Kids are supposedly too fragile for Facebook, too impressionable for Instagram, and too immature for TikTok. That’s the excuse Wab Kinew is using to justify more government control over family life in Manitoba. But somehow, those very same kids are mature enough to make life-altering medical decisions about gender identity, hormones, and irreversible treatments.

Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew’s plan to restrict kids' access to social media is being sold as child protection. In reality, it’s another example of government stepping into a role that belongs first and foremost to parents.

Parents — not premiers, ministers, or committees — are responsible for raising children. It is parents who know their child’s maturity level, habits, struggles, strengths, and vulnerabilities. It is parents who decide whether their son or daughter is ready for a smartphone, what apps are allowed, how much screen time is reasonable, and what consequences come when trust is broken. That is called parenting. It should not require permission slips from the state.

Wab Kinew will make Manitoba the first Province to ban 16 year olds and under from A.I. chat bots and social media.
The State has now taken it upon themselves to parent your children. This is not their decision to make. What’s next? Only Government sanctioned and approved… pic.twitter.com/nvYvFRH7KX

— Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 (@ryangerritsen) April 26, 2026

No one denies that social media can be harmful. It can expose kids to bullying, addiction, predators, anxiety, warped self-image, and endless distraction. Those are real concerns. But real concerns do not automatically justify the government replacing family judgment with blanket restrictions. If every risk in modern life becomes grounds for political control, then there is no logical stopping point.

Today it’s TikTok and Instagram. Tomorrow it’s video games. Then streaming platforms. Then limits on what websites teenagers can read, what podcasts they can hear, or what opinions they’re allowed to encounter online. The nanny state never arrives all at once — it grows one “reasonable” intervention at a time.

But what makes Kinew’s position especially hard to take seriously is the glaring hypocrisy behind it. Kinew believes gender-confused kids can make life-altering medical decisions.

Pick a lane, Kinew.

The Charter protects our freedoms — from a Hutterite community’s right to live by faith to a trans child’s right to be safe and seen. Our new law ensures any use of the notwithstanding clause goes before the courts — and the people. That’s democracy in action. 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/u5tC9cd8sG

— Wab Kinew (@WabKinew) October 17, 2025

We are now supposed to believe that teenagers are too immature to responsibly use social media. Too impulsive to handle apps. Too vulnerable to manage online spaces without government intervention. Too undeveloped to navigate Instagram comments or TikTok videos.

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Yet many of these same political and institutional voices are perfectly comfortable claiming those very same minors are mature enough to make profound, life-altering medical decisions involving gender identity, puberty blockers, hormones, social transition, and potentially irreversible consequences.

*Canadian Politician Defends #Trans Persons*
Wab Kinew is the premier of province of #Manitoba, #Canada. There are 38.6 K likes on this TikTok video. #TransRightsAreHumanRights #NoSpaceForHate #StandUpToBullies #USA #LGBTQQIP2SAA #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA @WabKinew https://t.co/NyXz1RDm2b pic.twitter.com/5Hyaj85OwR

— SharonBC,Canada (@SharonBurnabyBC) April 26, 2024

Those two positions cannot logically coexist. Either minors lack the maturity and judgment to make serious decisions, or they possess it. Either children need parents to guide them through complex issues, or they don’t. Either adolescence is a stage marked by impulsivity, peer pressure, emotional swings, and incomplete development—or it isn’t.

Politicians cannot declare teenagers helpless children when discussing social media, then turn around and describe them as fully autonomous decision-makers when discussing medicalized gender pathways. That isn't a principle. That is an ideology. Dangerous and malicious ideology.

And where are parents in all this?

When it comes to screen time, suddenly, parents need government backup because kids cannot be trusted. But when it comes to far more serious matters, parents who raise concerns are too often treated as obstacles, backward, unsupportive, or something to be managed by the system.

So parents are competent enough to enforce bedtime and routines, behaviour and grades, but not competent enough to weigh in on medical decisions with lifelong consequences?

That is backwards.

A healthy society starts from the assumption that parents are the primary guardians of their children’s welfare. Government has a role, yes: punish criminals, ensure safety standards, provide information, and step in where abuse or neglect exists. But it should not casually substitute itself for the family unit every time a social problem appears.

And it certainly should not apply two completely different standards of childhood depending on which issue is politically fashionable.

If a 14-year-old is too young to manage an Instagram account, then maybe we should be much more cautious before pretending that same 14-year-old is ready for irreversible medical choices.

If a 15-year-old supposedly lacks the judgment to browse social media safely, maybe politicians should explain why that same teenager is considered mature enough for decisions adults struggle to fully understand.

Kinew and others want it both ways: children are fragile when government control is the answer, but empowered adults when ideology demands it.

People should reject that contradiction.

Parents should parent. Government should govern. And children should be protected by consistent standards — not political convenience.