Manitoba 'stands with trans communities,' health minister says as Alta. shields bills on trans youth, pronouns

Manitoba's wellness regime minister is voicing back up for the trans community of interests as Alberta's government forges ahead with plans critics say target the rights of transgender youth and adults in that province.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced Monday, during Transgender Awareness Week, her plans to invoke the notwithstanding clause as a means of skirting legal challenges facing previously announced bills that affect trans and gender diverse youth and adults.

"It's difficult to see trans youth and their families struggling under conditions that … you'd think we'd be well past by now," Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said during an unrelated news conference in Winnipeg on Wednesday.

"But this week in particular, it's so important for us as a province to celebrate the fact that we're led by a premier, and we have a government, that stands with trans communities."

Asagwara's comments come two days after Smith tabled legislation that aims to invoke the notwithstanding clause to shield three bills facing legal challenges. All three would affect trans and gender diverse communities in Alberta.

Last year, Smith's government passed Bill 26, which prevents youth 16 and younger from accessing gender-affirming care like hormone therapy, puberty blockers and other treatments. That's been challenged in court by the Canadian Medical Association and others.

Dr. Joss Reimer, a past president of the CMA, said Wednesday that while the invocation of the notwithstanding clause may prevent the association from asking the courts to strike the legislation down, the association could still ask for a ruling on whether it infringes on human rights.

"We need to have these decisions being made by patients with their families, and with the advice of medical experts who can keep up with the evidence and then apply it to the unique individual circumstances that that patient has," said Reimer, the chief medical officer for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

"The last thing many of us want when we go see a doctor is having a politician in the room with us making decisions on our behalf. And that's what's happening here."

Two other groups involved in that Bill 26 challenge, Egale and Skipping Stone Foundation, are also challenging a second piece of Alberta legislation.

Bill 27 requires school staff to tell parents or caregivers when a student under 18 changes their pronouns or comes out as trans or gender diverse. Staff also must get parental permission to refer to students younger than 16 by a name or pronouns other than those assigned to them at birth.

A third bill, the Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, prohibits anyone in Alberta not assigned female at birth from playing in women and girls sports.

The governing United Conservative Party introduced all three bills last year.

Last month, Manitoba's NDP government introduced its own legislation in response to use of the notwithstanding clause by provincial governments, which Premier Wab Kinew said could "trample" on the rights of 2SLGBTQ communities, religious minorities and vulnerable groups.

Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — commonly called the "notwithstanding clause" —allows Canadian Parliament and legislatures to pass legislation that overrides some sections of the Charter for a five-year term.

It has, in recent years, also been used to protect Saskatchewan's pronoun policy and Quebec's secularism law.

Presently, a provincial government that invokes the clause isn't required to say which particular Charter rights its legislation needs to be exempted from.

The NDP's Bill 50, the Constitutional Questions Amendment Act, aims to change that.

It would automatically trigger a process whereby a Manitoba government wishing to invoke the notwithstanding clause would have to explain its rationale for doing so to an appeals court judge, according to the NDP.

That judge wouldn't have power to stop the legislation, but could provide a legal opinion on its potential for human rights violations. Kinew has characterized that as a democratic safeguard that may help voters decide which party to support.

The legislation died after not going to a final vote before the fall legislative session wrapped Nov. 5.

Kinew confirmed Wednesday the NDP will re-introduce the bill, but didn't say when.

Parker Moran thinks the legislation could help protect rights.

"I think it is really hard to rationalize that and to say, 'This is why we think these rights should be taken away ... Why we think we should go against evidence-based medical care that even Alberta doctors are speaking out against,'" said Moran, a registered social worker with the Trans Health Klinic in Winnipeg.

"I think that trans people are a scapegoat and easily used [for] fear mongering, and the impact of that at the ground level is on our mental health."

Moran, who is often a first point of contact for Manitobans 16 and up seeking gender affirming care, had their own top surgery on Nov. 14, 2023 — during Trans Awareness Week.

"[It's] a reminder that there are a lot of us, and that we are not alone," they said.

"It's a good reminder for me … to show up every day working with people who are early on in their journeys and to be as present as I can for them, because it's what they deserve."

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