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(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Jonathon discusses how the actions of several provincial premiers managed to break open the transgender debate in Canada.

He begins the discussion noting that gender ideology was “entirely unquestioned” in Canada for over half a decade, with no debate on it whatsoever. He contrasts the Canadian situation with that of other countries, such as the United States, where gender theory has become a crucial topic in elections, and even the New York Times, much to the consternation of some, has begun reporting about the dangers of puberty blockers and the like.

The situation regarding the transgender debate in Canada began to change, Jonathon contends, when New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs enacted a policy last June that required children under the age of 16 to get the permission of their parents to use transgender names and pronouns at school.

“It’s kind of crazy that this is a controversial policy because many Canadians have been unaware at all that over the past several years it was standard policy in the public school system to hide such information from parents by default,” Jonathon observes, juxtaposing the issue of “gender identity” with the need that students need parental consent to receive Tylenol. In response to Higgs’ policy, he continues, LGBT activists “went nuts,” claiming that Higgs had violated LGBT “human rights.”

Higgs, however, withstood the pressure. Jonathon notes it is “incredibly rare” for a conservative politician in Canada not to “back down” in the face of the “forces of the progressive establishment.” Polling also showed that Higgs’ policy was popular.

To Jonathon, Higgs managed to break a “log jam,” with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe following Higgs in August with a similar policy, which likewise garnered the ire of LGBT activists. Moe defended the policy, and when an injunction was placed on it by the Saskatchewan Court of King’s Bench until its constitutionality could be reviewed in court, Moe called a meeting of the provincial legislature and successfully overrode the injunction by using the “notwithstanding clause,” a constitutional tool that allows provincial legislatures to prevent legal review for up to five years.

The move, Jonathon maintains, is a “real shift” when compared with the attitude conservative politicians in Canada had regarding gender ideology in the past.

“[Including Conservative politicians] … nobody wanted to discuss this issue, just because they assumed that the LGBT movement had such a vise-grip on everything, and I think they believed the LGBT movement’s lie that it was somehow un-Canadian to question liberal social progressivism, despite the fact that all of these transgender policies were very, very new,” he says.

Other conservative politicians followed Higgs and Moe by stating an opinion if not enacting policy, including Heather Stefanson, then-Premier of Manitoba, and Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce, who said during a press conference that the opinion of the provincial government was that parents should be “fully involved” in their children’s decision on the matter.

Looking at the events Higgs put in motion, Jonathon concludes it is possible for a socially conservative platform to win if it is “tailored to the views of the public,” and that social conservatives have lost not for lack of public support but for lack of “public champions,” maintaining that most Canadians do not agree with the likes of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the issue of gender ideology and usually abstain from voting on the social views of premiers.

Continuing his discussion, Jonathon examines Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s policies – something that surprises him given Smith’s history of supporting abortion and LGBT issues. He opines that she is adopting “a whole bunch of common sense policies because she recognizes that they have the support of the Albertan people and the Canadian public.”

Jonathon notes that they ban all “gender reassignment” surgeries for minors 17 and under (a policy Jonathon calls “unprecedented” in Canada, the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy for “reassignment” for those 15 and under, allowing only those 16 and 17 to use them with the approval of their parents, a physician and a psychologist, and others. Again, LGBT activists protested.

“What we’re seeing now is a relentless media campaign from state-funded outlets publishing a rolling barrage of coverage, insisting that these policies would result in trans suicides, quoting debunked junk studies, and insisting that Higgs, Moe, and Smith are obviously all MAGA troglodytes importing an American culture war,” he says, noting the last is a strategy used by the Trudeau reelection campaign, with Trudeau himself speaking against Smith’s policies and claiming they target a group vulnerable to suicide.

Polling, however, has shown that public opinion is on the side of the new policies, with 76 percent of Manitobans supporting Smith’s policies, and just under half of Canadians in favor of a ban on gender surgeries for those under 17. Early this month, furthermore, Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre said at a press conference that he is opposed to giving puberty blockers to minors, while he previously forbade Conservative politicians from commenting on Smith’s policy regarding “reassignment” surgeries.

LGBT activists, meanwhile, are “growing increasingly shrill” as the debate erupts across Canada. Jonathon says the “entire Canadian progressive establishment” is waging an “all-out war” that “killed” debate when a Saskatchewan judge delivered is injunction on the province’s law, a ruling he believes is “unprecedented and constitutionally dubious” and could result in a constitutional crisis. He further notes that activists are now claiming human rights are “not supported by the majority” and that the role of the courts and legislators is to “overrule public opinion in these matters.”

The debate, Jonathon says, is not over, and that it is likely to be brought before the Canadian Supreme Court – the same institution, he adds, that gave Canada Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) – and thus one cannot be sure if conservative policies limiting gender ideology will take effect. Even so, the Canadian public, he continues, is “finally … being heard,” and that the LGBT agenda’s actions will be “key issues in elections.”

“The progressive establishment now know that Canada is not the country they claimed it was and that their agenda is opposed by the majority,” he notes. “They may succeed in forcing it on the country yet, but at long last, there’s going to be a fight about it.”

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Send a note thanking Danielle Smith for recent pro-family policies today