Mr. Hehr: As the minister is aware, students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer are often targeted and bullied in schools. What many proactive jurisdictions have done to combat this plague is allow gay-straight alliances in schools, where kids can band together to support one another. To the Minister of Education. We must do everything we can to ensure that the lives of children growing up LGBTQ are as free from discrimination and bullying as possible. Will you enact legislation that makes mandatory the creation of gay-straight alliances in all schools where children want them? Mr. J. Johnson: Mr. Speaker, it's a good question, especially during Bullying Awareness Week, and I want to commend our Associate Minister of Family and Community Safety for all the work that she's doing on this. These clubs in particular can do a lot of great work in the schools that they are put together in. We leave the decisions on which clubs will be set up in each school up to the local school board and up to those local schools. We encourage them to look at that, and this is one great option that can attack the bullying question. One of the things we're doing as a ministry is that we will have some fact sheets on the topic that the member brought up on our website very soon for schools. Mr. Hehr: Well, Mr. Speaker, the problem with that answer is that by not legislating this, it means that many students in schools around this province will not have the ability to form their own gay-straight alliance. Simply put, adults get their knickers in a knot over this issue, when kids understand what needs to be done. Accordingly, will the minister commit to eradicating this by making this legislation mandatory so that kids can get the support they need in all schools in this province? Mr. J. Johnson: Mr. Speaker, we agree that we want all kids to get the support they need, and the gay-straight alliance clubs do a great job of that in the communities and the schools that choose to put those together. We completely support those clubs. I think it's a great idea. But we don't impose them; we don't legislate them just like we don't legislate every other potential action that can combat bullying and make kids feel safe. We empower local school boards to do that. That's where the empowerment needs to rest. Mr. Hehr: To the Minister of Justice: given that students who are LGBTQ cannot express themselves in school because the topic of human sexuality is prohibited unless parental consent is given in advance, will this government do more than simply march in pride parades and repeal section 11.1 of the Alberta Human Rights Act, which, in my view, is a slap in the face to our LGBTQ community? Mr. J. Johnson: Mr. Speaker, the member is mixing up issues here. It's absolutely not correct that those topics are prohibited in schools for discussion. That's absolutely not true, and he knows that. It's the sensitive issues that may come up in terms of instruction on religion or sexuality that parents have the ability to opt out of. They always have had in Alberta, and that's enshrined in the legislation. But that's not a change from practice, and the member is not completely accurate in what he is telling Albertans with respect to that question.

• published: 21 Nov 2013
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