The Saskatchewan government is appealing a ruling that allowed a court challenge against the province's pronoun consent law in a case with implications for use of the notwithstanding clause.The Parents' Bill of Rights, passed last October, requires parental consent before a child under 16 can use a different gender-related name or pronoun at school. The province invoked the notwithstanding clause to guarantee the law would stand even if it violated sections 2, 7 and 15 of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.In his February 16 decision, Justice Michael Megaw said the applicant UR Pride should be allowed to challenge the law on the basis of Section 12 of the Charter which forbids cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.The government is appealing the decision and asked UR Pride's challenge proceedings to be stayed until an appeal is concluded. The appeal claims that because the law is protected by the notwithstanding clause, the law will still stand regardless of what the court finds in the challenge.In its appeal, the government argues that Megaw did correctly apply the law when he allowed "litigation routes which avoid the actions taken by the legislature.”"Failing to consider and apply relevant factors in deciding whether the allegation pursuant to [Section] 12 was scandalous, frivolous, vexatious or otherwise an abuse of process," the appeal says.The province intends to make its application to a judge on May 8.Saskatchewan Minister of Justice and Attorney General Bronwyn Eyre told reporters March 6 that the province would use “every tool at its disposal” to ensure the law stands. She added the appeal is of "great importance both to Saskatchewan and to the country.”Eyre said the “very technical legal issue” at stake in the case could affect the scope and usefulness of the notwithstanding clause. She wrote letters to attorneys general across Canada to invite them to intervene in the case and said she would have discussions with them in the coming weeks.When asked if the Parents' Bill of Rights should have included Section 12 in its use of the notwithstanding clause, Eyre suggested that was neither proper nor necessary.“The key is always to keep things within reasonable expectation and to keep them as narrow as possible and frankly, Section 12 is, with respect, a legal long shot and was something that was not expected,” Eyre said.“Certainly we feel the legal threshold for cruel and unusual punishment is very, very high. It's behavior that is abominable, intolerable, abhorrent to the majority of, in this case, Canadians. And with the majority of Canadians supporting parental rights, we don't feel that that will be a successfully argued case.”Egale Canada represents UR Pride as co-counsel. In a statement February 16, the organization called the Saskatchewan legislation an “unprecedented and disgraceful step.”"The Saskatchewan Court of King's Bench has already found that the Saskatchewan government's pronoun policy (now enacted into legislation) will inflict irreparable harm on vulnerable young people," the statement said."The legislation passed by the Saskatchewan government continues to cause irreparable harm to gender diverse young people in Saskatchewan. It also violates their rights to equality, to be free from cruel and unusual treatment and to security of the person. We are grateful that we will have the opportunity to continue our fight against it.”NDP MLA Nicole Sarauer told reporters in the legislature the bill and the legal fight to enforce it were both misguided.“We're seeing right now a government that's willing to fight tooth and nail in the courts, spend only God knows how much money of taxpayer dollars to be able to trample on vulnerable kids,” Sarauer said.
