Parents' Bill of Rights
[4] Bill 137 requires parental notification and consent when students under the age of 16 wish to change their preferred names, nicknames or pronouns that could be related to gender expression while at school.
In addition it requires teachers to not answer potentially controversial questions asked by students and to instead advise them to speak to their family.
[11] SUP leader Nadine Wilson attributed the strong performance to her party's advocacy for more parental involvement in the education system.
[16] In September, it was reported that the Ministry of Education took only nine days to create the policy, and did so without consulting students, school boards, the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation, the province's youth advocate, or other experts.
[17] However, emails obtained through a freedom of information request revealed that provincial employees were instructed on August 10 to conduct a "rush jurisdictional scan" of educational policies across Canada and the United States.
[26][27] On September 1, 2023, the UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity at the University of Regina and Egale Canada—a national LGBTQ advocacy organization—filed a lawsuit against the Saskatchewan government over the policies.
[32] That characterization drew criticism from legal experts, and the Saskatchewan Trial Lawyers' Association released a statement expressing concern that Moe's statement was "premature" and had the "potential to erode public trust" in the judiciary; as such, the STLA urged the government "to respect the role of the judiciary and to allow the court to perform its constitutional role of judicial review".
The first was a June 2023 incident when non-school approved sexual health education material was obtained by a student after a presentation by Planned Parenthood in a Lumsden high school.
[43] The province responded by suspending Planned Parenthood from presenting in schools; following the suspension, the organization expressed surprise and disappointment that the government did not discuss the issue with them.
[43][44] The second was the government's discovery of an active procedure in the Regina Public School Division, which it argued deviated from the norm by explicitly stating a respect for student confidentiality.
[24] In April 2024, it was revealed that an early draft of the initial government policy provided discretion for teachers to use students' preferred pronouns if there were concerns that involving parents might compromise a student's safety; this provision was ultimately removed from the policy, which led critics to renew questions about the government's process.
Education Minister Cockrill was criticized for incorrectly claiming on August 29 that "every single government MLA" had heard from constituents that they had children who had been using different pronouns without their knowledge;[42][56] the claim was immediately refuted by MLA Everett Hindley when he was asked if he had heard the same, and Premier Moe stated in an October 3 interview that he had not been made aware of any such discussions with parents.
[56] Moe persistently cited the popularity of the policy as a justification for its enactment, while the government dismissed polling that suggested that more than half of residents supported teacher discretion over parental consent.
[57][59] Several of the eighteen letters that the government received in the spring and summer of 2023 incorrectly characterized issues of gender and sexuality as "theories" and "ideologies".
[19] On October 17, while the bill was still being debated in the legislature, Saskatchewan's human rights commissioner, Heather Kuttai, resigned in protest of the policy.
[60] Two days later, the Human Rights Commission released a statement urging the government to reconsider the legislation and to work with it and other experts to revise it.
[36] Moe's insistence that the legislation was merely codifying rules that were already in place across the province "by policy or practice" further prompted questions as to why there was a need to hastily rush the bill through the legislature outside of the normal process.
"[70] The day before the bill was passed, fourteen University of Saskatchewan law faculty members wrote a letter to the government urging it to allow "the normal legal process to take its course" before passing the bill, explaining that the government's use of the notwithstanding clause was "well outside of the normal legal process", which would allow judges to first rule on the constitutionality of the law.
A report from the Regina Leader-Post suggested that the requirement could cost schools that need to source and install additional flag poles thousands of dollars;[48] the government did not commit to providing such funding.
