Scott Moe promises change room policy for schools if re-elected

The Saskatchewan Party is wading into the realm of gender and schools again, making promises about changing rooms this election.

On Thursday, Scott Moe said the first order of his business if re-elected to government would be to make sure students, who are biologically male, would be required not to use the girl’s change room.

“If you are a biological male you’re not going to be in a change room, changing alongside biological females,” said Moe.

He said it would apply the other way around as well.

Moe said it would be an order sent by the education minister to school divisions.

“I would hope that the school divisions maybe would act and we wouldn’t be required to do it,” said Moe.

When asked about The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it comes to things like gender identity and expression, Moe said this would be an odd interpretation of the Charter.

“What about the rights of all of the other girls that are changing in that very change room, they have rights as well,” he explained.

Moe said he learned of a complaint about two biological males changing for gym class with girls at a southeast Saskatchewan school.

The NDP now says a parent of the two children, who are the subjects of the complaint, is an NDP candidate.

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In response, Sask. NDP leader Carla Beck called this the most ugly kind of politics and said such rules would make already vulnerable kids more vulnerable.

She said this move shows the province what Scott Moe’s priorities are.

“This is about someone who, when he’s pushed, instead of digging in and being a leader and doing the hard work – sometimes it’s very hard – he chooses to prey on misinformation, on fear, on division,” said Beck at a Saskatoon event Thursday afternoon.

She said the people of this province’s priorities are the cost of living, access to health care, and rising crime rates.

Beck acknowledged that people have fears and concerns on this issue.

“The way to deal with them is not to inflame them, not to divide, not to pour more information, more fuel on those fires. It’s to do the hard work, as I said, to dig in and make sure people understand what’s really going on, make sure we are protecting people’s human rights, making sure that we’re actually addressing problems,” Beck explained.

This comes about a year after the then-Sask. Party government recalled the legislature two weeks early to pass legislation, commonly referred to now as the pronoun policy. The policy requires students under 16 to have their parent’s or guardian’s permission to change their name or pronouns in school.

The legislation was widely criticized as potentially being harmful to affected students.

At a news conference after the legislation was signed into law, Moe was asked if his government would continue with any other bans, like books or pride flags, and he said no.

-with files from The Canadian Press