The Breakdown - Episode 3.20 - The False Narrative Around GSA’s with Maria De Leeuw

The Breakdown With Nate Pike

In the run up to the provincial election, there were a lot of straw man arguments that were deployed by a lot of political parties to keep people from talking about the actual issues that the province of Alberta was facing. One of the most contentious though, has to be the debate that occurred around GSA’s. Today, we want to revisit that debate a little. For those of you that are unfamiliar with what a GSA is, GSA stands for Gay Straight Alliance and they’re effectively school clubs that exist to create places where LGBTQ2S+ youth can interact with other youth, gay and straight without fear of bullying. The debate around GSA’s often centers around stories about kids being taken off of school property, and more. The source of the vast majority of these stories can be traced back largely to a court case filed by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms or the JCCF. The JCCF is the organization that has deeply religious roots and regularly takes up causes that they perceive infringe on freedoms, particularly religious freedoms and files lawsuits. Before the election they filed both a suit against Bill 24, and then an appeal. That appeal included multiple affidavits from relatively anonymous sources that had some pretty sweeping claims about goings on in GSA’s. The crown objected heavily to the use of these affidavits. They were self-contradictory, misleading and full of emotionally loaded language that had no bearing on their actual contents. A judge called them to be heresay and unreliable. But they were reported on heavily, particularly by right wing deeply religious opinion columnists. And from the original affidavits, they morphed into stories that pundits and politicians picked up and used. One of the affidavits introduced by the JCCF in their appeal on Bill 24 was one that detailed a person who attended an event where multiple speakers spoke on a variety of issues. One of those speakers spoke about her experiences volunteering to ensure that her community kids had access to a GSA. We are extremely proud to be able to help try and correct the record and welcome the person who presented that talk and who volunteered her time and energy to ensure that LGBTQ2S+ youth had a safe place to be who they are.