Saskatchewan parents are backing Premier Scott Moe’s education policy requiring parental consent for children under 16 to change their gender and pronouns at school.
The support comes as Moe is preparing to invoke the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to preserve the policy after a judge granted trans activists an injunction pausing it.
A Saskatoon father of two, whose kids attend public schools, told True North he believes “children are not able to comprehend these complex topics at their age and yet are being inundated by sexual influences entirely too early in their development.”
“My job as a parent is to protect my boys’ development and be the arbiter of what they are learning and when,” he said. “This (policy) confirms that parents are informed if their child is going through developmental changes.”
The father, who asked not to be named, said his sons were exposed to wokism and gender ideology at their elementary school and he felt sidelined when he tried to voice his concerns to the principal.
“But thanks to Moe there seems to be a glimmer of hope,” he said.
Nadine Ness, a mother of four and a parental rights advocate who leads the group United Grassroots, told True North parents are cheering the policy on.
“When I’m out there in the public, and just talking to anyone in general, they know this is a really good move,” she said.
She believes Canadian public school systems are currently “normalizing keeping secrets from parents” and “normalizing teachers having interpersonal relationships with children that they shouldn’t have.”
Ness also praised Moe for pledging to use the notwithstanding clause to safeguard the policy.
“I’m glad that Scott Moe is taking it a step further and recognizing the gross overreach of the courts. Parents are the ultimate authority over their children’s education.”
UR Pride, the trans activist organization who sought the injunction, claims that the policy is “dangerous” and will “harm children.”
Court of King’s Bench Justice Michael Megaw echoed these concerns in his decision to grant the injunction, writing “the harms identified by the three experts tendered by UR Pride illustrate, quite forcefully, those risks of irreparable harm.”
When asked about claims of harm, Ness said she believes that the policy will, on the contrary, make children safer as it will provide children with the opportunity to report mistreatment at home.
“If it’s not safe at home, a child will disclose it, whereas before, they would have not,” she said.
“There’s already legislation and policies in school for the cases where the child’s safety is at risk, that’s already been addressed. So the idea that a child’s going to be at increased risk, to me, is completely bogus.”
A recent Angus Reid poll found that 86% of Saskatchewan residents believe parents should be informed if their child wishes to change names or pronouns at school. Support is also high in the rest of Canada.
Meanwhile, just 10% of Saskatchewan residents said they disagreed with schools being mandated to inform parents of children’s name and pronoun changes.
Last month, thousands of Canadians across Canada participated in the One Million March for Children – calling for parental rights policies similar to Saskatchewan’s and New Brunswick’s to be implemented nationwide, and for an end to gender ideology teachings.
