights of LGBTQ+ students and what the Conservative government was going to do about it.

He specifically referenced Mika Schellenberg, a Hanover student, who as a teen in 2016 asked the school board to amend its policies to be more inclusive of LGBTQ+ students by allowing teachers to speak about same-sex relationships in the classroom prior to high school.

She was advocating for a child who was being bullied because they had two moms.

At the time, the school board declined to change its policies because it felt the topic was of a sensitive nature and should be dealt with on a one-on-one basis between a teacher and a student.

The parents of the child, Michelle McHale and Karen Phillips, took their complaint about the board to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and won. McHale started Pride in Steinbach.

The current school board has made a number of controversial policy decisions that have attracted attention not just locally but nationally. It passed policies with prohibitions on teaching materials that have race, foul language, and sexuality and that trustees should be involved in the hiring of gym and music teachers. It also passed first reading for restrictions on student activism and was in the process of developing a policy delegitimatizing the mature minor designation in its schools before Education Minister Tracy Schmidt made it rescind the motion to create the policy.

Schmidt was at Pride with Kinew and was asked by The Carillon during a scrum with the media what she was going to do about this board’s far-right Conservative Christian views affecting policy and in turn LGBTQ+ students. Schmidt pointed to the upcoming election in October and encouraged people to get involved.

“I think that it’s a really important time for people to get out, speak to your candidates, speak to your trustees, what your priorities are, and yeah, we’ll see you at the polls,” she said.

Roanne Plett who works at Stonybrook Middle School as an Indigenous knowledge keeper said students are more accepting nowadays of LGBTQ+ people than when she was in school. Regarding some of the actions of the school board, Plett wishes the board would “just let us be.”

“I wish they would just allow kids to feel safe to come out within schools because they really need adults that they can talk to other (adults) than just their parents sometimes. So, if they had a little more support at school or counselors then it would just be a little bit easier to come out.”

No trustees came to the Pride event.

Plett said it was special to have Kinew make his first known official visit to Steinbach during Pride.

“Wab has been at this event a couple of times. It was just prior to him being the Premier of Manitoba…we hope to see him come up for the future Prides as well.”