Alberta will have trouble with its sex-change policy

From: Stephanie Stevens
Guelph Mercury, Canada
Alberta will have trouble with its sex-change policy
April 28, 2009
Janet Keeping

The government of Alberta recently announced that public funding for
sex reassignment surgery will be eliminated to save about $ 700,000 of
a roughly $13-billion annual health care budget.

Concern about the size of provincial expenditures on health is
legitimate, but removing funding for sex reassignment surgery is not.
Why? Because it is always wrong to single out a much persecuted
minority -- in this case, transsexuals -- for a deprivation unique to
them.

The delisting is almost assuredly contrary to Alberta's human rights
legislation, the Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act,
and thus illegal. Trying to justify the delisting, Alberta's Minister
of Health and Wellness Ron Liepert noted that only about 20 people
will be adversely impacted.

This is irrelevant. It is precisely to counter the tendency of
majorities to make decisions that oppress minorities, such as
transsexuals, that we have human rights laws in the first place.

Complaints have already been filed with the Alberta Human Rights
Commission. A similar complaint was filed in Ontario when funding for
sex reassignment surgery was eliminated there. The Ontario government
lost that complaint and had to reinstate funding for the surgery.

Alberta Finance Minister Iris Evans has been quoted as saying "she was
not aware of the Ontario human rights case." Lindsay Blackett,
minister responsible for the Alberta Human Rights Commission, has
admitted that the Ontario experience was not mentioned when the
decision to eliminate sex reassignment surgery funding was taken. It
would seem impossible, but sadly is not: the Alberta government
delisted the surgery without knowing the move is almost assuredly
contrary to its own human rights law.

And does the Alberta government not see the parallels with the Delwyn
Vriend case? Vriend lost his job and filed a complaint with the
Alberta Human Rights Commission alleging he was dismissed because he
is gay. The commission refused the complaint, noting that the wording
of Alberta's human rights law does not include "sexual orientation" as
an illegal ground of discrimination. Alberta courts agreed, but the
Supreme Court of Canada did not. In 1998 it ruled that, given the
constitutional guarantee of equality in the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, gays could not be excluded from the protections offered to
other groups by anti-discrimination legislation. Even though Alberta
law does not state that "sexual orientation" is an illegal basis of
discrimination, it is.

The same will be true of "gender identity." Even though these words
are not mentioned in Alberta's human rights statute, gender identity
discrimination will be declared illegal by the courts, and the
reasoning will be exactly parallel to that in the Vriend case.

So the delisting of sex reassignment surgery will be reversed. If
sooner, money will be saved. If later, after the courts have forced
reversal, much money will have been wasted -- as was the case when the
Alberta government fought the Vriend case all the way to the Supreme
Court.

As other commentators have noted, the sex reassignment surgery funding
case is one "the government cannot possibly win."

In any event, the amount of money saved by delisting the surgery is
trivial given the enormity of the health care budget -- $700,000 of
$13 billion. This works out to 19 cents annually per Albertan.

Some commentators suggest that even the $700,000 saving would never be
realized. Transsexuals denied sex reassignment surgery -- a procedure
deemed necessary by the medical profession -- will almost assuredly
require other medical services, such as additional psychiatric care.

So, this funding cut is not about saving money. If it's really true
that health care expenditures need to be trimmed, ways could be found
to reduce costs equitably, for example, by funding only partially some
services which are now funded fully.

Or contrary to all logic and ethics, the Alberta government could do
as it plans and deprive a small number of Albertans of surgery they
desperately need and, in the result, probably save nothing.

Janet Keeping Is President of the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics
in Leadership. Troy Media Corporation

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