School districts around the province joined BC's sexual orientation and gender identity or SOGI network in 2018 and in 2022, qathet School District (qSD) put mechanisms in place to ensure qathet region schools were a safe and accommodating environment for people of all sexual orientations, gender identity or gender expression.
When the BC Human Rights Code was changed in 2016, the code was updated to include gender identity and gender expression. That prompted schools to do more work in the area of SOGI.
Fast forward to 2023 and school districts across Canada and the United States see growing anti-SOGI protests outside of schools, mostly due to misinformation spread online. On Wednesday, April 10, BC premier David Eby announced new legislation to: "Help protect students and staff by giving the province the authority to prohibit behaviour that impedes access to school grounds, disrupts school programs and activities, or causes concern for physical or mental safety of students and staff."
The new rules, Eby said, will ensure that children can focus on their education by preventing disruptive behaviour, including aggressive protests, on school grounds.
“While everyone has a right to freedom of expression, disrupting or scaring kids while they’re learning in schools should be, and soon will be, illegal,” stated Eby in a media release. “During the pandemic, when hospitals and health-care workers became the target of anti-vaccine protests, we took action so doctors and nurses could get to work and patients could access care. As schools increasingly become the target, we’re taking similar action to ensure classrooms are safe for students."
The new law will provide police the authority to arrest or issue tickets to anyone found impeding access, disrupting educational activities or attempting to intimidate an individual within 20 metres (66 feet) of school grounds, according to the release.
Although anti-SOGI protests happened around the province on September 20, 2023, including at the qathet School District (qSD) office, the disruption was minimal.
"Our district fully supports this step to ensure our students are safe and have fewer disruptions to their learning,” said qathet School District board chair Jaclyn Miller, in response to a question from the Peak. “While we have been fortunate not to have had any disruptive protests at our schools to date, this will be an effective safeguard moving forward.”
In 2022, the Peak reported on SOGI and qSD director of instruction Allison Burt said: “We don’t discriminate against people of different religions, races or abilities, and it’s the same with gender identity; we want to be inclusive of all sexual orientations and gender identities.”
Join the Peak’s email list for the top headlines right in your inbox Monday to Friday.
