WINNIPEG—The Manitoba government has voted down an opposition attempt to expand human rights protection to people who are overweight.

Tory caucus members defeated a private member’s bill today from Liberal Jon Gerrard, which would have broadened the province’s human rights code to ban discrimination based on physical size or weight.

Gerrard said overweight people need protection because many have been bullied, shamed and passed over for promotions.

But Tory legislature members criticized Gerrard’s bill as too vague and difficult to enforce.

Manitoba’s human rights code currently bans discrimination on grounds such as age, gender, religion and disability.

Across Canada, there have been human rights commission rulings in favour of obese people, but those cases have involved people considered disabled by their obesity.

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