GSA bill, sexual orientation, Alberta

In Alberta parents will lose the ability to pull their children out of class when sexual orientation is being discussed if a new GSA bill passes. The new GSA bill is designed to protect the rights of sexual minorities in Alberta. The legislation is called Bill 10: The Act to Amend the Bill of Rights to Protect our Children, and it was introduced in an effort to prohibit discrimination that is based on sexual orientation while also protecting parental rights, and it provides recourse which allows a student to challenge a decision by a school board which rejects any gay straight alliance club by asking for judicial review of the decision.

According to Sandra Jansen, the Calgary-North West MLA “There shouldn’t be any roadblocks to students who want to set up gay-straight alliances in their schools and indeed the progress that we have made in this past year has been remarkable, in my opinion, with more and more GSAs being established all the time. This bill is aimed to ensure that in situations where those students aren’t supported, that the students, the parents and their advocates have a clear mechanism to challenge that position.”

The new GSA bill that protects sexual orientation in Alberta would affect the rights of parents, because the school will no longer notify parents ahead of time when sexual orientation will be discussed. According to Gordon Dirks, the Education Minister, the new GSA bill may cause some tension even in the court system. “No parent should be able to just pull their child out of class willy-nilly for no reason. Underneath this legislation, (parents) have an opportunity to express their opinion and to be heard and if they don’t agree, to appeal.” The issue of sexual orientation and GSA clubs has been very controversial, with people on both sides of the argument. Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman stated “The incremental argument is insulting. I’m sure that the black people, the Jews and the disabled people appreciated incremental progress just so that they didn’t get too many rights all at once.