Alberta is in a profound crisis. The reign of Smith’s United Conservative Party has witnessed an unprecedented decline in living standards. Wages have been eroded. The minimum wage is the lowest in Canada. Unemployment is rising, and is now at almost seven per cent.
Faced with this dire crisis facing working-class people, Premier Danielle Smith is stoking the flames of the culture war, passing three bills attacking transgender people.
Under these laws, youth under 16 are no longer allowed to use “puberty blockers” and now need parental consent to use different names or different pronouns in school. The laws also ban all trans women from competing in women’s sports.
Smith has used the justification that this is “protecting kids”. She feels so strongly about this that she said she would go so far as to invoke the notwithstanding clause—overriding Charter rights—to preserve her policies.
We must be absolutely clear. This is a manufactured “crisis”. The Alberta Medical Association has already made clear that Smith’s bills are unfounded and unscientific. Smith focusing her culture war on issues that affect children is intentional. It’s designed to tap into the emotions of parents who are naturally concerned for their children. But all of these issues are a red herring invented by Smith. While she claims to be “preserving parental rights,” and “protecting kids,” her bills take away the rights of parents and kids.
Make no mistake, Smith is an enemy of kids, and of the entire working class. Alberta schools are now the most underfunded in Canada. It is workers who will not be able to send their kids to the expensive private schools she is now diverting funding to. Not just trans kids are losing out on healthcare: Smith’s government has pushed the privatization of healthcare, which will mean less healthcare services for poor kids.
What Smith really wants is to divide the working class and distract from the disastrous situation facing working-class Albertans. And the results will be entirely reactionary. In American states where similar anti-trans laws were passed, suicide rates for trans youth increased by as much as 72 per cent. These laws also serve to embolden bigots in our society who carry out attacks against trans people.
It’s absolutely scandalous that Smith has raised these issues in this cynical manner, at a time of such crisis.
And as if to underscore that this is a ploy, it’s not even clear if Smith really believes what she’s saying—because quite recently, she didn’t. As recently as 2022, during the UCP leadership campaign debate Smith stated: “I have a non-binary family member, and I believe these decisions are very personal, and it should not be debated in public,” and “We shouldn’t be making any child feel like the issues they’re struggling with are something that’s a political football.”
This just goes to show: bourgeois politicians like Smith will not hesitate to use even the lives of children as political footballs to distract from the crisis of their system. This is nothing but a cynical game to them—a cheap political calculation.
