COOPER: Where do Alberta lawyers get such kooky ideas?

Those madcap law school profs are at it again. In the past few years, members of the University of Calgary law faculty, as well as members of the other one up north someplace, have shared their expertise on global climate change, CO2 production, lockdowns and the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Now they have weighed in on the transgender issue.Clearly the province is blessed with these men and women for all seasons, who are devoted to sharing their expertise with their fellow Albertans.The latest iteration of their assistance was an open letter addressed to the premier, but thoughtfully released to the public. It was signed by 33 law school faculty and self-described legal researchers and staff. Their members were evenly divided between the two schools. Four of the signatories were full professors, three were various kinds of deans and over twenty were assistant and associate professors. My guess is that this collection is a pretty representative sampleThey were responding to a news release from the Government of Alberta and remarks of Premier Smith regarding new transgender policies. And just for context, a recent study by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute indicated “that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith very much has the backing of the Canadian public.” This suggests, once again, that the “experts” are out of touch with normal Canadians.Her proposals addressed three distinct aspects of the transgender question.The first proposed to bring to Alberta additional medical professionals who specialized in pre- and post-transgender transition care for adults. Currently, the complex medical needs of such patients are dealt with by sending Albertans to Quebec for treatment. The aim is to improve access to health services to transgendered Albertans and to provide social support for children who identified as transgender and for their families.A second policy change aimed at preserving for young persons the ability to make choices prior concluding “life-altering and often irreversible adult decisions” regarding changes to the biological sex with which they were born. If persons are to make adult decisions, they need to be adults, not children.Third, the Government of Alberta sought to ensure that girls and women could participate safely and meaningfully in competitive sports.If you considered such policy changes as a reasonable and commonsense response to the novel issues posed by gender-reassignment surgical, hormonal and drug procedures — procedures that were unknown a few years ago — well then, you don’t think like a law prof.According to the authors of the open letter, all these policies are “restrictions targetting transgendered youth” not protections. “Too often,” the authors declared, parents and “adults in their lives” refuse to accept transgendered youth, bully them and produce “the severe risk of family violence and homelessness.” No source is cited for this alarming opinion.Where the proposed changes seek to involve parents in their children’s school life rather than abandon them to the unsolicited advice, advocacy, and persuasion of over-eager “gender-affirming” schoolteachers, the law profs see this as ignoring “the best interests of the child” as defined by the UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child. They conveniently overlook that this document also upholds parental responsibilities.They go on to argue that involving parents in the welfare of their kids violates at least four sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. No doubt law profs can find reasons to litigate anything.Probably the silliest aspect of their open letter is the assertion that excluding trans women from women’s sports violates the equality provision of s. 15 of the Charter.The basis for so doing is that “access to sport is a human right.” Who knew? To the authors this meant that biological men who call themselves women must be included in female competitive sports. They cite a study from New Zealand published in 2017, that suggested transgendered women, that is, biological men, had no “athletic advantage” over real women. May I suggest, with respect, dear colleagues, that you look at more recent evidence such as the second edition of Competition, published by the Independent Women’s Law Center. It deals with “male-bodied athletes and the threat to women’s sports.” It was published last year. Recent research completely contradicts the bizarre notion that transgendered women have advantages akin to “the advantage tall women have when playing basketball,” as the law profs put it.Finally, they argue the government not invoke Section 33, the “notwithstanding clause,” to shield these policies from judicial scrutiny. No surprise there: law profs have not embraced this part of the constitution with anything like the enthusiasm of political scientists.But here’s the thing: using Section 33 would insulate some very sound policy proposals from frivolous harassment by a bunch of out-of-touch academics such as the authors of this very peculiar letter.

COOPER: Where do Alberta lawyers get such kooky ideas?

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