CHESTERMERE ANCHOR COLUMN – An Easy Solution to Gender Disclosure in Schools

Over the past few years, more and more schools and school boards have embraced a policy to not tell parents if their child wants to use new pronouns at school or change their gender.

After a grade six student came out as transgender earlier this year in Calgary, the National Post reported that the child’s teacher even went so far as to tell classmates not to tell the student’s parents.

This approach has been an especially surprising development when you consider that schools can’t give a child so much as a Tylenol without checking with their parents first. For school boards to develop policies to keep parents in the dark when school staff engage in deeply psychological discussions with children … well, that brings to mind the famous line from the hit movie Anchorman, “that escalated quickly.”

SecondStreet.org decided to ask the public what they thought about this development, as there was no great debate or consultation in Canada before school boards began developing these ‘keep parents in the dark’ policies.

In early May, SecondStreet.org hired reputable polling company Leger to ask Canadians about this issue. The poll results were lopsided – the public overwhelmingly believes schools should have to inform parents when their child discusses changing genders or their pronouns with school staff.

57% of Canadians support informing parents while only 18% oppose this approach. The rest of Canadians didn’t know. Further, if you strictly looked at responses from parents with kids under 18, support was even higher for disclosure (62%).

Considering the results are so one-sided, school boards have an easy solution to this matter. By default, they could establish a policy to inform parents. If a parent does not want to be informed, they could ask schools to refrain from telling them when their child discusses changing genders.

This should please everyone … Although those who want to interfere with how other parents choose to raise their children may not like this option, but that’s another story.

Critics argue that if parents find out what their child is discussing with teachers, some may harm their children. Sure, there may be the odd case where that could happen. But that’s no reason to assume all parents are monsters who need to be kept in the dark. Don’t forget, schools are currently required to inform child welfare officials if they suspect a child is truly in an unsafe home.

To be sure, this is an emotionally charged issue. It did not help when the Prime Minister of Canada recently suggested that the New Brunswick government was acting as “far right political leaders (who) are trying to outdo themselves with the types of cruelty and isolation they can inflict.’

Comparing parents who want to support their children with the kind of people who marched six million Jews into gas chambers during World War II was an inappropriate statement, one that’s unbecoming for someone in the highest office in the land.

To be sure, this gender controversy could have been avoided had school boards and governments spoken with the public about it in the first place. They would have learned, once again, that parents want to know what their kids are up to in school.

Colin Craig is the President of SecondStreet.org, a Canadian think tank.

This column was published in the Chestermere Anchor on July 3, 2023.

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Prevention – reduce demand in the first place

If Canadians lived healthier lives, we could reduce demand for emergency services, orthopaedic surgeries, primary care and more. 

For instance, if you visit the Canadian Cancer Society’s website, you’ll read that “about four in ten” cancer cases are preventable. The Heart and Stroke Foundation notes that “almost 80 percent of premature heart disease and stroke can be prevented through healthy behaviours.” A similar number of Diabetes cases are also preventable. 

Many joint replacements and visits to ERs and walk-in clinics could also be avoided through healthy living. 

To be sure, not all health problems can be avoided through healthy living – everyday the system treats Canadians with genetic conditions, helps those injured in unavoidable accidents and more.  

But there is an opportunity to reduce pressure on the health care system through Canadians shifting to healthier lifestyles – better diets, more exercise, etc. 

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or see this column. 

Partner with non-profits and for-profit clinics

European countries will partner with anyone who can help patients. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s a non-profit, a government entity or a private clinic. What matters is that patients receive quality treatment, in a timely manner and for a competitive price.  

In Canada, governments often delivery services using government-run hospitals instead of seeing if non-profit or private clinics could deliver the services more effectively. 

When governments have partnered with non-profit and private clinics, the results have often been quite good – Saskatchewan, Ontario and British Columbia are just a few examples of where partnerships have worked well. 

Canada should pursue more of these partnerships to reduce wait times and increase the volume of services provided to patients.  

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or see the links above. 

Make cross border care more accessible

In Canada, citizens pay high taxes each year and we’re promised universal health care services in return. The problem is, wait times are often extremely long in our health system – sometimes patients have to wait years to see a specialist or receive surgery. 

If patients don’t want to wait long periods, they often have to reach into their own pocket and pay for treatment outside the province or country. 

Throughout the European Union, we also find universal health care systems. But a key difference is that EU patients have the right to go to other EU countries, pay for surgery and then be reimbursed by their home government. Reimbursements cover up to what the patient’s home government would have spent to provide the treatment locally. 

If Canada copied this approach, a patient waiting a year to get their hip operation could instead receive treatment next week in one of thousands of surgical clinics throughout the developed world. 

Governments benefit too as the patient is now back on their feet and avoiding complications that sometimes come with long wait times – meaning the government doesn’t have to treat those complications on top of the initial health problem. 

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or this shorter video. 

Legalize access to non-government providers

Canada is the only country in the world that puts up barriers, or outright bans patients from paying for health services locally. 

For instance, a patient in Toronto cannot pay for a hip operation at a private clinic in Toronto. Their only option is to wait for the government to eventually provide treatment or leave the province and pay elsewhere. 

Countries with better-performing universal health care systems do not have such bans. They allow patients a choice – use the public system or pay privately for treatment. Sweden, France, Australia and more – they all allow choice. 

Why? One reason is that allowing choice means some patients will decide to pay privately. This takes pressure off the public system. For instance, in Sweden, 87% of patients use the public system, but 13% purchase private health insurance. 

Ultimately, more choice improves access for patients. 

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or watch this short clip on this topic. 

Shift to funding services for patients, not bureaucracies

In Canada, most hospitals receive a cheque from the government each year and are then asked to do their best to help patients. This approach is known as “block funding”. 

Under this model, a patient walking in the door represents a drain on the hospital’s budget. Over the course of a year, hospital administrators have to make sure the budget stretches out so services are rationed. This is why you might have to wait until next year or the year after for a hip operation, knee operation, etc. 

In better-performing universal health systems, they take the opposite approach – hospitals receive money from the government each time they help a patient. If a hospital completes a knee operation, it might receive, say, $10,000. If it completes a knee operation on another patient, it receives another $10,000. 

This model incentivizes hospitals to help more patients – to help more patients with knee operations, cataract surgery, etc. This approach also incentivizes hospitals to spend money on expenses that help patients (e.g. more doctors, nurses, equipment, etc.) rather than using the money on expenses that don’t help patients (e.g. more admin staff). 

To learn more about this policy option, please watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or see this post by MEI.