Calgary Journal Online

Legislation allows families to pull children from classes on key social issues that may concern parents

Of the 19 Conservative MLAs in Alberta, only 53% voted on changes to Alberta’s Human Right’s Act and not one voted against the addition of the very unpopular Section 9 at the bills 3rd and last reading on June 5, 2009.

Bill 44’s contentious issue is the new section that writes into law parents’ right to remove their children from classes where sexuality, sexual orientation or religion may be discussed.

The backlash against the bill began in early May and shows no signs of slowing. Many see the bill as an unnecessary and ham-fisted attempt to muzzle certain groups. Others, including some 8, 000 student members of a Facebook group, consider the Bill an assault on students’ freedom of expression and right to education.

“The School Act already protects a parent’s rights when it comes to what their children are taught at school,” said Heather Welwood, president of the Alberta School Boards Association. “In every school jurisdiction in Alberta, there effective ways to resolve these questions at the local level. It’s a mystery as to what problem the government is seeking to solve.”

Kelly Ernst, Senior Program Director with the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for

Ethics in Leadership, says the change to Bill 44 is an act of discrimination in itself. “The Supreme Court of Canada says you can’t put fences around any particular group. The idea that you would put fences around any of those three topics is discriminatory.” Ernst says changes to Bill 44 show there is a political will to put fences specifically around gay and lesbian issues.

Bill 44 will require teachers to give parents advance notice of when issues dealing with human sexuality, sexual orientation and religion are taught in their classrooms.

Photo: Julie C Vincent / Calgary Journal

Ernst added that the Chumir Foundation gave comment on how Alberta’s human rights legislation should be changed but noted those suggestions were not followed.

Challenges to the Bill are already brewing. Ernst says a number of gay and lesbian parents are willing to put in a complaint based on heterosexuality being included in the curriculum, challenging whether Bill 44’s opt-out provision is an all or nothing proposition: either the range of human sexuality and sexual orientation is on the table or it isn’t.

Ernst suggests that the Bill’s terms may even leave students open to human rights complaints brought by other students.

“Even though these kids may be under 18, (Bill 44) really tramples on their rights of freedom of expression and speech. The kids are saying ‘this is my freedom of expression.’ They want to be able to talk about [these subject areas] freely.”

Many who commented believed that Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett was blindsided by the anger and opposition to Bill 44.

“Lindsay Blackett is junior minister who didn’t see this coming and really doesn’t know how to hold off the tide of this. A senior minister could go “well, 55 caucus members don’t want this. But as a junior minister, he didn’t necessarily have the support to stop it,” says Kelly Ernst.

“Minister Blackett says he has listened carefully to teachers. He has not been listening. Teachers and the education partners have called on the government to remove section 9 altogether from Bill 44,” said Frank Bruseker, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association.

Two amendments were added to the bill following its third reading. According to an Alberta Teachers Association press release, the amendments “purport to “clarify” provisions of the bill, which require advance notice be given to a parent about the delivery of instruction on religion, human sexuality or sexual orientation.

The new provisions say that the bill applies to subject matter that deals primarily or explicitly with religion, human sexuality or sexual orientation; the provisions also say that the bill does not apply to incidental or indirect references to religion, human sexuality or sexual orientation.”

But groups representing Alberta school councils, teachers, school superintendents and elected school boards say the amendments fail to address fundamental concerns.

“These are issues that parents resolve at the local level, not in front of human rights tribunals,” said Marilyn Sheptycki, who represents over 800 school councils as president of the Alberta School Councils’ Association. “Existing legislation and common sense should be sufficient.”

Ken Chapman, Principle with Cambridge Strategies, a political think tank in Edmonton, suggested the amendments were political outs for the MLAs who didn’t attend the free vote but wanted to be on the record as having participated, albeit less directly.

Despite Bill 44 being a free vote, Chapman says cabinet members could not vote against it. Doing so “would have been political suicide.” Several resorted to voting on amendments added on May 26th in order to be seen as participating in some capacity.

“The amendments provide even more problems for school boards and teachers,” said Paulette Hanna, president of the College of Alberta School Superintendents. “Who decides what ‘primarily’ or ‘explicitly’ means? What is ‘incidental’ or ‘indirect’?

“The bill provides a blueprint for teachers and school boards to unwittingly violate the law every day.”

Kelly Ernst says Bill 44 is ripe for challenge because it contradicts The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter supersedes the Alberta Human Rights Act. Additionally, UN Convention: Section 26 states a right to education. “Our concern is,” says Ernst, “Do children have a right that is being undermined by bill 44,’ and I think they do.”

As Ernst also points out, “Parents have a role and a responsibility here too. The irony is that parents have a right in a public school system to not have their kids exposed to religious instruction. But studying religion and religious instruction are not the same.”

Challenges are already in planning and that the idea of same sex parents challenging discussion of different-sex unions is not out of the question, say Ernst. Challenges by “mum and mum” for instance will highlight “how absurd this bill is,” says Ken Chapman

There are fundamentalist religious groups that are going to pursue this, Chapman believes, “[They] will use [Bill 44] to perpetuate their angst and anger against the human rights commission. 95% of the population won’t be bothered but fringe elements are emerging and already threatening to go after teachers.”

Chapman posits this bill has given those fringe elements “A whole new sword and a shield,” and that the challenges could be devastating to education in Alberta.

“The education system is a mature system.” Chapman points out. “My guess is, when teachers start to think and realize what’s going on in this pluralistic public school system, that a lot of them will say ‘I don’t need this,’ and take early retirement.”

Chapman also noted that the extent of Bill 44’s reach couldn’t be underestimated. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms deals extensively with human sexuality, religion and sexual orientation and is part of Alberta’s grade 10 curriculum.

“Teachers are not going to want to teach this anymore,” Chapman suggests. “They’re going to shut it down and just not teach it,” due to the risks of a human rights complaint.

Chapman and Sue Huff, a School Trustee in Edmonton both believe Bill 44 is a highly divisive bill. “This is not doing anything for the social cohesion. This is going to make those differences barriers,” says Chapman.

Huff agrees, saying she sees an increasing divisiveness. “We’ve started to create the sense that ‘my neighbor,’ is now somehow ‘other.’ We’ve lost the sense that we’re reasonable people that can sit down and discuss our differences. All of that is being churned up in the sea of Bill 44.”

The voting on Bill 44 occurred at 1:15 a.m. in what some say was an effort to eliminate media presence. But the media did attend, thanks to systems like Twitter and Facebook, and also thanks to those platforms, heated discussion continued throughout the rest of the day.

Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett could not be reached for a response despite several attempts by the Calgary Journal to do so.

Changes to the Alberta Human Rights Act passed on June 5, but now must go to cabinet for proclamation. It remains to be seen whether the entirety of Bill 44’s changes and additions will be proclaimed or if section 11 will be excluded from that proclamation due to public and student protest.