From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

A federally funded pro-LGBT group is challenging Alberta’s pro-family legislation that bans giving often sterilizing puberty blockers to kids, claiming sex “reassignment” procedures are necessary for children.

On December 9, Egale Canada, an LGBT activist group, filed an injunction against Alberta’s newly passed Health Statutes Amendment Act (HSAA), also called Bill 26, at the Calgary’s Court of King’s Bench 

“If you deny a kid access to blockers and then they go through permanent changes via puberty, they then have to pursue medical treatment and interventions to undo the effects of [puberty], so that is how the coercion is operating,” Bennett Jensen, legal director at Egale Canada, told CBC News. 

Alberta’s new legislation, passed last week, reflects “the government’s commitment to build a health care system that responds to the changing needs of Albertans,” it said.  

The bill will amend the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”  

It will also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”  

Egale Canada, which receives funding from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government, has paired with Skipping Stone and five Alberta families to challenge the new law. The group is using five gender-confused children to argue their case.  

They claim that the new legislation violates both the national Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the provincial Alberta Bill of Rights.

The court filing effectively argues that if the Alberta bill is upheld, the gender-confused children, some as young as ten, will not be able to halt naturally occurring puberty through artificial means, which presents an impediment to their ability to “transition.”

While some are objecting to the common-sense legislation, the Alberta bill has found the support of an alliance for detransitioners who regret their “gender transition” process. 

Despite the claims of LGBT activists, there is overwhelming evidence showing that people who undergo so-called “gender transitioning” are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not given irreversible surgery.  

Transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, and infertility.   

Meanwhile, a recent study on the side effects of transgender “sex change” surgeries discovered that 81 percent of those who had undergone “sex change” surgeries in the past five years reported experiencing pain simply from normal movement in the weeks and months that followed – and that many other side effects manifest as well.  

From the Fraser Institute

By Mackenzie Moir and Bacchus Barua

Canadian patients in 2024 waited longer than ever for medical treatment, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

“While most Canadians understand that wait times are a major problem, we’ve now reached an unprecedented and unfortunate milestone for delayed access to care,” said Bacchus Barua, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2024.

The annual study, based on a survey of physicians across Canada, this year reports a median wait time of 30 weeks from referral by a general practitioner (i.e. family doctor) to consultation with a specialist to treatment, for procedures across 12 medical specialties including several types of surgery.

This year’s median wait (30 weeks) is the longest ever recorded—longer than the 27.7 weeks in 2023 and the 20.9 weeks in 2019 (before the pandemic), and 222 per cent longer than the 9.3 weeks in 1993 when the Fraser Institute began tracking wait times. Among the provinces, Ontario recorded the shortest median wait time (23.6 weeks, up from 21.6 weeks in 2023) while Prince Edward Island recorded the longest (77.4 weeks—although data for P.E.I. should be interpreted with caution due to fewer survey responses compared to other provinces).

Among the various specialties, national median wait times were longest for orthopedic surgery (57.5 weeks) and neurosurgery (46.2 weeks), and shortest for radiation (4.5 weeks) and medical oncology treatments (4.7 weeks). For diagnostic technologies, wait times were longest for CT scans (8.1 weeks), MRIs (16.2 weeks) and ultrasounds (5.2 weeks).

“Long wait times can result in increased suffering for patients, lost productivity at work, a decreased quality of life, and in the worst cases, disability or death,” said Mackenzie Moir, senior policy analyst at the Fraser Institute and study co-author.

Median wait times by province (in weeks)

• In 2024, physicians across Canada reported a median wait time of 30.0 weeks between a referral from a GP and receipt of treatment. Up from 27.7 in 2023.
• This is 222% longer than the 9.3 week wait Canadian patients could expect in 1993.
• Ontario reported the shortest total wait (23.6 weeks), followed by Quebec (28.9 weeks) and British Columbia (29.5 weeks).
• Patients waited longest in Prince Edward Island (77.4 weeks), New Brunswick (69.4 weeks) and Newfoundland and Labrador (43.2 weeks).
• Patients waited the longest for Orthopaedic Surgery (57.5 weeks) and Neurosurgery (46.2 weeks).
• By contrast, patients faced shorter waits for Radiation Oncology (4.5 weeks) and Medical Oncology (4.7 weeks).
• The national 30 week total wait is comprised of two segments. Referral by a GP to consultation with a specialist: 15.0 weeks. Consultation with a specialist to receipt of treatment: 15.0 weeks.
• More than 1900 responses were received across 12 specialties and 10 provinces.
• After seeing a specialist, Canadian patients waited 6.3 weeks longer than what physicians consider to be clinically reasonable (8.6 weeks).
• Across 10 provinces, the study estimated that patients in Canada were waiting for 1.5 million procedures in 2024.
• Patients also suffered considerable delays for diagnostic technology: 8.1 weeks for CT scans, 16.2 weeks for MRI scans, and 5.2 weeks for Ultrasound.