Overview
- Leah Gazan, speaking at a Wednesday press conference, condemned $7 billion in cuts to Indigenous Services Canada and Crown–Indigenous Relations and said the budget provided $0 to address what she called an ongoing genocide.
- Clips of her using the long initialism MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ spread widely on X, drawing mockery from many right-leaning commentators and a derisive post from Elon Musk, in a wave of reaction that overshadowed her funding criticism.
- The term stands for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two‑Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual people, with the plus sign for others, and it is used in Canada to name groups facing intersecting harms, including Two‑Spirit people from Indigenous cultures.
- Explanatory coverage and fact-checks countered claims that Canada had updated the LGBTQ+ acronym, noting the longer form appears in advocacy and some government reports but is not an official replacement for LGBTQ+.
- The policy fight continues as Indigenous organizations plan to press the government during Budget 2025 debates over expiring or reduced program funding, while officials point to ongoing support for core services under broader spending‑reduction targets.