Alberta is an evolving province but on September 2, 2010, it did a very backward thing. It granted parents the permission to withdraw their kids from any "courses of study, educational programs or instructional materials, or instruction or exercises" that "include subject-matter that deals primarily and explicitly with religion, human sexuality or sexual orientation."
Section 11.1 of the Alberta Human Rights Act (AHRA) means that teachers must exempt students, without penalty, who have been given written permission from their parents to leave class when anything to do religion, sexuality or sexual orientation is mentioned, lest the references to such be only incidental or indirect. Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman, for the constituency of Edmonton-Centre, intends to change that with her three-part Bill 202.
"I’m a human rights advocate, and I think that while we have an identifiable group that isn’t able to participate fully in the life of the province, we’re not as good as we could be."
She is speaking on the province’s rejected move to mandate Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs) in all publicly funded schools, as proposed by Calgary-Buffalo’s MLA Kent Hehr.
Blakeman’s bill wants to ask again for the province to support GSAs in schools and, furthermore, to: 2. Strike ‘sexuality’ and ‘sexual orientation’ from section 11.1 of the Human Rights Act; and 3. Incorporate references to both the Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Alberta Human Rights Act into the Education Act as a recognition of Albertan’s real values.
"It is an interesting time in Alberta politics," the MLA of 17.5 years, and five re-elections, says. "I think that a lot of people were less upset by Kent’s GSA motion than they thought they were going to be. I expect them to be more open to what I’m doing as a result."
With the support of all five members in the Liberal caucus and four NDP MLAs in Alberta – in addition to a host of the general public – Blakeman is confident that this can pass, but you need to help. You need to let your MLA know that you are supportive of this bill and you would like them to support it in assembly.
"These are very interesting times... there is a possibility," she says, though she admits that it is an extremely rare occasion when a private member’s bill makes it passed the first step. For Blakeman’s, this will be known within the first few days of December. Bill 202 will receive its first reading, be distributed to the Legislative Assembly and go online sometime during the week of November 17th. Then on December 1st, or thereabouts, the bill will, hopefully, be debated. Each speaker will have no more than 10 minutes to give their opinion on the bill, for a maximum of a two hour debate, and then it will go to vote.
"A vote on the principal of the bill, or it should be, but very few private members’ bills make it past that stage," she says. "Like almost never."
Though no Wildrose party members voted in favour of Hehr’s bill when it went to vote, Blakeman feels they may be ready to support GSAs now.
"[GSAs] save lives, it decreases bullying, it increases acceptance and tolerance; why wouldn’t we do it?"
All Blakeman wants is for the GLBTQ population at schools to have the same opportunity that other school groups do, like what "is made available to the debate club or the yearbook club; so too shall schools support Gay-Straight Alliances with resources and support to form and operate."
She is also trying to correct the problems of section 11.1 in the AHRA. Though, at current, only the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba have passed legislation that governmentally support GSAs in schools, "none were stupid enough to do what we did with 11.1."
The born and raised Edmontonion dreams of an Alberta curriculum that teaches on the subjects of gender identity and of consent – not one that allows parents to basically apply blinkers over the eyes of their children growing up in a free country, and serves to alienate an entire population of students.
"Right now [the Education Act] doesn’t reference anything; there’s some phrase in there about being nice," Blakeman says on what she means when she proposes inserting references from other charters. "I think we need to be very clear that the values in the Alberta Human Rights Act and the Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms are the values of Albertans," with the exception of section 11.1, of course. "Both specifically prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation."
Freedom from discrimination; freedom from exclusion; freedom from ignorance – these are the lenses through which the public education system should be looking through.
This is what Bill 202 supports.
If the bill is voted through the first reading it will go on to a second, and then to the Committee of the Whole. This is the "kind of role your sleeves up, get to work kind of part" where amendments to the bill can be made. Though Blakeman would be open to negotiations, she doesn’t want to concede something for one group that could lose her the support of another. It’s a slippery slope.
"I really want to get this passed and I am willing to work with others," she says. "I would rather have a glass half full than a glass half empty."
"But there are certain things we have to be very cautious about."
Blakeman has already posted her bill on the web-based discussion forum reddit, where she received overwhelming support and even advice on wording. In fact, she has only received one scathing email from someone violently against her proposal.
"Ya, I’m taking a risk here, but the very worse they could say is no and there are a lot of different ways they could say yes."
"I think Albertans are ready for this bill. I just need Albertans to let their MLAs know they are ready for it."
You can find and write your MLA here: https://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=mlahome and follow the progress of Blakeman’s human rights action by visiting http://www.assembly.ab.ca and clicking on the ‘Bills and Amendments’ tab.
