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Legislators in Alberta, Canada, have used an emergency override in order to erode foundational human rights protections, all so that they can ban trans youth from accessing puberty blockers and hormone therapy, surveil students’ names and pronouns at schools, and ban trans girls from amateur sports.

The maneuver was carried out through Bill 9, which was rushed through the Legislative Assembly of Alberta by the United Conservative Party (UCP). It passed at 2AM Wednesday along party lines. In doing so, the bill invoked the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which allows lawmakers to self-appoint special exceptions where they can sidestep human rights provisions.

Now, Bill 9 has enabled a trio of anti-trans policies first passed in 2024, although the medical care ban has been halted by an injunction. Legal battles may continue to be waged, but this marks a dire blow against human rights defenders. The bill will expire in five years and the legislature would have to re-vote on the matter to renew it.

Bill 9 makes it so transgender young people are excluded from provisions that would otherwise protect Albertans from government-sanctioned discrimination and infringements on free speech. The bill also applies the notwithstanding clause to Section 7 of the Charter: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

It “strips away the right to life [from] trans youth,” says Celeste Trianon, a law school graduate, independent journalist, and founder of a country-wide trans legal clinic.

Indeed, discriminating against transgender children; denying them access to social spaces (such as sports teams); forcibly outing them; and categorically banning them, their parents, and their doctors from making choices about appropriate medical care does put trans youth in harm’s way. Studies show these kinds of policies result in increased risks of suicide, substance abuse, and victimization of domestic violence.

During this week’s final Bill 9 deliberations, the New Democratic Party (NDP) lambasted the UCP’s weaponization of the notwithstanding clause and their apparent indifference towards the trans kids who will suffer because of it.

“This province has never seen a government so obsessed with the genitals of children,” said legislature member Rakhi Pancholi, the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) Deputy Leader, in a speech on the floor. “The government has no problem legislating on these issues, but finds it utterly distasteful to have to defend it.”

It’s the fourth time in just two months that the UCP has invoked the emergency measure. It was initially created by the elder Trudeau’s administration in the 1980s as a “nuclear” option, saved for rare and dire occasions. Most recently, in October, the UCP used it to break a teachers’ strike. (They also used their legislative majority to restrict Bill 9 debates to a shortened period in the middle of the night.)

“Bill 9 cheats democracy,” said NDP legislature member Diana Batten. “If you have to change the rules to win, you’re not winning. You’re cheating.”

The ordeal corresponds with countrywide efforts to challenge the very premise of the notwithstanding clause itself.

The UCP, on its part, framed its bills as a matter of “fairness” and “parental rights”—common dog whistles that have been bastardized by conservative gender extremists.

The policies reified by Bill 9 “reflect a lack of compassion, deprive parents and patients’ rights to independent medical decision making and therapy, and potentially punish physicians for providing a proven and accepted medical therapeutic option,” the Alberta Medical Association declared in a statement.

A Canadian Anti-Trans Risk Assessment Map created by activist and journalist Celeste Trianon in July 2025, which classifies Alberta as a high-risk area for trans people in the country. “We’ve had a lot of folks from the U.S. since January,” she told Erin in the Morning. “A lot of these folks have contacted me specifically to ask, ‘Where would it be safest for me to move?’”

If this back-and-forth sounds familiar, it might be because this rhetoric often comes straight from the United States, crossing the border into Canada.

For example, in October, Trianon’s reporting uncovered the fact a legislature member from Canada’s province of British Columbia introduced an anti-trans bill that was verbatim lifted from model legislation by Do No Harm. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes this Virginia-based organization as an anti-LGBT group. The bill died upon first reading.

But anti-rights activists in both the U.S. and Canada also share an affinity for British imports such as the pseudoscientific Cass Review, which was commissioned by a government hostile to trans life and led by a doctor who evidently had no credentials on the topic. The Canadian Pediatric Society and countless other medical groups worldwide also rejected the flawed report.

Nonetheless, the Cass Review has been cited in Canadian legal proceedings and the U.S. Supreme Court alike.

“We can really see how the trans struggle worldwide is all interconnected,” Trianon said. “It’s all the same tools, which are being used effectively to justify anti-trans hate.”

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