A court judge has ruled that the matter involving Saskatchewan’s pronoun law can go forward.
Last October, the premier recalled the legislature early and debated and passed the law requiring parental consent for children under 16 who want to change their legal names or pronouns at school.
Justice Michael Megaw has ruled that the courts can hear the challenge even though the province used the notwithstanding clause to get around the Charter of Rights and enact the law.
Lawyers for UR Pride in Regina submitted that the law impacts gender-diverse youth who have a right to safe educational spaces.
The province says the Charter wasn’t breached because the government employed the rarely used the notwithstanding clause in the constitution to get the law passed.
Megaw wrote that while UR Pride has a steep hill to climb, that does not mean that it shouldn’t be allowed to make its argument.
Meanwhile in Alberta, with that province considering similar legislation, 36 law professors and researchers from the U of A and University of Calgary are asking Alberta to rethink its proposal. They see the changes as violating numerous areas of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
