The Alberta government has invoked the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to prevent court challenges to a trio of laws impacting transgender youth and adults.
The clause is part of a bill now before the house, and Premier Danielle Smith says the move is necessary to protect children’s health and well-being.
She says their health could be jeopardized if challenges to the laws are tied up in court for a long time.
The notwithstanding clause allows governments to override Charter rights if deemed necessary as a way to balance the authority of both politicians and the courts.
The clause relates to laws that put restrictions on student pronoun changes at school, on girls’ and women’s sports, and on medical therapies for young people looking to transition.
Two of those bills are facing court challenges on the grounds they are harmful and unconstitutional.
The focus of much of the legal debate surrounds the law on health care. It prohibits doctors from providing treatment such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy to those under 16 for purposes of gender reassignment.
This is so cruel. They even banned fucking puberty blockers, which are essentially harmless and completely reversible. “For the purposes of gender reassignment”, of course, only cis people deserve gender affirming healthcare.
A second law makes changes in schools. It requires parents to be notified if a child under 16 wants to change their name or pronoun at school for reasons related to their gender identity. LGBTQ+ advocacy groups are also challenging that on constitutional grounds, but for now it remains in force.
This will put children with unsupportive parents in danger. These pieces of shit are putting kids in danger under the pretense that they’re “keeping them safe”.
“We cannot and will not take the risk of a child undergoing medical, hormonal or surgical interventions that could permanently limit or eliminate choices they may want to make as an adult to have children of their own one day,” Smith said.
Of course, all they care about is that people can keep having children. Classic.
Imagine choosing to spend your free time complaining about other people’s private lives. What a hobby.
NWC is specifically used to violate your charter rights. Where are the conservatives who scream about governments taking away personal freedoms?
She needs to be removed from the board permanently
Fuck her so much. God damn marlaina fucking fascist piece of shit
Really? You used the NWC for kids wanting gender reassignment medical help, kids asking to be called different pronouns, and kids figuring out which sports team they want to play on?
The stakes could not be higher
Oh fuck off. How about homeless people dying because of hunger, or people getting shot up during armed robberies. Literally life and death shit. How is perverting what the fuck is going on in Lisa’s pants more important than dealing with crime and income inequality?
Danielle - you’ve got more important shit to deal with than focusing all your attention on kids’ genitalia
Not even the first time. IIRC this was used against (not gay marriage) Eugenics Act victims in 1998.
I misremembered.
Was it?
My memory is that gay marriage was declared unconstitutional by the Ontario Court of Appeal in July 2003. The Chrétien government of the time chose not to appeal it and instead referred a draft bill to the Supreme Court of Canada to ask them to issue a binding ruling. The government (now the Paul Martin government?) did slow things down by adding a fourth question to the referral, which even the Supreme Court called out as political bullshit. Once they came back (in late 2004) affirming that same-sex marriage needed to be legal, there was a lot of talk about using the notwithstanding clause as the only possible option to ignore their ruling. Ultimately, though, the bill legalizing gay marriage federally passed in February of 2005.
I remember in the debates during the subsequent election that Paul Martin accused Stephen Harper of planning to reverse it. Harper rolled his eyes and said that he considered the matter settled (since I think even a lot of Conservative voters were fine with it by then). Martin then promised to remove the NWC from the charter if reelected. He was not.
You’re right I misremembered. In Alberta it was briefly used against Eugenics Act victims in 1998 but was reversed pretty quickly due to public outrage.
We need to remove that clause from the Charter. The only thing it’s ever used for, is to violate people’s rights. The Charter means absolutely nothing, as long as that clause is included.
If the government has a free way to say “nah” when it comes to your rights then you don’t actually have rights.
I could not agree more. I understand the original intent, but nowadays it’s literally a “get out of fucking over your civil rights - free card”.
Unerpaid essential employee? No strikes! Your usefulness defines you as a slave, you know, unless you want to quit the industry that you have trained for and worked in.
I am livid. I can not put my anger into words right now.
The “strong, Conservative woman” claims that her party doesn’t use the notwithstanding clause “unless the stakes warrant it.”
Right, because clearly the biggest threat in Alberta is trans people. Not lobby money from the oil and gas industry, not the rising cost of living, not the mental health and addictions crisis, it’s clearly a group that makes up 1% at max of the population of the province.
Calling herself a “strong woman” is so unbelievably rich when all she seems able to do is effortlessly punch down on the everyday person. Like awww, how cute, she’s fighting fucking Big Teacher and Big Hormones, fuck off. “Strength” in defending the status quo requires zero effort whatsoever as it simply means doing fuck all, and I will be unapologetic in saying that she is doing nothing but continuing women’s status as objects by acting as a mere chess piece for the male CEOs in oil and gas and other profitable industries that direct her and the UCP’s decisions through political donations.
Un-fucking-believable.
identity politics is the easiest way to give populous something they didn’t ask for but feel like they always needed it
Ah yes, now the government is deciding health care (not doctors) BY FUCKING VIOLATING YOUR CHARTER RIGHTS.
FFS
Protect them from what, Danielle?
Diverse viewpoints, I’m thinking.
Get the rocks.
Alberta? Makes sense
Man Fuck MAGAlberta
Hi. I’ve never watched hockey.
Is there a mechanism to override a province’s use of the clause? Also, does the federal government also have the option to invoke it?
To your first question, not really. The entire point of the notwithstanding clause is such that it cannot be challenged by the court. To your second question, yes.
That’s bananas. So the only choice is to get a later provincial government to revoke whatever rule they passed using it?
it expires in 5 years as well. They claim they’re doing this because it’s of so much importance that they can’t wait for the court case to be completed which could be years, but if they lose that court case, you full well know they’d just invoke it again if they were still in power 5 years from now and say fuck it the court got it wrong.
The trick is it’s, to my knowledge, never been used to protect something so important before. Usually it’s to protect for more subjective cultural stuff, ie Quebec has used it the most in the name of protecting their French heritage.
I vaguely remember Alberta trying to use it in a similiar ass-backwards fashion once before, to define marriage as being “between a man and a woman,” but it got shut down federally somehow? It’s too late in the evening for me to care to do my research on this, but if you’re interested in how it may or may not be used, I’d look into that case.
Either way, I suspect if its homophobic use got shut down before, it’s current transphobic use will get shut down too. But, it’s a different world today, so we’ll see.
Obligatory fuck Danielle Smith and everything she is doing to attack trans people and protect pedophiles.
Edit - “gayphobic” (the fuck was I thinking? It was VERY late) to homophobic.
Pretty much, yeah.
