Saskatchewan’s Official Opposition is highlighting a hole in a Saskatoon school’s roof which has been there since the last school year, comparing that lack of action to the Sask Party government’s emergency debate being held today (Tues) about its pronoun policy for schools and invoking the notwithstanding clause to make it happen. The policy means children under 16 can’t change their pronouns at school without consent from parents.

NDP Leader Carla Beck says last June, there was a tour of the damage at Monique-Rousseau elementary school in the Haultain neighbourhood. The Sask Party’s Gordon Wyant and Marv Friesen attended and were shown the hole in the roof, the lack of temperature control and the overcrowding. Last month a petition with signatures from about 200 parents was submitted calling for the government to get it fixed. Beck adds that last week the building flooded and classes were cancelled on October 6th. Two classrooms and the library have been deemed unusable, making the overcrowding even more challenging.

She compares that to the development of the pronoun policy which the government says took nine days after receiving 18 letters, and of those, only seven identified themselves as parents.