Did hundreds of complaints trigger the review of LGBTQ policy or just 3?
Complaints made public share curriculum concerns, make no mention of education Policy 713
New Brunswickers still don't know exactly how many complaints triggered the review of a policy meant to protect LGBTQ students and likely won't be able to find out before the review is finalized.
Education Minister Bill Hogan said the review of Policy 713 was triggered by "misinterpretations and concerns," and said the province had received hundreds of complaints about it. He has never clarified how many of those came before the review decision and how many came after the review became public.
The policy was implemented in 2020 and guarantees minimum protections to LGBTQ kids in school, including providing gender-neutral washrooms and respecting their pronouns in the classroom.
Premier Blaine Higgs confirmed this week the main issue with the policy is that it says if a child under 16 wants an informal name or pronoun change, teachers are required to get consent of the child before telling their parents. Parents still have to sign off on any formal changes and the policy does not change that.
Policy 713 triggered little public debate until two weeks ago.
On May 5, a small group of people holding placards protesting its implementation stood outside a school where teachers were holding professional development sessions.
That's when the province confirmed to media that it had been reviewing the policy since mid-April. On Thursday, spokesperson Morgan Bell said the decision to review was "communicated" on April 21, but she did not answer a question about when the decision to review was made.
3? 100? 800?
On Friday, when asked why he wouldn't share the details of the complaints or the complaints themselves, Hogan told Information Morning Fredericton, "It's not my place to release private communication with me."
The closest anyone has come to uncovering the substance of the complaints received by the government is Kelly Lamrock, the province's child and youth advocate.
He asked the province for the correspondence that triggered the review, and officials sent him copies of three emails. All three make unsubstantiated and sometimes homophobic claims. They also address curriculum concerns, which Policy 713 does not dictate, and none of them referred to the specific policy.
One, sent in December of 2022, said LGBTQ material should not be taught because it's against Christian beliefs.
Another email, from October 2022, said kids are being taught "Marxist" and "unscientific nonsense" about gender.
The third one, from April 4, 2023, referred to a long-debunked conspiracy theory about litter boxes in schools. The writer of the April email said, "I am not homophobic," and "humans are created male and female and nothing can change that."
Based on these emails, and other information given to him by the province, Lamrock said he recommended that the province pause the review and called the process "broken and incoherent."
"I am not sure any government decision could survive if receiving three complaints led to reconsideration," he wrote.
Lamrock did not ask for 'samples' of complaints
When Liberal Party Leader Susan Holt stood up in Question Period on Wednesday and asked about the discrepancy between "hundreds" of complaints and just three, Hogan said Lamrock "asked for a couple of samples … up to a certain point in March."
In fact, in his correspondence with the province, which was included in his report released earlier in the week, Lamrock asked for "any correspondence containing the misinterpretations or concerns" the department was citing as the basis for the review.
Lamrock's correspondence makes no mention of the month of March. He asked for documentation of the concerns the province referred to on April 25, when it confirmed to him the review was underway.
When Hogan said Lamrock merely asked for a "sample," he did not say why the province would put those particular emails in the sample since they did not touch on any of the policy sections under review.
When Holt asked for an inventory of the complaints, Hogan said she should file a right-to-information request.
"I have a number of petitions on my desk in my office and in my constituency office. I also have a couple of recordings of some voicemails that have been left on my phone in my constituency office. I have had a whole variety of things," Hogan said.
The CBC has filed a right-to-information request for the complaints. Response to a request takes 30 days and often requires an extension to 60 days and sometimes longer.
Hogan said Wednesday the province will be revealing the results of the review into the policy in two weeks, likely long before any response to the information request comes in.
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With files from Information Morning Fredericton
