This bill says that young students need to have their parents’ permission to use different pronouns at school.
Saskatchewan used a special rule to pass the bill after a court stopped the policy temporarily.
An LGBT organization raised an issue against it.
The bill explains that a parent has the main power to make decisions about their child’s education.
Bill 137 was approved on Friday after a long 40-hour discussion this week.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said on Friday that the bill was intended to give parents the ability and choice to help their children during the important early years of their life.
This means that parents will be told about things like how often their child attends school, how they behave, if they get in trouble, and how well they’re doing in school. However, some people got upset about the rule that says parents need to agree if a student who is younger than 16 wants to use a different name or gender identity at school.
MrMoe’s decision to use the notwithstanding clause to pass a policy has received a lot of criticism, including from the human rights commissioner in Saskatchewan.
Earlier this week, Heather Kuttai quit her job as commissioner because of the policy.
Ms Kuttai said in a letter that she and her husband have a child who identifies as trans. Ms Kuttai also mentioned that the policy being enforced is negatively affecting the rights of trans, nonbinary, and gender diverse children.
Carla Beck, the opposition leader from the left-leaning New Democrats party, said that the decision is a step in the wrong direction for Saskatchewan politics.
Some students didn’t like the policy and protested by walking out of their school in Regina and other cities.
Earlier this year, New Brunswick, a province in Atlantic Canada, introduced a similar policy.
MrMoe used a special clause called the notwithstanding clause to make Bill 137 pass. The clause lets provincial legislatures and parliament change some parts of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It basically allows provinces to give up some rights for five years.
The province said that the school’s rules will be different this summer.
The UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity asked the court to stop the measure because they believed it went against people’s rights and could cause teachers to use the wrong gender for students. The court agreed with them and made a decision.
The rule was not used often in the past, but it has been used many times in recent years.
One recent example that caused disagreement is when Quebec used a rule to make a law in 2019 that says civil workers cannot wear religious symbols at their job, like the hijab and kippah.
In Canada, there is a heated discussion about how schools should handle matters relating to sexual orientation and gender. Last month, there were protests in big cities against educational policies that support LGBT rights, and there were also some opposing protests.