A Saskatchewan human rights commissioner has resigned over the province’s proposed legislation that would require schools to obtain parental consent if a student under 16 years of age wants to change their gender pronouns or identity.
Heather Kuttai, who has a transgender son, said she believes the legislation puts vulnerable children at risk. “It felt personal,” she told The Canadian Press.
“The assault on human rights of children really drove it home for me and my family. I realized I couldn’t continue to be a part of a system that fundamentally is anti-trans.”
She gave her resignation to Premier Scott Moe on Oct. 16, effective immediately. Ms. Kuttai is one of six human rights commissioners in the province.
Saskatchewan MLAs are in the middle of an extended sitting to debate Bill 137, dubbed the Parental Bill Of Rights, introduced on Oct. 12.
Mr. Moe recalled the legislature early to deal with the bill. He said his government wanted to ensure that parents were informed about “every important decision involving your child’s education.”
“We feel there’s paramount importance to provide clarity to parents, to families, and ultimately to school divisions and educators that are in our classrooms across the province,” Mr. Moe said on Sept. 29, with regard to his early recall of MLAs.
The government has invoked the charter’s notwithstanding clause to get the bill through the legislature. The clause allows a government to put policies in place for up to five years despite legal challenges.
“We’ve said for a number of weeks now that there are tools available to the government to ensure that this policy is in place moving forward to the next number of months and years, and that is going to be the case,” Mr. Moe said.
The premier is facing a legal challenge to the bill by UR Pride Center for Sexuality and Gender Diversity, an LGBT peer support group. The Court of King’s Bench in Saskatchewan granted an injunction against enacting the policy on Sept. 28.
Mr. Moe said the notwithstanding clause was in place to deal with situations where there are different rights that are in conflict.
“When those rights collide, the notwithstanding clause was provided to ensure that the elected government of the day would be able to make the decision on as to which of those rights would be in effect for the people that they ultimately represented. In this case, that’s the rights of a parent to ensure they’re involved in their children’s decision,” he said.
A Leger poll released on Oct. 12 found that 63 percent of Canadians surveyed think schools should inform parents if a child wants to change pronouns or gender. Forty-five percent of those surveyed said schools should inform parents even if the child does not feel safe telling them.
The survey was done between Oct. 6 and 9 and included 1,518 Canadians randomly selected in an online panel. Leger said a margin of error cannot be associated with this type of survey conducted. However, they estimated the survey to have a margin of error +/- 2.52 percent, 19 times out of 20.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
