Moe has passed his anti-trans Bill 137 using the not-withstanding clause in the Canadian Bill of Rights to over rife the UN Bill of Children's Rights, the Canadian Bill of Rights and Saskatchewan's own bill of rights. Bill 137 forces teachers to out trans students under the age of 16 to their parents and get their consent before using the child's preferred name and pronouns.
This legislation is borrowed from American Red States and is a response to losing a by election to Nadine Wilson, leader of far right Saskatchewan United Party. He was influenced by Nadine Ness of Unified Grassroots, a rabid anti-vax organization responsible for Saskatchewan dropping all Covid-19 preventative measures, resulting in a linear increase in deaths reaching 2000 om July. Action4Canada, led by Tanya Gaw, claims they also influenced the legislation. Moe claims none of them influenced him, he consulted with parents and experts. Court of Kings Bench Justice Megaw, ordering a stay on the legislation, says there was no evidence of any consultation.
The legislation requires teachers to get written permission from parents of children under 16 before using their preferred name and pronouns. Often children will try out social transitioning at school before telling their parents. And if they deem it unsafe, they will never tell them. That is the parents fault.
The legislation also requires schools to stop using third party material or speakers in their sexual health class and only use government approved.
There is also a clause holding the Saskatchewan government harmless if the legislation causes any harm.
The Parents' Bill of Rights outlines a number of different rights that parents have regarding their children's education. In fact parents have always had the opportunity to do these things. The supporters of course never go to parent-teacher interviews, home and school meetings, or volunteer in the school. We did all of that with our four kids, knew their teachers, volunteered, and were active participants in their education.
Two items are pure BS.
1. act as the primary decision-maker with respect to the pupil's education.
This is from the Red Stated where teachers are grossly underpaid and disrespected and students rank at or near the bottom in education.
2. if sexual health content is to be presented to pupils in the school, the parents must be notified at least two weeks in advance and can withdraw their students with written notice.
Some people are terrified that their children will not inherent their bigotry towards 2SLGBTQ+ or even find out they exist and have the same rights as everyone else.
The organization marching in support of this, such as Action4Canada, which you must join to access their website, and the Million March 4 Children in its various commutations are hate groups comprised of Freedom Convoy, anti-vaxxers, anti 2SLGBTQ+ groups, and far right religious (evangelical) organizations. They deliberately conflate Social Transitioning and Physical Transitioning to inflame their base. They have no interest in the children and often use misleading advertising for their meetings. They wish to maintain the patriarchy and destroy everything that threatens it.
My youngest daughter is a teacher and Chief Librarian in a middle-high school in North London. She is THE trusted ally and spends her day talking to kids, doing here work on holidays, weekends and after school. Many kids have come out to her, including Muslim kids. She has won awards for her activities in leading the Diversity Group at her school. She knows where of she speaks and is sickened by this lagislation.
Saskatchewan NDP, Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation, Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission (Kuttai resigned), Saskatchewan's Children's Advocate, CUPE, U of R Faculty Association, Egale Canada, 14 law professors of the U of S Faculty of Law, and others.
It is a point of pride with supporters of Moe's legislation that these people, who might know what they are talking about, were ignored. Moe claims parents are the experts when it comes to knowing what is best for their children.
Now that is a crock if there ever was one. Parents are amateurs at raising kids. There is no instruction manual, every family, every child is vastly different. We depend on what we learned or did not learn from our parents, on advice we got from trusted sources, on experience as we go along. We use this information as the best we can and we are often wrong but we keep on trying. Teachers spend more time with our kids than we give them credit for and their opinions should be listened to. Parent teacher interviews are priceless in that regard.
The PEAK has a good article explaining SOGI 123. Link is here.
SOGI 123 teachings discourage gender-specific stereotypes, help explain different family structures, and are proactive around transitioning students. Furthermore, they encourage children to ask questions and engage in proactive allyship.
A parent, who was present at the 1 Million March 4 Children on September 20 in support of the SOGI 123 curriculum, shared their insight to Global News: “I feel sorry for the children of those parents that choose fear over the reality that teaching our children about sexuality protects them, it protects them from sexual predators actually, it allows them to be empowered in their ability.”
