William Livingstone Siksay (born March 11, 1955) is a Canadian politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) who represented the

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

riding of Burnaby—Douglas for the

New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Editors of ''Encyclopædia Britann ...

from 2004 to 2011.

Early life

Siksay was born in

Oshawa Oshawa is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the Lake Ontario shoreline. It lies in Southern Ontario, approximately east of downtown Toronto. It is commonly viewed as the eastern anchor of the Greater Toronto Area and of the Golden Horseshoe. It ...

, Ontario, to parents Patricia and William Siksay. Receiving his high school diploma from McLaughlin Collegiate and Vocational Institute in

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Siksay attended Victoria College at the

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, graduating with a BA in 1978. He then enrolled in the MDiv programme at the Vancouver School of Theology at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

, studying as a candidate to be a congregational minister in the

United Church of Canada The United Church of Canada (UCC; ) is a mainline Protestant denomination that is the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada and the second largest Canadian Christian denomination after the Catholic Church in Canada. The United Chu ...

. He was one of the first people to come out as gay or

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

in the process of his ordination and helped start the debate in the church on the ordination and commissioning of openly gay or lesbian candidates. He did not complete the programme and was not ordained.

Political career

Prior to running for elected office, he was constituency assistant to Svend Robinson for over 18 years. He also ran in the 1997 election in the riding of Vancouver Centre, but lost to incumbent Hedy Fry. When Robinson resigned the Burnaby—Douglas seat in April 2004 due to a controversy around his theft of a piece of jewellery, Siksay won the nomination to replace Robinson as the NDP candidate in the upcoming election, and won the riding in the 2004 federal election on June 28. With his election, Siksay became the first openly gay non-incumbent man to be elected to Canada's House of Commons. All of the previous MPs to come out as gay (Robinson, Libby Davies, Réal Ménard and Scott Brison) came out after they were elected, and Mario Silva came out in a ''

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'' profile shortly after the 2004 election. In the NDP Shadow Cabinet, Siksay was critic for Ethics, Access to Information and Privacy, and for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues; the NDP's was the only shadow cabinet with this latter position. He was previously critic for Citizenship and Immigration, and then for Canadian Heritage and Housing. In May 2005, Siksay introduced a bill to amend the ''

Canadian Human Rights Act The ''Canadian Human Rights Act'' () is a statute passed by the Parliament of Canada in 1977 with the express goal of extending the law to ensure equal opportunity to individuals who may be victims of discriminatory practices based on a set of ...

'' to prohibit discrimination on the basis of

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the in ...

or expression. He reintroduced the bill in the next parliament. In May 2009 he introduced it again, with additional provisions to add gender identity and expression to the hate crimes provisions of the ''

Criminal Code A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...

''. By June 2010, the private member's bill (C-389) had proceeded to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, with little overt opposition from the

Conservative Party of Canada The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC; , ), sometimes referred to as the Tories, is a Government of Canada, federal List of political parties in Canada, political party in Canada. It was formed in 2003 by the merger of the two main Right-wing ...

minority government evident. It passed at report stage by a vote of 143–131 on December 8, and passed at third reading by a vote of 143–135, in each case including members of all parties voting in favour. In January 2006, Siksay was re-elected to the Burnaby—Douglas seat with a slightly increased plurality, with a margin of 2.5% (versus 2% in 2004). He was again re-elected by a narrow margin in the 2008 election. Bill Siksay was the only MP in Parliament to vote against the Tackling Violent Crime Act (Bill C-2), arguing that its provisions on the age of consent would harm

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

youth. On December 16, 2010, Siksay announced that he would not run again in the subsequent election. His seat was retained for the New Democrats by Kennedy Stewart in the 2011 federal election.

After politics

On July 2, 2014, Siksay began as working as the administrative assistant to the bishop of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster, Melissa M. Skelton, who retired February 28, 2021. After Skelton's retirement, Siksay continued to serve the new bishop of the diocese, John Stephens, and the executive archdeacon of the diocese, Douglas Fenton.

Personal life

He resides in Burnaby with his partner, the Reverend Brian Burke, and remains an active member of the

References

External links