What Alberta is doing here isn't about protecting children. It's about protecting its legislation from the people who would prove it unconstitutional — and from the human-rights obligations Canada is bound to uphold.
The province isn't invoking the notwithstanding clause because these bills are careful, evidence-based, or defensible. They're invoking it because they know, beyond any doubt, that these laws would fail the moment a court looked at them. Three challenges were already underway. One law had already been paused by a judge who found credible evidence of harm. Instead of addressing that harm, the government's answer was to block the courts from hearing the evidence at all.
And that alone is a massive red flag — not just legally, but in terms of human rights.
Canada is a signatory to binding treaties that guarantee equality, non-discrimination, and protection of children's identity and dignity. Those aren't optional principles. They aren't "depending on the province." They're obligations Canada must meet. And every time a province passes a law that targets a minority group, removes protections, forces teachers to misgender students, or restricts medically recognized care, the entire country is dragged into non-compliance.
The notwithstanding clause doesn't excuse that. A province can override parts of the Charter for five years, but it can't override Canada's international human-rights commitments. It can't override the principle — baked into the countries constitutional structure — that minority rights don't depend on the goodwill of the majority. Courts routinely rely on those human-rights treaties to interpret the Charter itself. You don't get to cut out the courts and pretend the obligations disappear.
But that is exactly what Alberta is trying to do.
Smith and Amery keep insisting this is about "certainty" and "child safety," but if that were true, they wouldn't be suspending the Alberta Human Rights Act and the Alberta Bill of Rights in perpetuity. They wouldn't be blocking future Charter challenges pre-emptively. They wouldn't be forcing teachers into actions they know will traumatize kids. And they wouldn't be undermining medical standards of care that every major health organization in the country supports.
When you strip away the talking points, the picture is simple:
these laws violate rights, and the government knows it.
So instead of defending them, they're trying to silence the people they target and disable the judicial system built to protect them.
Look at what follows from these bills:
- Kids who already fear being outed lose what little safety they had.
- Teachers report feeling coerced into harming their own students.
- Medical experts warn of political interference in doctor-patient relationships.
- Students avoid GSAs because they no longer trust adults at school.
- Trans youth lose access to care deemed medically necessary all over the world.
None of that is "protecting children." That is the textbook definition of discrimination — and discrimination is exactly what Canada's human-rights treaties prohibit. Alberta's attempt to bury the courts is a direct assault on those protections.
Even supporters of these laws admit the truth. Parents for Choice bluntly stated that no law touching parental authority, student identity, or youth healthcare would ever survive Charter scrutiny. That's not a defence — it's confirmation that the laws violate the rights of the very people they target.
When a government says "the courts can't be trusted because they might protect minorities," the problem isn't the courts. When a government says "we need to silence judges before our laws are examined," the problem isn't the Charter. And when a government hides its actions behind Section 33 to avoid human-rights obligations, the problem isn't the Constitution.
It's the government.
And the country should be paying attention — because any government willing to override rights this casually isn't trying to protect children.
They're trying to protect themselves from accountability.
