John Carpay: Claiming That Children Have Adult Rights Is a Perversion of the Canadian Charter

From the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

By John Carpay

In August of 2023, the UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity filed a court application seeking to strike down Saskatchewan’s “Use of Preferred First Name and Pronouns by Students” policy. The policy requires parental consent when children under the age of 16 wish to use opposite-sex names and pronouns at school, referred to as “social transition.” This “social transition” can lead to children receiving puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones, and eventually life-altering surgeries that will render them permanently infertile.

In September, UR Pride persuaded the Saskatchewan Court of King’s Bench to grant an interim injunction to suspend the policy pending a full court hearing, which would not take place until February of 2024. UR Pride claims that the parental consent policy will violate children’s charter rights and will irreparably harm them.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has introduced Bill 137, which uses Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the notwithstanding clause, to keep his government’s parental rights policy in place, following the September court decision to suspend the policy temporarily, or any future court rulings to strike it down. Section 33 gives our federal Parliament and provincial legislatures the ability, through the passage of a law, to override a judge’s interpretation of certain charter rights for a renewable five-year term.

Opponents of Section 33 argue that politicians should not be allowed to violate our rights and freedoms. However, Section 33 is not all that different from Section 1 of the charter, which allows judges to override our charter rights and freedoms in much the same way that Section 33 allows politicians to do so. Section 1 empowers judges to approve and endorse the government’s violation of constitutional rights, if a judge in his or her personal opinion deems the violation to be reasonable and “demonstrably justified.”

In theory, Section 1 requires judges to force governments to justify any violation of charter rights and freedoms “demonstrably,” with persuasive evidence. According to the test laid down by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Oakes (1986), governments must show that their violations of charter freedoms are actually doing more good than harm. Theory aside, judges have repeatedly used Section 1 to rubber stamp the government’s lockdowns and vaccine passports. This necessarily raises the question: who is more competent to understand, interpret, and protect our rights and freedoms—politicians or judges?

In striking down the Saskatchewan policy, the court seems to have assumed that all parents are somehow dangerous, abusive, and untrustworthy. The court believes that all parents should be kept in the dark when their own children embark on a dangerous and futile quest to become the opposite sex.

The court also assumes that the best way (or the only way) to help gender-confused children is to affirm any and all steps that a child may wish to take to adopt opposite-sex pronouns, names, clothing, etc.

This completely ignores the success achieved by Dr. Kenneth J. Zucker, who helped hundreds of children and teenagers to accept their biological sex while working for decades at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health as head of its Gender Identity Service. The vast majority of gender-confused children, when protected from political activists and ideologues and when supported by their parents, will be at peace with their sex by the time they reach the age of 18. Dr. Zucker saved these children from a lifetime of drugs and surgeries that would need to be administered in the futile quest to acquire a biological body of the opposite sex.

UR Pride claims that Saskatchewan’s new policy violates the rights of gender-diverse students under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But in fact, children do not enjoy privacy rights vis-à-vis their own parents. Because children are not adults, they legitimately have no right to drive, vote, get married, join the military, purchase liquor, get a tattoo, etc. Children are entitled to the love, support, guidance, and nurturing of their own parents. When parents are kept in the dark, they are severely hindered in providing these necessities. Claiming that children have adult rights is a perversion of the charter.

Placing great reliance on testimony from Dr. Travers, a Simon Fraser University sociology professor who uses “they/them” pronouns, the court appeared to embrace fear-mongering that children who are not “affirmed” in their “social transition” are at risk of suicide. This ignores a comprehensive Swedish study showing that “fully transitioned” transgender adults, after having had healthy body parts removed and new artificial ones created, have higher suicide rates than the general population.

The court considered irreparable harm to children only in relation to the very small number of children who might have truly abusive parents. Sadly, the court ignored the irreparable harm that is likely to result from keeping all parents in the dark, disregarding harm to children who are pressured, manipulated, and misinformed by political activists at school.

All in all, the court provided no compelling reason as to why or how it benefits children to keep all parents (not just the very small number of abusive ones) in the dark about their own children.

The Saskatchewan government should be applauded for using charter Section 33 to opt out of this court ruling.

Related Topics:#JohnCarpay #JusticeCentreForConstitutionalFreedoms #NotwithstandingClause #SaskatchewanPremierScottMoe feature

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The day the ‘King of rock ‘n’ roll saved the Arizona memorial

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The day the ‘King of rock ‘n’ roll saved the Arizona memorial

Published on December 7, 2025

Todayville

Elvis visits the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. Handout

THE MAKICHUK REPORT

Dave Makichuk

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”
— President John F. Kennedy, visiting the Arizona Memorial on June 9, 1963

I was on an Aston Hotels media junket to Hawaii, and I had a morning off.

My wife took our daughter Rica, to spend a day at Waikiki beach, while I headed to Pearl Harbor on a bus.

It was my only chance to see the Arizona Memorial, and I was determined to do so.

A small ferry boat takes you there, and I have to say, it is a silent trip.

Everyone on board, seemed to feel the same weight of the moment.

The memorial is simple, but very impactful, to the say the least.

A list of the names, of the 1,177 sailors who died on Dec. 7, 1941, is posted along a wall.

That’s a lot of sailors, to go down with the ship, folks.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor began at 7:55 that morning. The entire attack took only one hour and 15 minutes.

But the devastation, was immense.

Of the eight U.S. battleships present, all were damaged and four were sunk. All but Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service during the war.

The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and a minelayer. More than 180 U.S. aircraft were destroyed.

Only six sailors were rescued from the burning USS Arizona, by a sailor from the nearby repair ship USS Vestal.

There is no evidence of men being trapped alive within the submerged hull of the Arizona after the ship settled on the harbor bottom, unlike on other ships like the USS Oklahoma and USS West Virginia, where trapped sailors were heard tapping on the hull for days.

SCUBA technology did not exist at that time, but at least one rescue was successful.

Civilian yard worker Julio DeCastro led a team that used pneumatic hammers to cut through the hull of the capsized USS Oklahoma and rescued 32 men who had been trapped for hours.

No U.S. aircraft carriers were present at Pearl Harbor during the attack, as USS Enterprise, USS Lexington, and USS Saratoga were all at sea on missions, while the six Japanese carriers that attacked; Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, Zuikaku — all returned to Japan safely after the raid, though most were sunk later in the war.

I only remember one moment of that day. A young Japanese woman dropped a garland of flowers, into the water above the wreck.

Like magic, it floated directly over the length of the ship, which is still leaking oil.

A moment of time, I can never forget.

Most people don’t know, that the Airzona Memorial almost didn’t happen.

If not for Elvis Presley.

In the early 1960s, fundraising for the memorial had stalled.

Less than half of the roughly $500,000 needed had been raised, and the project was slipping from view.

After his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, read about the struggle, Elvis organized a benefit concert in Hawaii.

Newly discharged from the U.S. Army and on his way to film Blue Hawaii — the King stepped in to help without hesitation.

With one carefully staged benefit at Pearl Harbor’s Bloch Arena on March 25, 1961, he reignited public interest, raising over US $60,000 (equivalent to millions today) for the stalled fundraising effort, which helped push President John F. Kennedy and Congress to finish the job.

The memorial opened the following year.

Bloch Arena on the Navy base became the venue, and Parker handled the details with a fundraiser’s ruthlessness: tickets would range from $3 to $100, and no complimentary tickets would be issued — not even to admirals or VIPs.

Reports from the time underscore Parker’s insistence that everyone pay, a point that generated headlines and maximized proceeds.

A crowd of about 4,000 packed the hall to see Elvis in his gold lamé jacket deliver a rare live set — one of only a handful of concerts he performed between his Army service and the 1968 “Comeback Special.”

He later admitted forgetting lyrics due to being out of practice but was grateful for the crowd’s noise, which covered his mistakes.

He would visit the memorial in 1965 and place a wreath there, showing his deep respect.

The Arizona, launched in June 1915, measured 608 ft, with a beam of 97 ft. She was fully modernized in 1929, after which she was crewed by 92 officers and 1,639 enlisted men.

A Pennsylvania class battleship, she was the flagship of Battleship Division One at the time.

The final living survivor of the Arizona, Lou Conter, died last year, on April 1, 2024.

At Pearl Harbor, the Arizona was hit by four bombs just after 8 a.m., the final one of these is believed to have gone through the armoured deck and blown up the ship’s forward magazines with devastating effects.

Both the captain of the Arizona, Franklin Van Valkenburgh, and rear admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd, the head of the Battleship Division One were killed on the bridge of the Arizona.

More than two million people visit the memorial each year. It is only accessible by boat and straddles the sunken hull of the Arizona, without touching it.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

US Condemns EU Censorship Pressure, Defends X

Published on December 7, 2025

Todayville

By Cindy Harper

JD Vance’s warning lands as lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic want to trade liberty for the illusion of digital order.

Stand against censorship and surveillance, join Reclaim The Net.

US Vice President JD Vance criticized the European Union this week after rumors reportedly surfaced that Brussels may seek to punish X for refusing to remove certain online speech.

In a post on X, Vance wrote, “Rumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage.”

His remarks reflect growing tension between the United States and the EU over the future of online speech and the expanding role of governments in dictating what can be said on global digital platforms.

Vance was likely referring to rumors that Brussels intends to impose massive penalties under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a censorship framework that requires major platforms to delete what regulators define as “illegal” or “harmful” speech, with violations punishable by fines up to six percent of global annual revenue.

For Vance, this development fits a pattern he’s been warning about since the spring.

In a May 2025 interview, he cautioned that “The kind of social media censorship that we’ve seen in Western Europe, it will and in some ways, it already has, made its way to the United States. That was the story of the Biden administration silencing people on social media.”

He added, “We’re going to be very protective of American interests when it comes to things like social media regulation. We want to promote free speech. We don’t want our European friends telling social media companies that they have to silence Christians or silence conservatives.”

Yet while the Vice President points to Europe as the source of the problem, a similar agenda is also advancing in Washington under the banner of “protecting children online.”

This week’s congressional hearing on that subject opened in the usual way: familiar talking points, bipartisan outrage, and the recurring claim that online censorship is necessary for safety.

The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade convened to promote a bundle of bills collectively branded as the “Kids Online Safety Package.”

The session, titled “Legislative Solutions to Protect Children and Teens Online,” quickly turned into a competition over who could endorse broader surveillance and moderation powers with the most moral conviction.

Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) opened the hearing by pledging that the bills were “mindful of the Constitution’s protections for free speech,” before conceding that “laws with good intentions have been struck down for violating the First Amendment.”

Despite that admission, lawmakers from both parties pressed ahead with proposals requiring digital ID age verification systems, platform-level content filters, and expanded government authority to police online spaces; all similar to the EU’s DSA censorship law.

Vance has cautioned that these measures, however well-intentioned, mark a deeper ideological divide. “It’s not that we are not friends,” he said earlier this year, “but there’re gonna have some disagreements you didn’t see 10 years ago.”

That divide is now visible on both sides of the Atlantic: a shared willingness among policymakers to restrict speech for perceived social benefit, and a shrinking space for those who argue that freedom itself is the safeguard worth protecting.

If you’re tired of censorship and surveillance, join Reclaim The Net.

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