William Livingstone Siksay (born March 11, 1955) is a Canadian politician. He was the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) who represented the

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

riding of

Burnaby—Douglas Burnaby—Douglas was a federal electoral district in the province of British Columbia, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1997 to 2012. History This electoral district was created in 1996 from New Westminster ...

for the

New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; french: Nouveau Parti démocratique, NPD) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * ...

from 2004 to 2011.

Early life

Siksay was born in

Oshawa Oshawa ( , also ; 2021 population 175,383; CMA 415,311) 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 ...

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

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, Siksay attended Victoria College at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

, 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 research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thr ...

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

United Church of Canada The United Church of Canada (french: link=no, Église unie du Canada) is a mainline Protestant denomination that is the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada and the second largest Canadian Christian denomination after the Catholi ...

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

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. 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 n ...

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 Svend Robinson (born March 4, 1952) is a Canadian politician. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1979 to 2004, who represented suburban Vancouver-area constituencies of Burnaby for the New Democratic Party (NDP). He is noted as the first me ...

for over 18 years. He also ran in the 1997 election in the riding of Vancouver Centre, but lost to incumbent

Hedy Fry Hedy Madeleine Fry, (born August 6, 1941) is a Trinidadian-Canadian politician and physician who is currently the longest-serving female Member of Parliament, winning nine consecutive elections in the constituency of Vancouver Centre includin ...

. 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 Libby Davies (born February 27, 1953) is a Canadian politician from British Columbia. She was the member of Parliament for Vancouver East from 1997 to 2015, House Leader for the New Democratic Party (NDP) from 2003 to 2011, and Deputy Leade ...

Réal Ménard Réal Ménard (born May 13, 1962) is a Canadian politician, who was a Bloc Québécois member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1993 to 2009. He was the second Canadian member of Parliament to come out as gay. Ménard is a political scien ...

and

Scott Brison Scott A. Brison (born May 10, 1967) is a Canadian former politician from Nova Scotia. Brison served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Kings-Hants from the 1997 federal election until July 2000, then from November 2000 to Febru ...

) came out after they were elected, and Mario Silva came out in a ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

'' 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'' (french: Loi canadienne sur les droits de la personne) 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 vi ...

'' 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 i ...

expression Expression may refer to: Linguistics * Expression (linguistics), a word, phrase, or sentence * Fixed expression, a form of words with a specific meaning * Idiom, a type of fixed expression * Metaphorical expression, a particular word, phrase, o ...

. 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 migh ...

''. 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 (french: Parti conservateur du Canada), colloquially known as the Tories, is a federal political party in Canada. It was formed in 2003 by the merger of the two main right-leaning parties, the Progressive Con ...

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 ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

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 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