REGINA - With the province’s Parents Bill of Rights Act about to become law, is the government about to be subject to a host of pending lawsuits on the legislation?
Not according to the language within the bill.
In addition to the Notwithstanding Clause provisions that would uphold the legislation against both a Charter of Rights or Saskatchewan Human Rights Code challenge, there is a further provision also preventing other lawsuits as well.
197.4 (5) of the Education (Parents Bill of Rights) Amendment Act states as follows:
"No action or proceeding based on any claim for loss or damage resulting from the enactment or implementation of this section or of a regulation or policy related to this section lies or shall be commenced against:
(a) the Crown in right of Saskatchewan;
(b) a member or former member of the Executive Council;
(c) a board of education, the conseil scolaire, the SDLC or a registered independent school; or
(d) any employee of the Crown in right of Saskatchewan or of a board of education, the conseil scolaire, the SDLC or a registered independent school.
(6) Every claim for loss or damage resulting from the enactment or implementation of this section or of a regulation or policy related to this section is extinguished."
This section, as well as the Notwithstanding Clause provisions, seems aimed at preventing any repeat of the UR Pride legal action against the province’s parental consent policy introduced in August. That lawsuit resulted in a decision from King’s Bench judge Michael Megaw who issued an injunction on the grounds that the policy would cause “irreparable harm.”
That ruling prompted Premier Scott Moe to call the special sitting to bring in the parental consent legislation, and to use “all the tools at its disposal” - a phrase frequently heard from government ministers.
During the special sitting, Opposition Education Critic Matt Love was extremely critical of both the Notwithstanding Clause provisions as well as the additional provisions to protect the government from legal action.
"So they've got clauses in here to extinguish any legal action against the government for enforcing this policy. It's an indication that they know this policy will harm children, and they're more interested in protecting themselves."
Love went on to accuse the government of "trampling on the rights of vulnerable kids."
When Premier Scott Moe was asked Tuesday about the provision preventing the government from being sued, and whether that provision was essentially an admission that harm was being done to kids by their parental consent policy, Moe responded that the provision “recognizes the court decision, but also recognizes the consistency of where this government has been is that there are tools available to ensure that elected members elected government to do have the ability, whether it is a collision of rights, or whatever it might be to ensure that the elected members of the day, utilizing all the tools whether it be in the Constitution, tools that governments have to ensure that they’re moving forward on a policy that parents have asked for.”
When pressed again about that provision, Moe said “I find that perplexing that it is necessary as well when you recognize that this has been the policy that has largely been enacted and put in place in classrooms for decades, literally for decades in schools, right across the province up to, and including the very day when the judge made his ruling on the provincial policy, which is to essentially standardize that status quo policy.”
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