Alberta parents not to be told if children join GSA
Education Minister David Eggen told school boards Monday not to notify parents if their child joins a gay-straight alliance.
No legislation prohibits teachers from telling parents what clubs students have joined, but Eggen said he’s looking at changing that.
Although teachers in the public and private systems are bound by codes of conduct, Eggen admitted Monday an absence of law creates the potential for a problem.
The issue of informing parents if their child joins a GSA arose last week when new PC Leader Jason Kenney told a Calgary Herald editorial board that parents have a right to know what’s going on with their kids in school.
Eggen alluded to that in his letter to boards this week, saying recent comments about parental notification and GSAs concerned him.
“I am telling you today that such notification should not occur,” he wrote.
“We have heard loud and clear from students that GSAs ... save lives. I ask all of you to support students in the establishment of these groups if they are choosing to form them.”
Sunday marked the 19th anniversary of the Vriend case, in which teacher Delwin Vriend was fired from a private religious college in Edmonton because he was gay.
The Alberta Individual Rights Protection Act didn’t include sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination, so Vriend couldn’t make a complaint.
He challenged that and the Supreme Court ruled that sexual orientation must be read into the act.
After the decision was handed down, Kenney stood in the House of Commons to blast it as “unaccountable justices taking upon themselves the position of elected legislators and legislating from the bench.”
He also called on then-premier Ralph Klein to hold a referendum on whether the government should invoke the notwithstanding clause to override the court’s decision. At the time, Kenney told Alberta Report magazine the social conservative backlash against the Vriend decision “opens the window for a provincial grassroots, populist party with conservative values.”
In a statement Monday, Calgary-Hawkwood NDP MLA Michael Connolly slammed Kenney’s comments of the time.
Connolly told Postmedia it was important to mark the turning point in LGBTQ rights in Alberta and accused Kenney of rallying against the gay community.
“He has said he doesn’t like the Vriend decision, he’s voted against equal marriage, he’s voted against rights for trans people — this is his entire 18-year career as an MP,” Connolly said.
“He has never supported the LGBTQ community, he has never been our friend.”
In an email, Kenney said the NDP is rehashing the issue in a “desperate” attempt to avoid talking about economic policy.
Social mores and laws change over time, he said, noting he supported repealing the federal Conservative party policy on the definition of marriage as the union of
Albertans expect a government that is focused on today’s economic challenges, not legal and political disputes from a generation ago. JASON KENNEY, PC leader
one man and one woman.
“Albertans expect a government that is focused on today’s economic challenges, not legal and political disputes from a generation ago,” Kenney wrote.