Manitoba politicians acknowledge heckling is part of legislative culture. The Tories and New Democrats say the latest shouting match, which included accusations of racism and transphobia, crosses a line — they just disagree over who’s at fault.

Tom Lindsey, the Speaker of the Manitoba Legislature, warned MLAs to behave Wednesday as both sides clashed again after a noisy exchange Tuesday.

“The levels … in this chamber every day prevent me from being able to do the job of Speaker properly. I am once again imploring all members to keep the levels … to a minimum, to try harder to be respectful of each other, and of your Speaker,” Lindsey said.

On Tuesday, Lindsey intervened in nearly three dozen instances to say “order” and remind MLAs of the rules of decorum as the NDP and Progressive Conservatives traded barbs through the afternoon.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara, Manitoba’s first non-binary MLA, said they heard Tory Leader Obby Khan make a transphobic remark toward them while in the legislative chamber Tuesday. 

“The leader of the Opposition started yelling across the way, at me, ‘You’re terrible,’ and then said to me, while leaning forward, ‘Whatever you are,'” Asagwara told reporters Wednesday.

“To hear somebody who wants to call himself a leader refer to another human being as ‘whatever you are’ doesn’t dehumanize me. It dehumanizes those people in our communities who are already unsafe, who are already vulnerable, and who maybe, maybe when they look in the mirror, don’t have the level of confidence within themselves to just shake it off.”

Asagwara acknowledged they “absolutely” called Khan a bigot Wednesday.

Premier Wab Kinew and House leader Nahanni Fontaine maintain Khan deliberately targeted Asagwara’s gender. Fontaine cited the 2023 PC election campaign, where Khan was the face of billboard ads promoting parental rights, which she said was designed to target trans and gender-nonconforming children.

CBC News has tried to confirm what was said. Video of question period from Tuesday is inconclusive.

Khan admitted Wednesday to making some comments Tuesday, but not the one that roiled parts of question period for the second consecutive day.

“Yesterday, unfortunately, tempers flared,” he said. 

“I apologize for this … I did say, ‘You are a terrible person.’ I followed that up by saying, ‘Whatever you are saying, say it outside.'”

Speech by MLAs within the chamber is protected by parliamentary privilege. Khan suggested the “say it outside” phrase is a riff on a common dare members fling at each other to make the same comments in public, where defamation laws apply.

He said Kinew and other NDPers have called him racist, and Khan alleged he heard Fontaine saying, “Oh, cry me a river, you poor immigrant” on Tuesday — something she denies.

“The heckles were there yesterday when … the premier said I was a millionaire, and I explained that my family came here as immigrants. I was born in Ottawa, and we couldn’t afford a pair of football cleats to play football and …  we struggled growing up,” Khan said.

“And yet, the premier and the minister of families say, ‘Cry me a river, poor immigrant.'”

Fontaine, Asagwara and Khan acknowledged heckling has long been a part of question period. All said there is a line members should not cross.

Khan suggested Lindsey, a NDP MLA, is giving his colleagues more slack on chamber decorum issues than the PCs.

“I hope that this is an opportunity for us to all move forward on a level playing field. The Speaker, as we know, is supposed to be non-political, non-biased, down the middle. I don’t see how that’s being conducted that way right now,” he said.

“The Speaker cannot control what’s happening in the House.”

Lindsey addressed poor decorum in the spring 2025 sitting at the beginning of the fall sitting on Oct. 1. He said that if MLAs ignored his warnings, they could risk getting booted from question period.

During the exchange Tuesday, Lindsey intervened to warn both sides to stop. He did so again Wednesday, saying “both sides are guilty of hollering back and forth insults, and both sides need to stop it.”

Lindsey is investigating the alleged comment made by Khan.