Quebec teacher challenges Education Minister’s gender transition policy

From the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

The administrators notified the teacher that if she disclosed any information about the child’s in-school gender transition during that spring interview, the teacher would be fired immediately.

MONTREAL, QC: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces the launch of a constitutional challenge in Quebec’s Superior Court against the Ministry of Education. This action is brought on behalf of a teacher who refused to lie to the parents of a 14-year-old student seeking a female-to-male gender transition, as her school administration had ordered her to do.

Following directives in the Education Minister’s Guide and Procedures on trans and non-binary persons’ gender identity, the student’s Montreal high school created a set of procedures to make it illegal to inform parents (or guardians) when their child seeks a gender transition.

At the beginning of October 2023, school administrators advised teachers that they should designate the 14-year-old student with the masculine pronouns “he/him” in class. But when dealing with the student’s parents, teachers were ordered to use the student’s given name and feminine pronouns. They gave this order even though there was no evidence or suspicion of parental abuse.

The teacher informed the administration that while she agreed to observe the student’s pronoun preferences, the teacher objected to the requirement that she lie to parents about their child’s gender change, especially during an upcoming parent/teacher interview.

That interview did not occur. Instead, the school allowed the teacher to submit a written report to the student, copied to the parents, which avoided the use of pronouns. While granting this exception, the school made it clear that the teacher would be obligated to meet with the parents during a parent/teacher interview scheduled for the spring if the parents requested such interview. The administrators notified the teacher that if she disclosed any information about the child’s in-school gender transition during that spring interview, the teacher would be fired immediately.

At that point, the teacher, assisted by the Justice Centre, filed the constitutional challenge to nullify the Minister of Education’s Guide and Procedures because, notably, they “contravene parental rights protected by section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms…in defiance of the principles of fundamental justice and without sufficient justification in a free and democratic society.” The teacher also believes that the Guide and Procedures violate the teacher’s section 2 Charter right to freedom of conscience.

Having to lie to her pupil’s parents was the last straw for the plaintiff teacher. “I couldn’t live with myself if I did that,” the teacher stated. “I won’t look them in the eye and intentionally lie about the fact that we are enabling their child to undergo a significant psychosocial intervention without their knowledge.”

According to the teacher’s lawyer, Olivier Séguin, this would be the first time that a court action raised freedom of conscience without also raising freedom of religion. Section 2(a) of the Charter guarantees both freedom of conscience and religion.

“It’s true that the prohibition on lying is common to all religions, but my client’s conscientious objection is not religious in nature,” Mr. Séguin explains.

The teacher went on to say, “Transparent collaboration with parents is essential to my role as a teacher and critical for the long-term wellbeing of children. Lying to parents about how we are treating their children, or about what is going on with children at school, violates the principles of my vocation.”

While it is true that the law does not expressly mention how schools should handle cases like this one, Mr. Séguin says, the Guide’s authors appear to have issued a ministerial directive on the sly, through a “guidance” intended for schools, in which they make the law say things it simply does not say.

For example, in its section entitled “Legal framework” (page 8), the Guide cites section 60 of the Civil Code of Quebec, which states that a request for a name change may be made on the initiative of a minor aged 14 or over, but the Guide ignores section 62, located right next to it, which states that parents must be notified of the request for a change of name and that they are permitted to object.

The Guide’s authors also cite article 71 of the same Civil Code, which also says, like Section 60, a request for a change of gender may be made on the initiative of a minor aged 14 or over. But again, the authors of the Guide fail to note Article 73, which states that parents must be able to object to any such change.

Mr. Séguin does not consider Minister of Education Bernard Drainville responsible for the omissions. The Quebec newspaper Le Devoir had already pointed out that by opposing mixed-sex toilets in schools, he had placed himself in contradiction with “the recommendations of his own ministry,” i.e. the recommendations set out in the Guide.

In the same article, Le Devoir reported that the Guide was the result of collaboration between (1) the Ministry of Justice and (2) the Ministry of Family, (3) the Office Against Homophobia and Transphobia, (4) the Research Chair in Sexual Diversity and Gender Plurality, Université du Québec à Montréal, and (5) the National Table Against Homophobia & Transphobia in Education Networks.

Mr. Séguin says he doesn’t believe the omissions are unintended incompetence, stating, “The irregularities with which the Guide is riddled are both too obvious and too numerous to see anything other than a desire to mislead readers by falsely claiming to translate the letter of the law. I see it as a form of usurpation of power, a denial of democracy.”

As for his client’s position, he says, “Secrecy towards parents, which in practice amounts to lying to them, is a serious violation of the legal contract that binds the state and its citizens.”

Related Topics:#JusticeCentreForConstitutionalFreedoms #QuebecGenderTransitionPolicy

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Judge blocks Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury records

Published on February 10, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

The emergency ruling comes as 15 Soros-installed AGs seek to block Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from access to information that would reveal how activist groups in blue states have been funded by the U.S. government.

In a stunning and sweeping emergency injunction that has even stunned the people who demanded it, a Manhattan-based district judge has just removed Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent from his authority over the Treasury Department; blocked any political appointee from accessing records within the Treasury Department; blocked any “special appointee” of President Trump from records within Treasury; and demanded that all information previously extracted be destroyed.

The emergency injunction, signed by District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan, was determined without any input from the Trump administration and applies until Friday, February 14, 2025, when U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas will hear the full arguments of the lawsuit.

The emergency ruling comes as a result of 15 (Soros-installed) attorneys general from New Jersey, New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Vermont all filing suit in New York seeking to block Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from access to information that would reveal how activist groups in their states have been funded by the U.S. government.

READ: Judge blocks Trump plan that would put thousands of USAID staff on paid leave

From Reuters:

The lawsuit said Musk and his team could disrupt federal funding for health clinics, preschools, climate initiatives, and other programs, and that Republican President Donald Trump could use the information to further his political agenda.

DOGE’s access to the system also ‘poses huge cybersecurity risks that put vast amounts of funding for the States and their residents in peril,’ the state attorneys general said. They sought a temporary restraining order blocking DOGE’s access.

The judge, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, said the states’ claims were ‘particularly strong’ and warranted him acting on their request for emergency relief pending a further hearing before another judge on February 14.

‘That is both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking,’ Engelmayer wrote.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat whose office is leading the case, welcomed the ruling, saying nobody was above the law and that Americans across the country had been horrified by the DOGE team’s unfettered access to their data.

‘We knew the Trump administration’s choice to give this access to unauthorized individuals was illegal, and this morning, a federal court agreed,’ James said in a statement.

‘Now, Americans can trust that Musk – the world’s richest man – and his friends will not have free rein over their personal information while our lawsuit proceeds.’

Engelmayer’s order bars access from being granted to Treasury Department payment and data systems by political appointees, special government employees and government employees detailed from an agency outside the Treasury Department.

The judge also directed that anyone prohibited under his order from accessing those systems to immediately destroy anything they copied or downloaded.

The order by the judge is transparent judicial activism; it will almost certainly be overturned and nullified by later rulings. However, it creates blocks and slows down the goal of DOGE and the objective of the Trump administration.

On what basis do states think they can sue the federal government to stop the federal government from auditing federal spending? How can a judge block the executive branch from executing the functions of the executive branch? This lawfare activism is ridiculous.

Within the ruling:

… restrained from granting access to any Treasury Department payment record, payment systems, or any other data systems maintained by the Treasury Department containing personally identifiable information and/or confidential financial information of payees, other than to civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties within the Bureau of Fiscal Services who have passed all background checks and security clearances and taken all information security training called for in federal statutes and Treasury Department regulations… [Emphasis added.]

So the unelected bureaucracy is in charge and not the secretary of the Treasury?

Reprinted with permission from Conservative Treehouse.

Alberta

Alberta calls for tough-on-crime approach from feds

Published on February 10, 2025

Government of Alberta

Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Justice and Attorney General Mickey Amery are demanding Ottawa get serious about drug crimes in Canada.

Premier Smith and Minister Amery have demanded Bill C-5 be repealed in its entirety and the federal government reintroduce mandatory minimum jail sentences for Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) offences. Alberta also calls on the federal government to rescind guidelines prepared by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada that direct federal prosecutors to divert drug cases away from the criminal justice system to pursue alternative measures and leave criminal prosecutions for only the most serious cases.

If the federal government does not immediately undertake these actions, Premier Smith and Minister Amery have asked for federal funding to enable the province to permanently take over all CDSA prosecutions.

“For years, Alberta’s government has urged the federal government to reverse their soft-on-crime policies which have allowed illegal drugs to flood our streets and for repeat offenders to prey on our most vulnerable. The federal government must act now and put an end to their insane policies. And if they refuse to, then they must allow the Province of Alberta to take over all prosecutions under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Let there be no mistake, Alberta’s government will find these dangerous criminals, prosecute them and keep them in jail where they belong.”

Danielle Smith, Premier

When the federal government passed Bill C-5, they further weakened the Canadian justice system and increased potential harm for Canadians by:

Eliminating all mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment for CDSA offences;
Eliminating many mandatory minimum sentences for serious weapons and substance-related offences under the Criminal Code of Canada;
Removing limitations placed on the use of conditional sentences;
Forcing both police and prosecutors to first consider referring people to treatment and support programs rather than charging or prosecuting drug possession offences; and
Continuing to emphasize an approach to drug possession that fails to address the death, disorder and victimization caused by the drug-crime nexus, by focusing narrowly on diversionary measures.

Under Bill C-5, law enforcement has lost the ability to effectively deal with serious crimes, lessening meaningful and impactful enforcement and prosecution. Drug dealers often face very limited consequences, with their charges dismissed or conditional sentences imposed. This allows these criminals to continue profiting from illegal activity while preying on vulnerable populations and worsening the drug crisis in Canada.

“Alberta is deeply concerned about the federal government’s failure to address the growing drug crisis in Canada. Federal prosecution directives and Bill C-5 have significantly weakened our justice system, allowing criminals and drug dealers to exploit loopholes while putting public safety and Canadian lives at risk. We demand immediate action to reverse these disastrous policies, prioritize the safety and well-being of Canadians, and restore Canada’s reputation on an international level.”

Mickey Amery, Minister of Justice and Attorney General

Issues with drugs and drug-related crimes continue to worsen in Canada, with drug trafficking often linked to other serious offences such as human trafficking, gun trafficking and money laundering. These concerns have also been underscored by the Trump Administration, which has called for Canada to secure the border to illegal migrant and drug activity. Alberta responded to that request by introducing a $29-million border plan to combat drug smuggling, gun trafficking and other illegal activities. The plan includes a new Sheriffs unit, a 51-officer Interdiction Patrol Team, four K-9 patrol teams, 10 weather surveillance drones and four narcotics analyzers to test for illicit drugs.