Over at the Government of Alberta website, we have the government's propaganda piece trying to justify using S33 to stomp all over the rights of transgender Albertans, their parents, and women in Alberta sport.
I will put screen captures of the whole page at the bottom ... just in case the UCP decides to disappear this link.
As you might expect, it's largely a load of bollocks with a side order of moral panic thrown in. Let's talk about that for a moment, because Albertans deserve far better from our government than this.
First, let's have a little talk about the summaries of the bills they provide, because that's where there's some serious gaslighting going on.
- Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024, prohibits both gender reassignment surgery for children under 18 and the provision of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for the purpose of gender reassignment to children under 16.
- Bill 27, the Education Amendment Act, 2024, requires schools to obtain parental consent when a student under 16 years of age wishes to change his or her name or pronouns for reasons related to the student’s gender identity, and requires parental opt-in consent to teaching on gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality.
- Bill 29, the Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, requires the governing bodies of amateur competitive sports in Alberta to implement policies that limit participation in women’s and girls’ sports to those who were born female.
Bill 26 is not merely banning gender reassignment surgery for minors - if it were, the bill would be completely unnecessary because minors don't get gender reassignment surgery in Canada ... period. No, it's in fact a full out ban on any kind of affirmative medical care for transgender youth. This bill in particular is a cruel bill that forces transgender youth through a puberty that they do not want, and frankly, should not have to bear the physical and emotional consequences of.
Bill 27 is characterized as "strengthening the parents' role". This bill, like the 2019 bill about parental notification of their child participating in GSAs in school, is designed to make school so dangerous that transgender youth don't dare express themselves at school for fear of having the school administration tell their parents.
Bill 29 claims to be about protecting "women's sport" ... but again it isn't. Really, it turns into a witch hunt where parents are going to find themselves constantly having to prove their daughters are "female enough" for whatever arbitrary rules have been dreamed up. It's also far reaching - it isn't just about school level sports - nope - it is a de facto ban on trans women in sport _PERIOD_. BUT it does so by enforcing a demand that every woman PROVE that she's a woman to somebody else's satisfaction. So, if you're a woman in Alberta - cisgender or transgender - you're suddenly subject to levels of scrutiny that we haven't seen in decades. Why? How many transgender athletes are there in Alberta? (Hint: not many)
So, right there, the government is starting off with some prize-winning gaslighting. These bills are an exercise in cruelty.
Then we get to some of the "endorsements" that they cite:
“Common sense things like allowing healthy young bodies to mature without interference, recognizing parents’ responsibility for their own children, and ensuring safety and fairness for female athletes should be affirmed without delay. Usage of the notwithstanding clause to achieve this purpose shows a serious commitment by the Government of Alberta to societal resilience.”
Linda Blade, coach, PhD Kinesiology
At first you look at that, and you go "she has a PhD in Kinesiology, she must know a lot, right?" Here's the thing - Ms. Blade's comment here is purely conjecture on her part. A quick wander over to Google Scholar or PubMed, and you find that whatever research Ms. Blade has published has nothing whatsoever to do with transgender athletes. So, what you are seeing here is an opinion from someone who assumes more than she knows about the subject, and is a known anti-transgender crank. So, just how seriously should we take her opinions?
But, it gets better as we scroll down the page, right? Nope. Then we come to this gem from Dr. Eappean:
“When doctors ignore the medical evidence, it is time for the government to intervene. The evidence for puberty blockers and cross sex hormones is poor. Many systematic reviews confirm this, as well as the systematic review by Baroness Hilary Cass. I think it is right for the government to intervene.”
Dr. Roy Eappen, endocrinologist, St. Mary’s Hospital, Montreal, and assistant professor of medicine, faculty of medicine, McGill University
Dr. Eappean makes a whopper of a claim about both puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, claiming that the evidence for either is "poor", and then hanging his hat on The Cass Review. The Cass Review, critiqued here, is probably the most spectacular case of "manufacturing evidence to support policy" the world has ever seen. There are so many issues with the Cass Review that it should be disregarded on principle (and there is a substantial library of articles which document the problematic nature of the Cass Review - including the utter lack of appropriate background on the part of the researchers hired to conduct the "Systematic Reviews" that the Cass Review itself is supposed to summarize.
Dr. Eappean is being a little disingenuous with us when he talks about the evidence being "poor". He's really talking about a "data quality" issue, which is much more subtle than he lets on. Instead, he just uses the word "poor" without explanation. Your average person on the street will assume that this means the data is profoundly flawed, or lacking in some key regard. That isn't what is meant here - it really just means that there are no double-blind randomized control studies of a large size. There are a ton of issues with this ranging from the ethical problems with doing double blind studies on transgender people to practical issues - you can't maintain subject blindness when the effects of medication can be readily detected by the subject.
Again, simply being an endocrinologist doesn't mean that Dr. Eappean has any domain specific training with respect to transgender people in general, much less transgender youth.
This is typical of the UCP - they cherrypick. Instead of performing an objective assessment of things, or even talking to a range of experts, they go out and find a handful of "experts" who will validate their assumptions. In spite of their claims to the contrary that their policies are "evidence-based", they most clearly are not - not unless "evidence based" means "I went looking around to find evidence that suited my pre-conceived notions".
The last part of the UCP justification is simply their assertion of "Parliamentary Sovereignty". Most people have no idea what this phrase means, and the UCP, in their usual "give them an inch, they take a mile" approach to power, has taken the view that their legislation has to be supreme over all other legislation. While the powers in The Notwithstanding Clause do provide for extraordinary power, the concept of Parliamentary Sovereignty really doesn't go much further than "the legislature has the sole right to enact laws" - it in no way grants the legislature the power to ignore the hierarchy of laws in Canada, and the supremacy of the Constitution and Charter in that hierarchy. Using S33 should be seen in the same light as the Crown's Reserve Powers - they exist, but they should only be used in the most extreme of circumstances, not merely because the party in power is having a temper tantrum about something.
Like the Cass Review that Dr. Eappean speaks so highly of, the UCP's laws and their justifications for them are appallingly weak in terms of reasoning. These laws are designed to cause harm - irreparable harm - to the people that they target, and they embolden the promotion of hate against the transgender community as a whole.
Screen Captures of the Page As Of November 20, 2025
References
Government of Alberta (November 18, 2025). "Laws protecting kids, families and fair play will stand", Retrieved November 20, 2025 from https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=95257F5D8FC4D-93E8-0F15-82C688490E3DBDAB
James, A (2024). "Linda Blade vs transgender people". Transgendermap. Retrieved November 20, 2025 from https://www.transgendermap.com/issues/topics/media/linda-blade/
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