Opinion
John Carpay: Claiming That Children Have Adult Rights Is a Perversion of the Canadian Charter
From the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
By John Carpay
In August of 2023, the UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity filed a court application seeking to strike down Saskatchewan’s “Use of Preferred First Name and Pronouns by Students” policy. The policy requires parental consent when children under the age of 16 wish to use opposite-sex names and pronouns at school, referred to as “social transition.” This “social transition” can lead to children receiving puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones, and eventually life-altering surgeries that will render them permanently infertile.
In September, UR Pride persuaded the Saskatchewan Court of King’s Bench to grant an interim injunction to suspend the policy pending a full court hearing, which would not take place until February of 2024. UR Pride claims that the parental consent policy will violate children’s charter rights and will irreparably harm them.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has introduced Bill 137, which uses Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the notwithstanding clause, to keep his government’s parental rights policy in place, following the September court decision to suspend the policy temporarily, or any future court rulings to strike it down. Section 33 gives our federal Parliament and provincial legislatures the ability, through the passage of a law, to override a judge’s interpretation of certain charter rights for a renewable five-year term.
Opponents of Section 33 argue that politicians should not be allowed to violate our rights and freedoms. However, Section 33 is not all that different from Section 1 of the charter, which allows judges to override our charter rights and freedoms in much the same way that Section 33 allows politicians to do so. Section 1 empowers judges to approve and endorse the government’s violation of constitutional rights, if a judge in his or her personal opinion deems the violation to be reasonable and “demonstrably justified.”
In theory, Section 1 requires judges to force governments to justify any violation of charter rights and freedoms “demonstrably,” with persuasive evidence. According to the test laid down by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Oakes (1986), governments must show that their violations of charter freedoms are actually doing more good than harm. Theory aside, judges have repeatedly used Section 1 to rubber stamp the government’s lockdowns and vaccine passports. This necessarily raises the question: who is more competent to understand, interpret, and protect our rights and freedoms—politicians or judges?
In striking down the Saskatchewan policy, the court seems to have assumed that all parents are somehow dangerous, abusive, and untrustworthy. The court believes that all parents should be kept in the dark when their own children embark on a dangerous and futile quest to become the opposite sex.
The court also assumes that the best way (or the only way) to help gender-confused children is to affirm any and all steps that a child may wish to take to adopt opposite-sex pronouns, names, clothing, etc.
This completely ignores the success achieved by Dr. Kenneth J. Zucker, who helped hundreds of children and teenagers to accept their biological sex while working for decades at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health as head of its Gender Identity Service. The vast majority of gender-confused children, when protected from political activists and ideologues and when supported by their parents, will be at peace with their sex by the time they reach the age of 18. Dr. Zucker saved these children from a lifetime of drugs and surgeries that would need to be administered in the futile quest to acquire a biological body of the opposite sex.
UR Pride claims that Saskatchewan’s new policy violates the rights of gender-diverse students under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But in fact, children do not enjoy privacy rights vis-à-vis their own parents. Because children are not adults, they legitimately have no right to drive, vote, get married, join the military, purchase liquor, get a tattoo, etc. Children are entitled to the love, support, guidance, and nurturing of their own parents. When parents are kept in the dark, they are severely hindered in providing these necessities. Claiming that children have adult rights is a perversion of the charter.
Placing great reliance on testimony from Dr. Travers, a Simon Fraser University sociology professor who uses “they/them” pronouns, the court appeared to embrace fear-mongering that children who are not “affirmed” in their “social transition” are at risk of suicide. This ignores a comprehensive Swedish study showing that “fully transitioned” transgender adults, after having had healthy body parts removed and new artificial ones created, have higher suicide rates than the general population.
The court considered irreparable harm to children only in relation to the very small number of children who might have truly abusive parents. Sadly, the court ignored the irreparable harm that is likely to result from keeping all parents in the dark, disregarding harm to children who are pressured, manipulated, and misinformed by political activists at school.
All in all, the court provided no compelling reason as to why or how it benefits children to keep all parents (not just the very small number of abusive ones) in the dark about their own children.
The Saskatchewan government should be applauded for using charter Section 33 to opt out of this court ruling.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Newt Gingrich
In an amazing show of courage, Vice President J.D. Vance offered an intervention for some of our European allies.
That is the best way to think of the two historic speeches he made in France and Germany last week.
In Paris, Vice President Vance pledged the United States would do whatever it takes to lead the world in the development of Artificial Intelligence. He went on to assert that Europe’s automatic response to regulate technological change rather than adapt to it was doomed to fail.
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Vance warned the Europeans that the Trump administration would retaliate to protect American high-tech companies from being fined and regulated by the European community.
Then, Vance went to the Munich Security Conference. It is the annual meeting of European leaders concerned about defense and threats to peace. The Vice President shocked the Europeans by launching a frontal assault on the decay of their political system.
As Vance put it:
“But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense, the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values — values shared with the United States of America.”
He then went through a litany of specific complaints about the behavior of different European countries. They ranged from failing to control immigration, suppressing free speech, and Brussels seeking to control and define futures of independent countries such as Hungary and Romania.
The leading French newspaper, Le Monde (their equivalent of the New York Times) asserted that the American Vice President was declaring “ideological war on Europe.”
Le Monde was right. The European elites have been decaying for at least two generations. They hide behind their privileged status and take ideological positions that feel good but are destructive. Europe’s failures are devastating for most everyday Europeans.
I have personal knowledge about this. I have a Ph.D. in Modern European History – and I have lived in France, Germany, Belgium and Italy. As a young Army dependent, we were living in France when the French Army came back from Algeria, killed the French Fourth Republic and brought back General Charles de Gaulle to establish the Fifth Republic.
It is now the longest serving non-royal government in French history.
The European elites value each other’s opinions more than they value serving the people of Europe. The European elites live in a fantasy world of green policies that destroy industries and jobs, welfare policies which destroy the work ethic, and immigration policies which undermine the popular culture. They simply hope for a peaceful world without a strong military.
Meanwhile, state enforced speech codes protect Islamic extremists at the expense of local citizens.
The result has been a steady decline of European culture, economic development, and defensive capacity.
The Afghan Islamist who wounded more than two dozen people and killed a mother and her two-year-old daughter with a car two days before the supposed security conference signals the willful avoidance of reality at the heart of the elite European worldview.
To be clear, I admire European civilization. I believe America is far stronger and safer if Europe is healthy and capable of growing and defending itself.
I hope vice president Vance’s intervention at least starts European elites thinking about what must be done to revive their continent.
For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Mariane Angela
President Donald Trump announced Friday the dismissal of General Charles Brown, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump expressed his gratitude toward Brown for his extensive contributions and leadership, wishing him and his family a prosperous future. Brown’s departure marks a pivotal moment in U.S. military leadership following over 40 years of service.
“I want to thank General Charles “CQ” Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” Trump wrote.
Simultaneously, Trump introduced his nominee for Brown’s successor.
“Today, I am honored to announce that I am nominating Air Force Lieutenant General Dan “Razin” Caine to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a “warfighter” with significant interagency and special operations experience,” Trump said.
Trump said Caine’s appointment comes after he was overlooked for advancement during former President Joe Biden’s presidency.
“General Caine was passed over for promotion by Sleepy Joe Biden. But not anymore! Alongside Secretary Pete Hegseth, General Caine and our military will restore peace through strength, put America First, and rebuild our military,” Trump said. President Trump also announced plans to appoint five additional senior military officials, tasks he has delegated to Secretary Hegseth.
It was reported Thursday that Hegseth plans to dismiss Brown as part of President Trump’s commitment to eliminate “wokeness” from the military. Brown reportedly appears on a list of proposed removals submitted to Congress.
Brown had previously expressed his wish to retain his position even after Trump took office, and according to sources speaking to NBC News in Dec. 2024, Trump seemingly moderated his views on the general. Biden nominated Brown as chairman in 2023, and despite a heated confirmation hearing where senators scrutinized his alleged implementation of racial quotas in Air Force hiring practices, he was confirmed.
Meanwhile, Brown’s replacement, Caine, took office as the associate director for Military Affairs at the CIA on Nov. 3, 2021, after serving as the director of Special Programs at the Pentagon. Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, an F-16 pilot with extensive experience including over 150 combat hours, was commissioned in 1990 and has held numerous key roles, from the White House staff to special operations, and balances his military career with entrepreneurial ventures.
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