Will Dove  00:00 If you've been watching my weekly news shows, you know I enjoy making fun of the woke. Last fall, I showed you a video of a "trans king", insisting that parents don't have rights. In fact, such videos aren't hard to find. A quick search on YouTube or X will turn up several of these people who were either willfully ignorant of the law, or who are knowingly trying to deceive Canadian parents into believing they have no rights where their children are concerned.   Will Dove  00:31 I had been willing to ignore this form of woken sanity as being harmless and amusing, until just a few weeks ago, NDP MP Randall Garrison stood up in the House of Commons, and insisted that parents don't have rights. But in fact, parents do have rights in Canada. Under several different layers of the law, from provincial Bill of Rights, to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and even under international law, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.   Will Dove  01:05 In addition, there have been a number of landmark cases in Canada in the past 25 years, where courts have upheld the rights of parents to make decisions for their children. I'm joined today by constitutional lawyer James Kitchen, who has been fighting for our rights in the courts for years. James will explain exactly which laws protect the rights of parents in Canada, and which laws a number of provincial governments are violating with legislation that silences teachers when kids express a desire to go by a different pronoun, or even to begin the chemical process of transitioning. In addition, James explains how parents can effectively fight for their children, and for their rights as parents to see their kids protected from harmful ideologies. Parents in Canada do indeed have rights. By the time you finish watching this interview, you will know what your rights are, and how to use those rights to protect your children.   Will Dove  02:15 James, thank you very much for taking your time for this interview today.   James Kitchen  02:19 Thanks for having me.   Will Dove  02:20 And I reached out to you about a week ago, after I saw the clip of NDP MP Randall Garrison standing up in the House of Commons, claiming that parents don't have rights. And of course, once again, it's all part of this transgender narrative, their kids are being subjected to in our schools. And I was saying to you before the interview, as long as a bunch of woke nut jobs on social media claiming that parents don't have rights, I wasn't too concerned about it. But as soon as they said, MPs, standing up in the House of Commons, tried to tell Canadian parents they don't have rights, I felt we have to do something about this. And I know that you are probably one of the most qualified lawyers in the country to talk about parents rights. So I'm just going to give you the floor James, and please tell our viewers what their rights under the law, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, et cetera are as parents?   James Kitchen  03:12 Well, I think the first thing you have to understand is, a lot of this is historical, and it's political philosophy. And that's what informs our law as it should. That's typically a good thing. So if you look at one of the Supreme Court of Canada cases that's foundational for this, it's from the 1990s, Justice Laffer Ray is former Supreme Court justice, and he was a good one. And I studied under his daughter at law school, she taught my property law class. And he said, in a case that he decided in the 90s, he said I would have thought it was plain and obvious that Section 7 of the Charter, which protects the life, liberty and security of the person. He said, I would have thought it was obvious that liberty under Section 7 protected the right of parents to essentially raise their kids as they see fit. And he gave some examples of that moral upbringing, which obviously would cover the sexual stuff, the transgender stuff, the medical decision making, which also involves the transgender stuff, he said, I would have thought that was plain and obvious.   James Kitchen  04:21 And the reason he's saying that, and he goes on, and he talks about a little bit of a where that came from is because that is part of our society. He says that is part of our society. Which is to say that that's not inevitable, that it's like that in all societies, and that humans always organize themselves that way, but it's pretty obvious that that's the heritage of Canadian society, right? Which is rooted in the British heritage, which is rooted in, you know, ideas about the world, ultimately, the stem from Christianity, right? In which family and parenting are very, very important, right? So he's acknowledging the fact that this is how we do things in the Western world, and in Canada in particular. We've chosen this because we think it is philosophically, epistemologically, it is correct, this is the best way to organize a society. And you also see that in the international instruments, right, so you got the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, et cetera. And they all say that the family is the foundational structure of society, right? The family is the first and foremost group organization of humans, okay? And yet remember, these instruments, of course, are written in the mid 20th century after the calamity that happened in the 1930s and 40s in Europe, okay?   James Kitchen  04:21 So obviously, there's, that history is important to understanding these. Okay? And you know, the organization now that a lot of these instruments came in, under the UN is of course, basically evil and corrupt. But it wasn't necessarily the 1950s and 40s when these documents came out, Universal Declaration of Human Rights since 1948. So we have these, I will say, laws in the very broad sense, it's not like we have it written down in the statute somewhere that, you know, parents have parental rights and here's what it means. You do see it a little bit in the Family Law Act, it's actually written out there, but generally where you see it is more in the cases. So it's a little more difficult for everybody to access and understand every, you know, sort of every regular Canadian, but it's there, and it's obvious, and it's sort of plain and obvious to Supreme Court justices in the 1990s, because it just informs part of our regular common law and our regular constitutional law, whether written or unwritten, because that's how we've organized our society. That's politically how we've done it. That's our history. And that's where you're seeing some of the change now, where we're trying to suggest that that shouldn't be the case, or that we had a wrong before, that we're progressive now, and so our law needs to catch up to our new political philosophy, which means that the state is somehow better, or more important, or takes priority over parents when it comes to understanding the best interests of children.   James Kitchen  07:10 And I get the question, what are our rights? I get that question a lot? And I say, well, that's a good question to ask, and I can tell you what your rights are. But you also need to do a little more, unfortunately, than just know your rights, you need to understand a little bit about how those rights are arraigned, or retained or strengthened or lost over time. Because it doesn't really mean a whole lot what the rights are in some supreme, even though it's the Supreme Court of Canada, from some speaker of Canada, or a case in the 1990s, or from what the Charter says, because, you know, one of the things I would hope people have learned on their own or from listening to people like me over the last three or four years with COVID, is that your rights on paper really don't mean a whole lot. If the powers that be just stop caring, right? And this is sort of the real politic, the unfortunate political side of things, right? I mean, we have these Charter rights. Did they mean anything during COVID? Essentially, no, with very rare exceptions, essentially, no, our written Charter rights meant nothing.   James Kitchen  08:15 And I know, this can sound a bit depressing or overwhelming, and I do have a reputation of being a little bit depress in the freedom community, you know, I'm a freedom fighter lawyer. I love what I do, I believe intensely, in individual rights and freedoms. And I'm dedicated to them. But I don't like to give any sort of false hope to anybody that even though it says these are our rights on paper, we're going to be okay, because the reality is, the lawyers and the judges and the politicians and the bureaucrats, if they really want to, without us putting up in a fight congest effectively, and make those rights on paper only. And that's where we're at with this whole transgender movement. All these parental rights are still there on paper. What are we going to do to make sure that they're not merely on paper?   Will Dove  09:13 Right. And I think if I could summarize the very good point that you were making, and you're being, I don't think you're being depressing, I think you're being realistic. And thank you for being responsible, because we don't want to give people the impression that, you know, we can give them a list of rights or court cases, and that they can take that to their school board, and suddenly all this boat wrap is going to go away. It's going to take more than that. And I think that's very important to let people know that. So yes, before we get into various chapter and various laws, or talking about court cases, let's talk about what people would need to do to, yes, take these rights that are on paper, and actually make them work for them to protect their children.   James Kitchen  09:58 Well, I mean, so, you know, a few years ago we had the Al NDP government. And they passed the GSA legislation, which was a direct attack on parental rights.   Will Dove  10:10 I have to jump in, and because we're, you're in Alberta, I'm in Alberta, and we're talking about, you're specifically talking about the Alberta NDP government, but my show was national. So I don't want to confuse people. So, yes, folks, specifically right now about Alberta.   James Kitchen  10:25 Yeah, the provincial NDP, in which they had their four year run, thank God, it's all was. So they pass their GSA legislation, which was all about putting these gay straight alliances in the schools, regardless of what the parents knew about or thought, and regardless of whether or not it was an independent Christian school, which has on paper a constitutional right, to not have, you know, sexualized groups in their school that are antithetical to their religious beliefs. So that was an obvious attack on parental rights, that was obviously unlawful as the law was written at the time, which really hasn't changed much. And yet it was a political reality, right? And I was litigating against that. And as I've said before, now that this has passed, we didn't necessarily talk this way at the time publicly. But the Justice Center, which is where I was working at the time, had litigation on behalf of 30 or so Christian schools against the NDP government. And while we had legitimate legal goals, part of the sort of real politic approach to that was, we know the NDP are likely to lose in about a year, we just have to tie this up long enough in the courts to keep the schools alive, right? So that's sort of the, there's the fighting for people's rights on paper.   James Kitchen  11:49 And then, there's the smart lawyering that protects people's rights and substance. And I've carried that into my private practice. And I taught and I tell my clients about this, there's two things we have to do to protect your rights, we have to do it on paper, we have to file whatever we got to file. But we also got to play the real world game, right, which is why I do a lot of my cases publicly, and I'm in the media a lot. And I say really, you know, sort of bold things that most people won't say, because that's the reality, you can defend your rights on paper all you want, you might not get anywhere, when you really look at who our judges are, and what they're deciding, when the hell they're remaking the law in their own image and how they're able to do that, because we take this living tree approach to our laws and our Constitution. Okay? So, well, what can you do about that? Well, you know, you can oust Kenney, and you can get somebody like Daniel Smith, who brings in this new legislation to protect parental rights, that's what you can do. Right?   James Kitchen  12:46 You might not have 100k to hire me to do some crazy three level case, you might not be able to volunteer 1000 hours a year, but what you can do is inform yourself and vote properly. You know, when a guy like Kenney who says, he likes freedom becomes a tyrant, you throw them out, you're bringing somebody who actually likes freedom, and you hold their feet to the fire and then she passes the legislation, that she knows you want will demand of her. That's the real way that you protect your rights.   James Kitchen  13:13 You can probably remember what Canadian society was like back then, it was pretty different. Just a couple of decades, where if you said something like that, you would just be laughed at. But you can say it now because the Overton window has changed insofar as, yeah, the state is good, the state should be all powerful, the state should control everything, even the most fundamental foundational aspect of Canadian society, raising children, right, the core group of the family. The state can now interfere with and impose its own values on and that's totally okay.   James Kitchen  13:13 So this is why somebody like me would say, how do you protect your rights? Sure, hire me, that's great. I love what I do. And I'm running a business and I want you to pay me, but you know what you can also really do? Run for the school board. Right? Run for the City Council. School Board's more important when it comes to parental rights obviously, but run for these things. Right? Start talking aloud so you change the Overton window on these things, right? Look at how the Overton window has changed on the idea of the injuries caused by the vaccines and the vaccine mandates, right? You have to stop self censoring, and actually have the uncomfortable conversation and yeah, risk of getting in trouble at work or whatever it will be because that's how society is unfortunately, so that the Overton window can change. Right? See the Overton window and parental rights has changed so bad now in the wrong direction. That you can actually get an MP and stand up and say something that would just be utterly laughable in the 1990s. Which, for anybody, like over the age of 35, listening to this, you know, like that wasn't very long ago.   James Kitchen  14:39 So, I'm a big advocate of, yes, take the legal action, hire me, I do think that's good. I think it has its role, otherwise, I wouldn't be doing what I do. But you can actually do real things and should be doing real things to substantively protect your rights and that is getting involved in the policy and in who's operating these things and who's running these things, you know, get involve maybe in the bureaucracy we've completely given over the enormous bureaucracy, the administrative state in Canada, to the woke left. Are there any right wing people in the bureaucracy anymore? No, they're all woke left wing nut jobs, and they're ruining our lives. And we're just letting it happen. We should do something about it.   Will Dove  15:19 And I think you've made a fantastic point, James. And if you hadn't made it I was going to, the most effective thing I think people can do, and we have to start doing this across our country is conservatives running for their school boards. There was a group of ladies down in the US, I can't remember what state they were and this is a couple of years ago. And it was during all of this, COVID madness. And they got together as a group, and they ran for different positions on their school board. Now, they didn't win every seat, but they won a majority. The very first meeting, they fired the woke president, they scrapped all the woke policies, and they got the kiddie porn out of their libraries. So if we do that here in Canada, and we have people who are, you know, maybe they've watched this interview, they've done their homework, they do know what the laws are. When the provincial or the federal government comes in and says, you have to enact these woke policies, well, now that school board as a unit, is empowered to pull out the law and say, well, no, we don't. And in fact, what you're trying to tell us to do is illegal.   James Kitchen  16:25 Yep, yep. Perfect example. Right? Why isn't equal range on the Red Deer Catholic School Board, one of only two trustees on that board are completely woke. Why is that mean for Coronavirus for a Catholic School Board? Right? And she says a fairly benign opinion on Facebook. And the woke trustess light their hair on fire and glitter, oh, like, why are we tolerating that? Right? I mean, as I think Parker has said, the takeback Alberta guy has said, you know, we're going to totally clean out this board the next election. I hope so. And there's no reason why we shouldn't right? But we only will if we actually care enough. But if we care enough, there's no reason why not. Right? Take down the names of those five woke trustees and make sure they all lose and make sure Monique and the other guy who supported her that they're re-elected and that then that we get five decent human beings in there as trustees, right?   James Kitchen  17:21 And then they can tell you know, the federal government or the crazy woke people, or the next NDP government, please, dear God, no, to screw off because hey, we've been elected to do this. And by the way, actually, we're Catholic school boards, we have constitutional rights to be Catholic, so you can just bugger off. Yeah, that's what we should be doing. Right. And on that point about firing people, all these school boards use woke law firms. If you run the school board, you could fire them and hire somebody, not necessarily me, but somebody who thinks like I do. Instead of taking all this terrible advice from these terrible woke law firms, 95% of lawyers in the country are very woke, and are the ones who are working for the school boards that could be changed, it should be changed. I don't think anybody's talking about that. You know what I mean? So there's lots of things that we could do if we just care too.   Will Dove  18:09 And I want to throw something in here, I don't usually throw in plugs for myself, for my own organization Strong and Free Canada, but it's very relevant, what you're just talking about, we are in the final stages of developing something called freedomcoms.org, which is going to allow us to build in person freedom communities across the country, while protecting people's identity. And my vision for that is once it gets going, and I think it's really gonna take off, we're going to use it to organize people across this country to run for the school boards. Because I believe we need to start from the bottom up. We'll get to civic and provincial and federal governments later, we have to take back our school boards, because they're attacking our children, and they're doing it intentionally. If we can take back our school boards, we can save our kids, we can save the next generation, they can start thinking clearly. And when they are making the decisions, they're not going to go along with any of those crap.   James Kitchen  19:01 That's right. I think that's amazing, as that's where we got to go. And you know, and it's a long term game, we'd let things slide for the last 30 years. And it might take nearly that long to get it back. So we need to get into it for the long game, and not let ourselves be overwhelmed or depressed by that. There's no really fast changes. But we need to get started. And we need to get going. And that's what I've been saying for years now. I mean, I approach that even from my legal career, and my law firm, I approach my work. I'm in this for the long game. I hope I get some short term wins. But it's going to take decades to turn this around. And that's what I'm in for.   Will Dove  19:40 Good. Excellent. So we're in complete agreement on that. And I agree with you as well that this isn't something we're going to turn around in the next year. This is going to take a while. But I believe it's gonna to happen. I think there's going to be a major conservative backlash to everything that's happening in our country right now. And ironically enough, I think 20 years from now, you know, when I'm an old man I'm going to be looking at a candidate and seeing the same candidate I was seeing when I was a kid. You know, instead of the insanity we've got right now, at least I'm hoping that's what's going to happen. Now, James, however, I think we've done a great job of giving people a dose of reality, in that, you know, you can't just pull out chapter and verse of the law, and that's gonna save your kid in your school. But I did promise people that in this interview, we would tell them the law. So, can we get into what are the laws? What are some of the cases that have upheld those laws?   James Kitchen  20:32 Sure. So I mentioned earlier, Section 7, and this is available to everyone. And, you know, the one of the things about a tolerant free equal society, that it maximizes freedom is, regardless of what you believe, regardless of how minority it is, regardless of how dissident it is, Section 7 of the Charter would say you have a right to raise your children in that belief. Now, obviously, there has to be a few safeguards to that, you know, there are some beliefs that are obviously objectively harmful to raise a kid in, we use an example that some people might find offensive, if you raise a kid to believe that Jews are less than human and that violence against them is acceptable. We are now potentially coming up against the one where we say, oh, is that something we can tolerate as a society? Right? Is that sort of radical Islamism totally tolerable? You know, but I don't think we actually...   Will Dove  21:25 Just to inform our viewers, very shortly I have an interview coming up with Yasmine Mohammed, who was forced to marry in Canada, a radical Muslim, was subjected to severe abuses, has written a book on it. And there are radical Muslims in this country who are teaching their children exactly that.   James Kitchen  21:48 Yeah, and this is funny because I'm a believer in tolerance, but there has to be witness to it. Even though I'm a libertarian, conservative minded person. So you know, the typical woke lefty would say, I'm intolerant, but it's actually much more tolerant than they probably are. So you know, that's a scenario and to give, you know, maybe even more relevant example, you know, if you are intentionally leading your kid down a path where you know, they're going to be getting their breast cut off when they're 12. Yeah, you probably crossed that line. But that, and I say that to say the line needs to be very high.   James Kitchen  22:20 So, you know, somebody who's, you're an atheist, I think, I might not think it's great, but you should be allowed in our society to raise your child to believe there is no God. Oka? Same as if you're a Jew, if you're a Christian, if you're a Muslim, if you're Falun Gong, if you're Buddhist, if you're whatever, you can raise your children to believe that. Okay? And you can tell them all the religions are wrong, you shouldn't tell them that you can go ahead and kill people of other religions, et cetera, that's when we get into crossing the line into violence. But you should be able to tell them that and that's what Section 7 protects for everybody, regardless of your religious beliefs. So for the atheist, of course, right? They don't really necessarily have the protection of freedom of religion, but they have the protection of Section 7. Maybe you want to raise your kid to be a vegan, right? Maybe you want to raise your kid to believe that there was no moon landing? Whatever it is, Section 7 would say yes, you have the right to do that, unless you're crossing some really high line of extreme actual demonstrable harm to your kid, you should be allowed to do that. Our society loves that. It tolerates that.   James Kitchen  23:24 And of course, the trade off is why a lot of people might think some of the things these kids are being taught is wrong, the alternative is worse. The alternative is that the state comes in and imposes the state's values on the children and raises the children.   Will Dove  23:37 And that is exactly what is happening.   James Kitchen  23:39 That alternative is intolerable. And we don't, we only need to look at Nazi Germany of 1930s, as just one of many historical examples as to why that is bad. Why that is so bad that it is way worse than some kids being raised to believe some pretty wonky things, that the alternative is worse. And that's what we need to look as we always forget about this, right? Because there is this decent sounding emotional argument. Oh, yeah, well, we can't let kids be raised like that by parents. Okay, well, what's the alternative? The alternative is 100 times worse. And if we don't look at the alternative than we're being idiots. So, now then there's Section 2a of the Charter. Okay? So this is one of the fundamental freedoms, this is the fundamental freedom of religion. And one of the core aspects of that is you can raise your children in your religion.   James Kitchen  24:25 So if you're Mormon, you can raise your kids as a Mormon. If you're Jewish, you can raise your kids as Jewish, okay? If you're Muslim, you could raise your kids as Muslim. That is the other part of parental rights. So you have the basic non-religious aspect and then you have the additional religious aspect and they go together. So this often comes up whether it's vaccines, transgenderism, you often see both of these things come up, right? Because a lot of times people's beliefs and values are quasi-religious or entirely religious or some of it is religious.   James Kitchen  24:59 And so these are the two rights to Charter rights that always come up for parental rights. You're gonna have a hard time finding it elsewhere. That's where they're rooted. And that makes sense, because if you look at Charter rights, they're supposed to be all equal, though that doesn't happen in practice. But the reality is some of them are more of the cornerstones, as opposed to just the rest of the bedrock of the house that our society sits on. And, you know, life, liberty, security of the person, obviously, that's foundational, the rest of the Charter rights would lose a lot of their value if they didn't have that. Freedom of religion, right? Is a cornerstone of any society. That's going to function and not become a complete tyranny. Okay? Freedom of expression is probably the other right that I would put as maybe the three most important rights. So I don't think it's a coincidence that we find parental rights in two of what is arguably the three most important fundamental rights for having a society that functions and doesn't devolve into tyranny.   James Kitchen  25:55 So it's actually not just that we have parental rights, and that they're constitutionalized, they're actually part of the foundational structure of the whole society, because there's a few different groups that are the best bulwark against tyranny. Parents are one of them, parents bulwark against tyranny, because if the state can have the children, forget about long term free society, you are going to have a totalitarian society. Okay? And that's, you know, that's why when, and has that famous quote, give me a generation, whatever, right? I'll take everything over. Professionals are another one, and I could go on but parents are, one of those few core groups that stand between the state having complete tyranny over its people. So parental rights are not just something that parents benefit from all society, if they want to live in a free society benefit from parental rights, you take away the rights of parents, and professionals, you can say goodbye to a society that's worth living in.   Will Dove  26:49 Right. Now, you've talked about Section 7 of the Charter, we're talking about liberty security of the person, I've, by the way, had long discussions with Brian Peckford, who was the sole surviving author of the Charter, about exactly what was meant by security of the person. It's a pretty broad scope clause. And yes, it definitely refers to anything that could harm your children physically, emotionally, mentally. And you as the parent have the right to make decisions for them on that. They also talked about Section 2a of the Charter with a religious rights. But I believe, and I don't know if this is the wording in the Charter itself. But I I've seen cases under the law, where they talk about religious and moral decisions for children. And if that's the case, with 2a couldn't apply, say to somebody who maybe they're an atheist, but they have a moral objection to their children being taught that narrative in the school. Do they necessarily have to ascribe to a particular religion, to raise an objection under Section 2a?   James Kitchen  27:51 Well, no, they don't. Because they can rely on Section 7 exclusively and say, look, my liberty and security of the person interests allow me to raise my kids in my moral upbringing, which arguably, you know, I believe, you know, as an atheist, although I don't have a religion, I think certain things are morally right, and certain things are morally wrong. You know, so I mean, some atheists obviously are sort of a moral they have no morals, but most atheists actually do. I've met atheists, have debated them. Most of them actually have some morals.   Will Dove  28:21 Talking to one.   James Kitchen  28:22 Yeah. Oh, there you go.   Will Dove  28:23 I'm a highly moral atheist. I don't need anybody telling me what right and wrong, good and evil are, I can define them very easily. And what these people are doing to our children is evil. And they need to be stopped.   James Kitchen  28:36 There you go. No, you don't need to go to 2a, you can look at Section 7 of the Charter and say, this protects my ability to raise my kids in the morality that I want to raise them. And we have to think about, well, why do we give these rights to parents? Why do we give these rights to parents to control the lives of other human beings? Well, it depends on how you look at it. Because if you look at it like that, then you're starting off in the wrong perspective. Right? You have to look at it from the perspective of what is the best thing for the children? Well, the best thing for the children is that it is the parents who are exercising the parents rights for the children because children, while they might have rights on paper, okay, they can't exercise. Okay? They have no capacity. They have no ability to exercise their own security of the person, their own liberty. They have no ability to do that. They will lie on the parents to exercise their rights for them. Okay, so the state comes in and we want to we want to do this thing to your kids that you just said is evil and it is, okay? Well, the kid has no capacity or ability to exercise their right to have the state not to harm them. Who exercises their right for them? The parents. That's why there's many reasons, okay? But that's one of the fundamental reasons why we give the children's rights to the parents because the children do have rights, they should have rights, okay, but not on their own. They are subsumed in the parents, right? And then of course, we have this transfer, you know, you get about 15 or so the mature minor doctrine kicks in. And then you get to about 18 or 19, and it's sort of fully vests, if you will. And now you have all your own rights, so you can exercise yourself, you can vote, you can, you know, assert your Charter rights against the government, you can exercise your free speech and exercise your freedom of religion, whatever, right? So we have this period in the mid to late teens when we transfer that from the parent to the kid, but before that, the kids rights are vested in the parents, because the parents have the capacity and the ability to exercise it for the kids. So the kids, kids actually benefit more than anybody from parental rights. That's the actual purpose of it. That's a philosophical purpose. You have to understand that because the crazy lefties would say, well, these parental rights are terrible for the children. Because they protect, they prevent the state from coming in and doing all these wonderful benevolent things for the children like feeding them all this porn in the schools. Right? And no, you actually, you're starting from the wrong philosophical starting point, it's the other way around. And that's why parental rights aren't just good for society, for parents, for adults, to actually the best thing possible for children, because the worst thing possible for children is a state that can do whatever it wants with them, right? You only need to look at the 20th century for I don't know, 30 seconds to see all that is true, not just theoretically, but in practice.   Will Dove  31:21 What ought to be axiomatic because the state doesn't care about your kids, the parents do. So why is the state, why would anybody assume the state is going to make decisions that would beneficial for your children? They don't care about your kids. Right? So now we've talked about Section 7, which is liberty and security of the person, Section 2a, which is religious freedoms. I believe you also mentioned earlier, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.   James Kitchen  31:48 Yes, so the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at Section or Article 26 (3) says parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. And people might wonder what is the prior right part mean? And is that significant? What that means is that the right of parents to choose the education for their children, it's not a mere right, right? It is a before right, it is a first right. And it is a above right. It is a superseding right. It is a right that the state is subject to, okay? So this is a little different. So you know, to understand this, right, you had your constitutional Charter rights, okay? And then you might have other rights. So for example, we have statutory human rights, if the right to not be discriminated against. Okay? That right, is more important than any other mere legislative right in the province of Alberta. And above that is the Charter right? So somebody might not have a right not to be discriminated against, but somebody else has a prior right to free expression. Okay, so what that, there's basically, there is a hierarchy of rights, okay, within our system as there should be, okay? And what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is saying here is that parents have a first right. They have a right that you cannot take away. That the state must work with, must honor, must respect to let the parents choose the kind of education they're going to get. With the reason that's really relevant, obviously, is because a lot of this transgender madness that we're talking about, is, you know, we're gonna teach your kids all this gender ideology. We're gonna let them or encouraged them to identify as an opposite gender, and we're not going to tell you about it. Right? We're going to feed them all this porn, and if you try to read it at the school board meeting, and we're gonna shut off your mics so that nobody knows. Right? At that point, the school board, the teachers, the woke ideologues, they are violating that right with or without the help of the government, usually with, they're violating that superseding right to parents to choose the kind of education that their children should have. Okay? And yes, this is part of Canadian law that the Supreme Court of Canada has said that Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, very similar document, these rights are incorporated into Canadian law, explicitly and implicitly. So when we figure out how should we interpret Charter rights, while we do look to these documents, and we do affirm them and say, yes, they should inform how we decide what our law should be. Okay? So that's why these matters, but not merely, you know, nice sounding international rights documents, they actually form part of the fabric of the underlying law of our nation. That's what the Supreme Court of Canada has said so and that's what, you know, for the last seven or eight decades, various parliaments have said, this is good, we liked this, we signed on to this, we want to incorporate this into our law.   Will Dove  34:56 Right. So now if I understand everything you just explained correctly, we do have this hierarchy of the laws. And just before I launch into this, Canada is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is an international law. Okay, so we have, say, the Criminal Code. And then above that we have the Charter and the Bill of Rights. And then above that, we have the international laws, like the Declaration of Human Rights. And so if something beneath it tries to contradict what is in that Declaration of Human Rights, well, sorry, this trumps it. And so the, what I wanted, the point I wanted to make from that is, and you read this Article 26, parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that will be given to their children. So if the state comes along and says, well, under, I don't know freedom of speech, whatever, we have the right to indoctrinate your children with this book bullcrap. We pull out, well, sorry, but no, under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I, as a parent, have the right to decide what is taught to my child. I disagree. You don't get to teach them that.   James Kitchen  36:05 Yep, yep. Well, and in fact, that's part of the reason why we have school boards, and we allow trustee elections. Why are the trustees not appointed by Daniel Smith's cabinet? Well, why? Because part of the reason is, if we did that, if that's why we did things, we arguably be running up against this because now the parents couldn't have a direct say. Obviously, they'd have some say like to the provincial government, but they wouldn't have a direct say, and how their particular school board runs things. That's the best part of the reason why we have this and that's good. But even then, that doesn't mean that the school board, just because they have some democratic legitimacy, that they could just go around having policies or keep secrets from parents and teach things to children that are obviously within the parental sphere. And that's the next point about this is, not everything is gained at the school board, and this goes for whether it's public or Catholic, or whatever, there are certain things to which I think if you properly understand these international instruments, they are saying, look, there are a few things that ultimately should be left to be taught as between the parent and the child.   James Kitchen  37:18 And this often comes up in sort of the cultural debate, right? Like, just leave the kids alone, just teach them math, right? It is a common refrain. Right? Well, what that's reflecting is this fundamental idea that you don't teach kids about sex, or anal sex, or homosexual sex, or switching their sex. You don't teach them that they should believe in this religion, or they shouldn't believe in that religion. These are things that are taught at home between the parents and the kids. And yes, it doesn't happen sometimes. Sometimes parents don't teach their kids that, but usually they do. And that's the environment in which it should be taught. Because as soon as you try to teach sex, and sexuality, and religion, except from sort of an edge, sort of observational perspective, when you teach too much of these things at school, and you get too much ideology involved, and you get too much personal views of the teachers involved, you've now crossed a line and you're violating that right. And you create these types of problems that we're having in our society, right?   James Kitchen  38:12 I mean, some random gay teacher shouldn't be talking about gay sex to kids in a Grade 2 class. Right? Now, I'm not saying teachers can't be gay and be teachers. What I'm saying is that they shouldn't be talking about that, because that is the stuff that the school board shouldn't be teaching that, stuff for the parents to teach the kids.   Will Dove  38:28 Exactly. Because if we lived in the same society that, you know, respected those Charter rights, we would look at something like, yeah, this transitional surgery or sort of like hormone blockers, right? A child does not have the life experience to understand the repercussions of taking that step. A parent might, but the child does not. And therefore, it seems to me that had a pretty clear line of what we would be able to teach in our schools, you don't teach them anything that is an adult decision. Once you're 18, okay, you're a legal adult. Now, if you want to explore that, it's your right, you go ahead. But if you're under 18, and you're in our school system, what the heck are we doing teaching them things that we, you know, any sane person, any parent, who cares about their child will look at and say, they do not have the life experience to understand the repercussions of that step. And therefore, we just don't teach it to them. We'll leave it until they're adults, and then they can learn about it. Aside from probably the basics of human sexuality, which is sure to be part of biology, because you know, they shouldn't assume that much and we don't want them thinking babies come from storks, but aside from that, yeah, I just, it seems to me like that's the the rational way to handle it.   James Kitchen  39:48 Yeah, yeah. And I mean, this becomes immediately obvious as soon as we look at, what's the minimum age for smoking, what's the minimum age for getting a tattoo? Right? What's the minimum age for going skydiving? Right? Can you do all these things when you're 13? No.   Will Dove  40:04 No. And we don't have tattoo going into our junior high schools. You know? Tattooing children.   James Kitchen  40:12 Yeah.   Will Dove  40:13 And parents, and here's the funny thing, James. If you did, parents would lose their minds. Even the woke leftist parents would lose their mind. What do you mean you gave my child a tattoo? A permanent tattoo without informing me? And they're perfectly happy to allow their children to be indoctrinated with this transgender woke bullcrap. And especially when we look at the real statistics, they tried to claim that saving lives. No, it's not. Children who transition have a 16 times higher suicide rate than ones who don't. It would be like going into our schools and handing out free boxes of cigarettes. Let's get them addicted to smoking so they can get lung cancer. I'm just, I'm sorry, I went on a rant there, folks, I apologize. James, let's get back to the law because you did kind of, kindly provide me with quite an extensive document to prepare for this interview. And in it, you refer to many things in the Alberta Bill of Rights. Now, I'm going to assume, you know, obviously, you're an Alberta lawyer so you would know the Alberta Bill of Rights. But I'm going to assume that probably every province has very similar Bills. So let's talk about some of the rights that are in there in that Alberta Bill of Rights.   James Kitchen  41:29 So the Alberta Bill of Rights is almost a copycat of the original Bill of Rights, which is very similar, although not identical in a couple of important ways to the Charter. All these things are meant to protect these fundamental rights. And in the Charter, while parental rights are not listed, right? Again, they're the, you know, these judges come along and immediately find, as we say, as lawyers find in Section 2a and Section 7, that there's parental rights. The Alberta Bill of Rights does specifically mention it. And which is good and not that it needs to per se but which which is good.   James Kitchen  42:12 And then where you really see it sort of operationalized is actually in the Family Law Act, which is interesting, because the Family Law Act, we usually think of add on to family law, but typically people would think of well, that's the reason we have to enumerate these rights is because you have separating parents, and you have these sort of these co parenting situations. And so we actually have to, you know, enumerate this stuff. That doesn't mean that it isn't applicable for understanding the relationship between state, parent and child, not just parent and parent and courts and child, right? And so you see things like parents may exercise the following powers, in Section 21 (6) of the Alberta Family Law Act, right? To make day to day decisions affecting the child, including day to day care and control the child, supervising the child's daily activities. To make decisions about the child's education, including the nature extent and place of education and any participation and extracurricular school activities. Would be like GSAs, to decide with whom the child is to live and with whom the child has to associate. Okay?   James Kitchen  43:18 Now, some people might say, well, that's too much control over the child. But any decent parent will tell you, yeah, I need to know who my kids hanging out with. To receive and to respond any notice a parent is turning to by law, to receive from third parties, health and education, any information that may significantly affect the child. Now, these are all fairly predictable, but it's still very valuable to see that it's written down. So you know, you see parental rights in the Alberta Bill of Rights, but then you also see, well, this is what it actually means. So let's not just talk about it, sort of, in this general sense, where somebody might come along and say, well, yeah, but that doesn't mean you can control who they're hanging out with. That doesn't mean you can control if they go to the GSA. That doesn't mean that you can control whether or not they're using a different pronoun in school. Actually, it does, and it should, and the Family Law Act, which is not exactly the most conservative piece of legislation in the world recognizes that. Why? Because this Family Law is literally the whole basis of it is what's in the best interest of the child. Okay? It's in the best interest of the child that the parent controls who the child hangs out with.   James Kitchen  44:21 You don't want the child hanging out with some, you know, guy with brass knuckles and stolen gun is going around and stealing stuff and robbing and all, you don't want that. Maybe you don't want your daughter hanging out with a girl that had sex every week with some boy to school. You know, you certainly don't want your children hanging around with an adult that you don't trust, it might be a pedophile. Of course, to protect the kid you don't want this, right? So of course we allow that type of control. Again, what's the best interest of the child? It's not that the parent gets their jollies by having control over the child. It's about the fact that the parent loves the child but we sacrifice an enormous amount of their own life for the child and wants to do what's best for the child. And that's why they need this information. I need to know what my child is doing. Is my child involved in something bad? I need to know so I can help and protect them, right? These things are spelled out here because it's helpful for people to be able to go to the law and see, look, this is what parents shouldn't be and can be doing with their children.   Will Dove  45:23 Right. Now, and this raises a really important point. Now, recently, both Alberta Saskatchewan have passed laws that require the school to inform parents if their child wants to make a change of their pronoun, whatever. But other provinces in Canada have not done that. And as you just read now, this is this is from the Alberta Bill of Rights. But I've already said I'm going to assume the Bills of Rights at the other provinces probably have very similar clauses in it. Each Guardian is entitled to be informed of and consulted about and to make all significant decisions affecting the child.   Will Dove  45:57 So if they're trying to pass these laws, that say to the school, you can't tell the parent. That's a violation of the Bill of Rights.   James Kitchen  46:07 Yep. Yeah.   James Kitchen  46:09 No.   Will Dove  46:09 Okay. So now, here's the important question, is a violation of the Bill of Rights a criminal act?   Will Dove  46:17 So what does a parent do, in that, let's say that, we've already discussed the best way for people to go about fighting this, but let's say somebody decides, no, I want to hire a lawyer, I want to go after these people for this. What would you go after them for?   James Kitchen  46:32 Well, assuming you could not establish some sort of tort of misfeasance or malfeasance on the part of a school administrator or teacher or whatever, and that's possible, but very, very, very difficult in practice to do, okay? Assuming you couldn't establish some sort of personal liability against the people doing this, okay? Then you would sue the school board for violating your Charter rights for violating your your rights under the Bill of Rights, et cetera. And you would try to get a declaration that they have violated the law and an injunction from preventing them to violate the law. Again, if you're lucky, you might be able to get a few damages, although probably not unfortunately, in Canada, it's difficult to get damages against government bodies who violate constitutional rights, we typically just get sort of declarations, we don't get money to follow, unfortunately, that's slowly changing here and there a little bit. But that's what you would do.   James Kitchen  47:24 The practical difficulty with that, of course, is what parent has 50 grand in the bank that they could just spend on this, especially if they're not going to get any damages back? They might get a little bit in cost, but it wouldn't cover more than 10% or 20% of it. So that's the trouble. Okay, and that's of course why organizations like the Justice Center and crowdfunding to organizations like the democracy fund or whatever, that's why these are so valuable is because those organizations make these cases financially possible, what otherwise they would not happen, right? It's very rare that I have somebody come to me and says, I have the money and I want to spend it on this. It happens. But it's rare. So that's what they could and should do if they can is take that sort of legal action. Is there going to be a criminal sanction? No. But it is embarrassing for the school board, it's gonna cost them money, and it's a very powerful tool to use to sort of wake up the sweepers, I guess, when it comes to the next school board election. Hey, look, there's this court case, look at how much the school board violated your basic rights. Maybe these aren't the trustees you want, because these are the ones who made these decisions to violate this and to spend, you know, a million dollars of taxpayer school board funds on their lawyers to fight this case when it came to them instead of immediately conceding it. Right? So yes, that's what they couldn't should do legally.   James Kitchen  48:39 Now, I have to say, as much as, you know, isn't necessarily good for my business. I have to remind people because because I think is important, too, because nobody really wants to talk about this. You have to understand how sort of captured by the woke ideology our courts are, right? So yes, suing the school board is great, but don't think that you're going to get a judge that is going to be completely on your side. Okay? And part of the reason for that, by the way, is who appoints these judges, this type of case would go to the Court of King's Bench of Alberta. Who appoints them? Not Daniel Smith. Justin Trudeau.   James Kitchen  49:14 Who did Justin Trudeau appointed to the bench? Probably your typical woke lawyer who thinks constitutional rights are a nuisance, right?   Will Dove  49:14 Yes.   Will Dove  49:21 82% of the judges that Justin Trudeau has appointed since his election, are liberal supporters. Only 18% are not?   James Kitchen  49:32 Yeah, of course. I mean, that's just human nature. I mean, really? I mean, like, can I even blame Trudeau for mostly appointing people who support him? No, that's just how it works. Right? That's why we should actually care a lot more about who's appointing our judges. And that should actually factor into whether or not we want to vote for this person. Right? We're gonna talk about Alberta independence. I mean, I think the pension plan is great. But gosh, I mean, our most important court is the Court of Kings Bench, who's controlling that? The Prime Minister Ottawa, we have no say in that. Maybe that should change, you know?   Will Dove  50:05 Yes it should, yes, we should be electing our judges. But that's a different discussion. That's a different discussion. Now I know that when we're talking about the law, I'm no lawyer, but I know this much. There's the law, and then there's the interpretation of the law and that comes out in court cases. And you did list a number of cases in the document you're sent to me? Can you discuss some of those, and to the precedents that those have set?   James Kitchen  50:29 Most of those cases would be from the era between 1990 and 2005, when sanity still reign amongst our Courts of Appeals in all the provinces in the Supreme Court of Canada. So if you look at the RB case, from '95, there's a case out of Manitoba to do with the Jehovah Witness child. Those cases have said, you know, look, the state has to have a really good reason to interfere with that sacred relationship between the parent and the child. Okay? Now, notwithstanding those cases, which are still good law, well, we've gotten recently, I don't say this to, you know, again, to depress people, but they need to be aware. What's happening is, although we have these foundational Supreme Court of Canada cases, recently, what we're getting is these lower level cases that are coming in, and it's all with the LGBT thing. And maybe a little bit of the vaccine thing, but mostly the LGBT thing and saying, well, yeah, but this is a good enough reason to interfere.   James Kitchen  51:31 And so yes, this 11-year old, who wants to start hormone blockers and wants to get her breast cut off, the state should come in, protect her from her parent, and allow this to happen. Because that's what he or she wants, right? 11 is the youngest I've seen, it's typically more like 14, but even at 14, if any of us have had a 14 year old daughter, we know that she's not ready to decide that sort of thing. That she's she's not in the right space to decide whether she wants to keep her breasts for the rest of her life, we know that. 14 year old girls, I'm sorry, they don't. So with these cases are coming in and saying that, yes, we don't really care about this precedent that we have, from the 90s and the early 2000s, about parental rights and about, you know, children not being able to make decisions for themselves and about the state having a really good reason, because we're just going to come in and impose our own political ideological views and say that this is a good enough reason. Right? And so the problem right into interpreting the law and changing the law over time, and saying, well, we're moving with the social attitude. And we're going to say that this really is that important. And that's the problem that we, you know, I don't know how we fix this other than fixing who gets appointed on our bench, which is a hard long term project. But that's the problem, is that we have these big foundational cases. And that's why I put them in these papers.   James Kitchen  52:52 And yes, if I go to the legislature, or if I'm arguing this, I'm going to rely on these cases. But where the trouble comes and the judge says to me, well, yeah, this is a big deal. I mean, if this kids can't get their hormone blockers, they're gonna go kill themselves, according to Dr. X, the expert, you know, that's the trouble. That's where the rubber meets the road as a lawyer. That's the trouble I have to face with. And that's when I go back to the people and say, I shouldn't even get that question from the judge. The reason I do is because you have elected or let somebody be elected, who appoints, you know, Mr. Lefty lawyer over here, who when he becomes a judge asks me that question, and then believes that expert says, I'm gonna let Susie cut off her breasts, because if she doesn't, you know, apparently she's gonna kill herself. Right? It's the same thing with COVID. Right? What judge says all the lock down, and vaccine mandates are good. Well, a judge who is as a left wing worldview, which basically says that individual rights are sort of a luxury or a nuisance, and government is fundamentally good. And taking away these rights for this some utopian goal is good, right? That's the fundamental problem.   James Kitchen  53:56 And I don't know how we get around that other than making a fundamental political change about who these people are, that are interpreting and applying our doctrines. I mean, I'm never going to convince Canadians to adopt the American originalist perspective. They don't even know what that term means. If I say living tree, most people glaze over. So okay, so fine. That's what we've adopted. That's stupid. I don't I don't know if we can ever fix that. We can at least appoint judges, though, who say, yeah, no, withstanding the fact that we have a living tree, let's have it grow towards individual rights and freedom as opposed to growing towards tyranny. Right? That's what I would do. That's what Justice Brown did. Right? That's not what Justice Wagner which is the sort of the chief of the Supreme Court of Justice of Canada, he's making it grow towards tyranny because he thinks that's actually good. He thinks that's better for humanity. It's not that he hates human beings and he's evil, supposedly, right? It's not because I love humanity more, although maybe I say I would. It's because he actually thinks authoritarianism is better, I actually think the world is better with a lot of individual rights, such as parental rights. Okay?   James Kitchen  54:57 So that's the thing with citing all of the Supreme Court of Canada cases is judges have it in their mind in Canada that they can, they can and should remake the nation, remake the laws in their own image. Right? Because, and that's always the left wing perspective is we can make it better if we just have better ideas and more control to implement, we can make it better. And you got to stop appointing those people and appointing people who say, I'm not God, I can't make it better. I can't stop all the evil in the world. But what I can do is let people have their rights, which creates the best possible world even if that's not very good. And that's the lens through which these things are interpreted is the lens of a not God, I can protect individual's rights, or I can play God and take away rights and impose this new idea that I think is great. And we got to change the winds through which our laws and our Supreme Court of Canada cases are being interpreted and applied in the year 2024. And that's monumentous task. But that to me is how you begin to change this.   Will Dove  56:02 Right. James, that was, by the way, I think fantastic summary of everything we've been talking about today. You've done a fantastic job of giving people a realistic view. But also correcting this delusional woke idea that parents do not have rights, as you have demonstrated, they do have rights under several different levels of the law. Now I know that you get approached quite frequently, by people looking for advice on how do I protect my kids? What would you say to our viewers, who were asking themselves that very question with everything, we've just spelled out that this is not something where you can just waive a legal document and the problem is going to go away? What is your answer to people asking you? How do I protect my children?   James Kitchen  56:48 Serve yourself. I've seen all kinds of good outcomes, where, you know, it's less about what the law says more about is this person, a strong, principled, smart person who is vigilant, and everybody knows, I'm not going to mess with her pr him. That's big. I mean, well, so through this stuff, the gender stuff at school, through the vaccine stuff, through the COVID stuff, it hasn't been so much about what the law is, it's been about good strategy and demonstrating that you are a tough, principled person that people shouldn't mess with. And hiring a lawyer, yes, is a part of that, for better or for worse, hiring a lawyer is part of that, and I help people keep their jobs, or stay in school, or stay away from the trouble at school, because somebody has said, okay, I'm going to hire you, and we're going to be smart, and we're going to have a good budget. And we're going to figure out how we can show this school board or this university, or this public school, or this government entity or this employer or whatever, that we mean business. And that they're not going to mess with us. They might want to take away somebody else's rights, but not ours. And that actually often matters more than what the law is on paper. And that's one of the best things I can do. What I enjoy doing as a lawyer is coming into a situation say, how is a good strategy and good lawyering and you being a tough, principled person that doesn't wither under criticism or name calling? How can that win the day? And I've seen it happen, lots, you know, just as an example, I mean, some kids getting the mask exemptions at schools, right? Some parents didn't want their kids to be masked, right? Again, parental rights.   James Kitchen  58:22 And, you know, well, how do we get that? It doesn't even actually matter so much what the law says, it's coming in and saying to the school, you're gonna do this, because if you don't, you're gonna regret it. Right? And that's not a threat of physical force, it's just a threat of, we're going to cause you trouble. And then they back off. So we need more people doing that. Canadian societies too timid that way. We don't fight enough for what are righteous causes. And if we do that a little more, and there's a little more pushback, the bureaucracy is going to be less emboldened to keep ruining our lives. So I'd love to see people do that. You don't have to necessarily have to hire a lawyer although that's a good option, just start expressing yourself, pushing back and saying, I'm not going to put up with this. And you know, if you're going to do this, it's going to be painful for you. And a lot more of that would be really, really helpful. It's just on an individual level, more people decided that I'm not going to put up with this, I'm going to be respectful, but I'm going to be forceful, I'm going to say, this is my line in the sand, you're not going to do this to my kid, you're not going to push me around. That's just the way it's going to be. That I think would be huge. And what I've seen people do that has been huge.   Will Dove  59:29 Yes. And might I suggest this as a corollary to what you've just said, because you're talking about smart, tough, principled people standing up for the rights. And earlier in the interview, you said, well, most parents don't have $50,000 to hire a lawyer and you're right. But coalitions of parents do. And so what if, across this country we had coalition's of parents who yes, went and hired a lawyer, went after the province or the school board is trying to force this stuff illegally on their children because as you've just shown, we have laws against this, because I understand even though I'm not a lawyer, an awful lot of the law in our country, and you've made reference to this living tree, it's not what's written down, it's the decisions that are made in the courts that set the precedence. And all we need is one group of parents with a backbone, and a good lawyer to go into the Supreme Court, or the Court of Kings Bench in one of our provinces and win a landmark case. And now, we've got a precedent that says, no, you cannot force this on our children. It's illegal on several different levels. And then other parents across the country can take that same precedent, and go after their school boards and their provinces, and we get the thing shut down.   James Kitchen  1:00:45 Yep. That would be the idea. That's an excellent plan. Absolutely.   Will Dove  1:00:51 Alright. James, thank you so much for your time today, for providing this information. It's deeply appreciated, because, you know, folks, it's so important. And I don't know if we're gonna be able to do this in time for this interview to come out. But we're working on fact sheets, at Strong and Free Canada, our wide variety of subjects, one of them is going to be on parental rights. And you're gonna be able to download that sheet share it, it's going to have links to all the proof, links to the laws, links to the court cases that set the precedents. And as James and I explained, that's probably not going to be enough to save your kids. But it's very important to counter this woke narrative that we're having to listen to even from our own MPs, claiming that parents don't have rights. Well, yes, we do. And when you know that, that's the first step in standing up for those rights. James, thank you.   James Kitchen  1:01:42 You're welcome.