Bill 10, Bill 202, and the Melodrama.

Warning: this is an unusually long post!!

This week was a very bittersweet. As a supporter of gay rights, I was extremely frustrated and disappointed. As a blogger with a sense of humour, I was extremely overjoyed. Premier Jim Prentice gave comedians across Canada an amazing Christmas gift this year in the form of Bill 10. Bill 10, The Act to Amend the Bill of Rights to Protect our Children was Prentice's attempt, to play bobbing for eggs without getting egg on his face. The end result was... well, it was Prentice getting a lot of egg on his face.

To start, a little background. It's been common practice since the dawn of time that students taking sexual education may be removed from the class if parents don't give written consent. I honestly don't know how common that is in other provinces, as I've lived my whole life in Alberta. However, Alberta took it one step further in 2010. As of September 1st 2010, Parents had to be notified if sexual orientation would be discussed in classes, and that parents had the right to exempt their children from participating in these classes. Presumably on religious grounds, I would imagine. As far as I know, Alberta is THE only province that does that.

Then this fall, Alberta Liberal MLA for Edmonton-Centre, Laurie Blakeman announced that she would propose a bill that did three things:

1. Reference the Alberta Human Rights Act and The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms within the Alberta Education Act.
2. Repeal Section 11.1 of the Alberta Human Rights Act that allowed parents to remove their children from classes that discussed sexual orientation
3. Legislate that school boards provide Gay-Straight Alliances on site where students request them.

Of course, that third objective was the point that brought the most contention. Ms. Blakeman introduced her Private Members Bill on November 20th and the Progressive Conservatives - well most of them at least - panicked. By Most, I should mention there was one PC MLA who supported the bill. The runner-up in the leadership race behind Prentice, Thomas Lukaszuc. This is where it gets weird.

Ms. Blakeman announced her intentions to present Bill 202 on October 15th. That gave Prentice and his at the time not-yet-elected Education Minister Gordon Dirks a lot of time to come up with a response. Granted, both the Premier and the Education Minister were involved in by-elections trying to win their own seats (Spoiler: They did). But I figured, ince they weren't at debates, and there were many times where as many as 14 PC MLA's were in town to try to help Dirks win his seat in Calgary Elbow, there was plenty of time where all of them could have been huddled up at campaign headquarters and at least mentioning possible responses in passing. After all, it's not like they were busy campaigning:

With Apologies to Martin Hanford.

That aside, Ms. Blakeman's Bill passed first reading in the Legislative Assembly.

Now, while all this was happening, the Wildrose Party (Sometimes called the "We really miss Ralph Klein and want to go back to the days of running the province on autopilot during an economic boom" party) was having it's own little fun times. After a disappointing by-election, party leader Danielle Smith requested a leadership review. Then withdrew her request because of overwhelming support. The Wildrose went ahead with it's convention and voted against broadening it's definition of equality beyond "all Albertans" Leaving some minorities - including members of the LGBTQ community wondering if "all" included them. After all, it certainly did not include them during the Klein Era.

Smith supported expanding the definition to include gender, race, and sexual orientation. The Convention however, did not. And when Laurie Blakeman announced Bill 202, Smith again said she supported it. It seems however, most Wildrose MLA's did not, most vocally, hard-line social conservative Rob Anderson (though he did say he would support second reading, and add amendments to make it more to his liking in committee, so they had that going for them).

Yet, Danielle Smith still has the overwhelming support of the Party! Despite, you know, not being able to agree with them on anything.

Back to the Progressive Conservative ruckus. A week after Blakeman introduced her bill, Prentice called a hasty press conference announcing that Bill 202 was essentially moot, because he had an even better bill, that presumably was not written yet at that time. Less than a week later, in Prentice's absence, Bill 10, The Act to Amend the Bill of Rights to Protect our Children was introduced by three Progressive Conservative Members. Sandra Jansen, Mr. Dirks, and Justice Minister Jonathan Denis.

Now why the ruckus? Bill 10 does... well, it does absolutely nothing! It was championed by Jansen with the now viral quote "We're moving forward incrementally" on the subject of gay rights, and by "incrementally" the meant "enshrine status quo into law."

Now how does Bill 10 do nothing? Firstly, the one bright spot on it all was that it would officially add sexual orientation to the human rights act as protected from discrimination. Now, while I do think that is important, it is also important to note that this is really a formality, since courts have already declared it as protected and that to discriminate against someone on the grounds of sexual orientation is indeed a form of discrimination. So, while the gesture is nice, it doesn't change much. especially since the rest of the bill itself - and all Alberta Laws are supposed to be done within the confines of the Alberta Human Rights Act - continues to discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

The second part of the bill that does absolutely nothing but was highly trumpeted by the Progressive Conservatives is that - like Blakeman's original private member's bill, it removed the controversial section 11.1 of the Alberta Human Rights Act that allows parents to remove children from classes where sexual orientation is discussed. Sounds great, right? Well, it would be amazing, and a victory in itself, if not for the fact that one of the other things Bill 10 does is introduce an amendment to the Alberta Education Act that - you guessed it - allows parents to remove their children from classes discussing sexual orientation! Thus, not only completely nullifying the removal of section 11.1 from the original act, but also violating the portion of Bill 10 that is supposed to prevent the government passing laws that discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

Thirdly, the bill went on to state that students could request a Gay-Straight Alliance in their schools. If the school refused, they could appeal to the school board. If the school board refused, then students could appeal the decision before the courts, up to the Queen's Bench.

Now, of course, therein lies the largest problem: Firstly, I'm not sure how many students have an understanding of the complexities of the legal system, in particular elementary and middle school students. I'm also unsure of how many have the resources to take up such a challenge. Or how many might have parents that may be opposed to the thought their child joining a Gay-Straight Alliance, thus removing parental support in the process. Or maybe a student is in the closet to their parents. There are a million reasons why this is a bad process.

That's not why this does nothing though. The reason why this does nothing, is that I'm pretty sure if a student had the resources, supports and knowledge to appeal to the courts, I'm pretty sure the courts were already an existing option. I mean, when there is a human rights issue, the courts are always an option! This bill, essentially spelled out the practice that in reality was already in place! So again, more status quo.

Now, I don't know how much of the discussion surrounded wasting taxpayer dollars on a Bill that would change absolutely nothing in practice and implement a series of formalities that were already the practice of the land was done in "the Ledge." Politicians aren't exactly know for pointing out the obvious. After all, if it was obvious to politicians, Bill 10 would not have even come forward. But here's where the fun really begins:

Prentice was out of the province during the entire discussion, and the Education Minister has been conspicuously silent both during question period and during press conferences and media interviews. So the entire week of debate between Bill 202 and Bill 10 happened during another time when our Vanishing Ministers were busy performing an encore of their famous by-election performance. Granted, Dirks was in attendance at the Legislature. He was just awfully silent and seemingly invisible.

During this period, Bill 202 was completely removed from the legislative agenda, essentially ending any further debate on the bill and killing it before second reading. Bill 10 passed first reading, and passed second reading with an amendment that actually changed something... and not exactly for the better. It gave our invisible/silent Education Minister the power to intervene if a school board refused to support a Gay-Straight Alliance. There was one small problem: There is no guarantee it would be on school grounds or have affiliation with the school.

This was the death-knoll on Bill 10. There were several things wrong with this amendment:

1. The whole point of Gay-Straight Alliances is to provide students a safe place on school grounds for students. Students should not have to leave school to feel safe.
2. The intention of Bill 202 is that Gay-Straight alliances would have the same support as other clubs at the school. This isn't much to ask really. A room to meet in, a teacher to preside, A budget isn't really that necessary (most of the clubs I was part of had no budget) . A page in the yearbook, and the opportunity to hold the odd event about bullying and gay rights. If gay rights are THAT big of a problem, they could at the very least hold events to raise awareness about bullying, but I prefer to not have to hide things just cause a few people don't like them.
3. Giving the power to the Education Minister. Yeah... look at the background of the current Minister. Tried to introduce religion classes into public schools as Chair of the board of Trustees of the Calgary Board of Education. Was the President of one of the most successful bible colleges in Alberta (at the time of his tenure). A college that made students sign a contract saying that they could be expelled if they practiced homosexuality or premarital sex. An Associate Pastor at one of Alberta's largest megachurches. A church that goes to painstakingly long lengths to identify in it's articles of faith that it's views on homosexuality and transgender persons.
   
   Here's a small hint. It's not a very flattering view.

Now, I don't really want to flat out declare that the Minister would not be fair or otherwise be unable to perform his duties as minister. But I do think the LGBTQ community has a few good reasons for thinking he might not. I've met the guy before, as I was a student at his college. He's kind, compassionate, friendly and vibrant. Then again, I'm straight and was paying him money to go to his school so maybe it's my privilege speaking.

Besides, if he isn't even speaking up in support of LGBTQ students now in the legislature on a bill that is directly involved in his portfolio, why would we expect him to do so if he is given the job of negotiating Gay Straight Alliances?

Anyways, as I stated, Bill 10 passed second reading with the amendment. Oh, and also they halted debate on the bill at the end of the day and forced a vote. Because, you know, human rights and such nonsense aren't quite so important as to be debated until things are right. It's better to pass a bill that went from making zero changes to not accomplishing at all what it was intended to do in the beginning.

And then swoops in Prentice.

To his credit, the Premier apologized and took responsibility. But half of it almost seemed as if he was trying to appear like some sort of PCAA saviour. He was absent during almost all of the Bill 10 debacle, and suddenly shows up out of nowhere and suspends the third reading indefinitely. For a bill he wanted. A Bill that should never have been introduced in the first place. He cited the bill's "clear divisiveness" and admitted it's become more dividing than Blakeman's original bill. He cited that the bill failed to strike a balance between parental rights and those of the LGBTQ community. He said the bill needs more consultation, because apparently, the parents should decide the rights for the children, instead letting children discover their rights on their own.

All I can say is that hopefully, his consultation determines that he should give Blakeman's bill a second reading. Because killing a bill in the Legislature is hardly a "free vote" that he promised everyone.

And maybe, while we're on the subject of rights we could say something about youth as a visible minority, since apparently, parents should decide the rights of the youth, instead of giving the youth enough agency to determine their rights themselves.