Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa on Feb. 5.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Eric M. Adams teaches Canadian constitutional law at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law.
The divisive politics of classroom pronoun use has swept westward, from New Brunswick to Saskatchewan and now to Alberta. But unlike her counterparts in those provinces, Premier Danielle Smith went further, announcing plans to regulate the medical care and sporting activities of trans youth and adults. Constitutional challenges and an invocation of the notwithstanding clause may follow.
But easy to overlook in the announcement was that the province intends to intrude deeper into the kindergarten-to-Grade-12 curriculum concerning what Ms. Smith called “sensitive subjects.”
Alberta law currently requires parents to be notified when school instruction “includes subject matter that deals primarily and explicitly with religion or human sexuality.” Parents can exempt their child from such instruction if they inform the school in writing.
The province now proposes a new approach. “When it comes to classroom instruction on subject matter involving gender identity, sexual orientation, or human sexuality,” Ms. Smith explains, “we will be requiring parental notification and an opt-in requirement for each instance a teacher intends to give formal instruction on these subjects.” Any outside speakers or presentations on such topics will need to be preapproved by ministry officials.
Although the specific legislation implementing these changes is not yet ready, what we do know should raise more than constitutional concerns. The policy as described appears to expand the range of material and subjects that will be treated differently in Alberta’s classrooms. The resulting chill on what is taught and how it is taught will be experienced not just in health class, but potentially across the curriculum.
For instance: What exactly counts as instruction involving or relating to sexual orientation, gender identity or sexuality?
Thirty-three years ago, Delwin Vriend was fired from his job at The King’s College in Edmonton for being gay. Mr. Vriend’s complaint about his termination was rejected by the Alberta Human Rights Commission for the simple reason that the province’s human-rights legislation did not protect from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In response, Mr. Vriend argued that the legislation violated the Charter’s equality-rights guarantee – and eventually, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed. “It is easy to say that everyone who is just like ‘us’ is entitled to equality,” the court held. “Yet so soon as we say any enumerated or analogous group is less deserving and unworthy of equal protection and benefit of the law all minorities and all of Canadian society are demeaned.” The decision changed human-rights law in Alberta and helped pave the way for the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in Canada.
Will telling that story in Alberta’s high-school classrooms now require parental opt-in forms?
What about teaching students that the Alberta Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of “gender, gender identity, gender expression … or sexual orientation”? Will students leave the room when LGBTQ+ rights are discussed in law or social studies classes? What about when novels involving LGBTQ+ authors or characters are read as part of an English curriculum?
Alberta teachers may simply opt to skip these uncertainties. It may seem sensible to steer clear of subjects deemed “sensitive,” to avoid potential paperwork or parental complaints.
In Florida, instruction on sexual orientation before Grade 8 has been banned. Alberta’s plan doesn’t forbid it, but it would put bureaucratic hurdles in the way of discussing sexual orientation up to Grade 12. “Don’t say gay, unless a parent signs a consent form” is not an educational approach worthy of this century.
Aside from the hypocrisy of an overreaching government that just released a video of cabinet ministers cutting red tape with giant novelty scissors, the idea at the core of this policy is wrong. Wrapped in the language of parental rights, Ms. Smith’s new policy undermines the rights of the most important people in our schools: the students. The Charter’s equality guarantee protects the right to learn in an environment free from arbitrary discrimination. But the province’s proposed law says some types of lives, families and identities trigger opt-in forms and student exclusion, while others do not.
Exposing students to diversity in the classroom is not a form of indoctrination or an infringement of their rights. It is simply what good schools do to educate students to help them navigate the world as it actually exists.
In 1996, as Mr. Vriend’s case wound through the lower courts, Alberta Court of Appeal justice J.A. McClung wrote that the province had no obligation to validate “homosexual relations” in its human-rights laws. To do so, he said, would be “rebutting a millennia of moral teaching.”
That case reminds us that advances in human rights often have their origins in moments of discrimination and misunderstanding – in moments of wrong. Let’s hope Alberta’s proposed policy is at least the start of just such a lesson.