How the UN is Pushing Childhood Transition in Canada

Meet the child “advocates” advocating for harm

Kelly Lamrock, New Brunswick child and youth advocate (Jacques Poitras/CBC)

Earlier this summer, I was excited to report that, thanks to New Brunswick Premier Blain Higgs, gender ideology was finally becoming a mainstream political conversation in Canada. Due to changes in provincial policy, school staff can no longer change the names and pronouns of students without parental consent.

However, these very sensible changes have received criticism and caused much consternation, even among the Premier’s own cabinet. More recently, the provincial “child and youth advocate” Kelly Lamrock released a 100-page report slamming the changes as illegal and harmful.

The report, ironically titled “On Balance, Choose Kindness,” is chalked full of ideologically captured language and buys completely into the idea that there is such a thing as “transgender and non-binary” children.

What Kind of Person Wants Children to Be Confused?

In the end, Lamrock proposes a policy that:

sets minimum requirements for school districts and public schools to create a safe, welcoming, inclusive, and affirming school environment for all students, families, and allies who identify or are perceived as LGBTQI2S+.

These minimum requirements include the right to self-identification for “all members of the school environment,” the ability for students to participate in all “curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities” according to their self-declared “gender identity,” and the ability for students to access washrooms according to their self-declared “gender identity.”

Specifically regarding pronoun and name changes, Lamrock recommends [emphasis mine]:

All students have the right, consistent with their age, maturity and evolving capacity, to choose the name and/or pronouns by which other members of the school community address them in informal, daily interactions. The student has this right regardless of their reasons for the change.

This is a child advocate literally advocating that children have the right to be so confused about their identity by dangerously misguided adults that they start down a path that leads to medicalization and sterilization.

This being Canada I was not surprised at the contents of Lamrock’s report, but I was no less disgusted. So, I decided to take a closer look at the New Brunswick Office of the Child & Youth Advocate.

What instantly jumped out at me was that the website very prominently links to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

That would be a good thing if the world weren’t completely upside down. But, as is the unfortunate case, I have previously written about how the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is being used to push childhood transition. So, the fact that Canada’s children and youth advocate offices seem to be based on the Convention could only be bad news.

As I detailed in my previous piece, the nonsense notions of “gender identity” and “gender expression,” while they are not explicitly mentioned in the Convention, are being read into it. The idea that gender self-determination is protected by the Convention has been argued for by former Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child Kirsten Sandberg and by the United Nations Independent SOGI Expert Victor Madrigal-Borloz, among others.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is supposed to safeguard childhood. In fact, gender ideology flies in the face of the document as written. Nevertheless, it is being used to argue that children are capable of consenting to life-altering medical “treatments” like pubertal suppression. Not only that but it is being used to argue that refusing to harm children in this way is a violation of their human rights.

Note that New Brunswick is not the only Canadian province with a child and youth advocate office. In fact, every province or territory except for the Northwest Territories has the same or equivalent position. These offices have joined together into a national alliance known as the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates (CCCYA).

Furthermore, the CCCYA explicitly states that its work is “primarily grounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

According to the Canadian Bar Association, Canada was one of the first countries in the world to establish such offices.

This is definitely not the last we will be hearing from these child and youth “advocates” in regard to gender ideology, especially not as the conversation in Canada slowly but surely continues to ramp up.

In fact, just this week, Saskatchewan decided to follow in New Brunswick’s footsteps, with education minister Dustin Duncan announcing that schools must receive permission from parents in order to change the names and pronouns of children under 16.

In addition, parents also need to be informed about the sexual health curriculum in their children’s schools so that they may have an opportunity to opt their children out of the lessons.

This was likely spurred at least in part by shocking sexually explicit material provided to students by Planned Parenthood during a presentation back in June. Planned Parenthood was banned from Saskatchewan schools after the incident.

Duncan held his ground when questioned about the policy:

When pressed on what would happen if experts and evidence point to this being the wrong decision, Duncan replied that he did not, "know how involving parents more is wrong."

"We're not going to be using outside third-party organizations from out of province. We're going to be working with the school divisions. We'll be working with parents and other individuals that have an interest in this. So that will be our plan going forward," he said.

Unfortunately, Duncan also said that his department would be working with the Saskatchewan Advocate for Children and Youth, Lisa Broda, who is currently reviewing the changes.

Duncan can talk all he wants about not using third-party organizations from out of the province, but the advocate’s office itself is beholden to the UN, not to Saskatchewan. Like the other offices, the Saskatchewan branch considers the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to be its guiding document.

Sure enough, the day after the policy was announced, Broda released her own media statement in which she said:

I just learned about this policy in the media and have not been privy or advised of these changes. I am deeply troubled by the impact this policy will have on the rights of children in Saskatchewan. Any new policy, legislation, law, or practice that may impact children and their rights compels me, under my legislative authority to review and advise on such matters.”

There is little doubt that her coming report will not differ in any real way from Lamrock’s own and that it will take the construct of “trans and non-binary” children as a given.

The self-styled “good guys,” the people holding titles like “child and youth advocate” are the ones arguing that it is illegal to safeguard childhood and protect children from decisions that could have devastating impacts on the rest of their lives. Worst of all, they are the ones personally leading children off the cliff. We are truly living in an upside-down world.