Parental consent for pronoun changes in schools
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
174.10362
Summary
Jonathan Bradley interviews Alberta Education Minister Demetrius Nicolaitis at the United Conservative Party Annual General Meeting (UCPAGM) in Calgary. In this episode, Jonathan interviews Alberta's Education Minister, former cabinet ministers, and party members on topics such as gender identity in schools, parental consent in schools and so-called "wokeness" in schools.
Transcript
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This is Jonathan Bradley coming to you live at the Alberta United Conservative Party annual
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general meeting with the Western Standard. We're going to be interviewing various cabinet ministers,
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former cabinet ministers at this convention. And one of the ministers who I'm speaking with right
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now is Alberta Education Minister Demetrius Nicolaitis. Demetrius, how are you doing today?
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Great, great. It's great to be here at the convention. Largest political convention in
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Alberta and I think Canadian history. So really excited to be here.
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Thank you. So my first question for you is Alberta Premier Daniel Smith spoke at length in your
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mandate letter about educating students about skilled trades in their schools. Why is skilled
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trades education so valuable? Well, you're bang on. You know, the Premier did talk at length in the
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mandate letter about trades education and more broadly career education. And this is critically
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important because we need to make sure that we set our students up for success. We need to make sure
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they're set up for success in the job market. They have the right workplace skills that are needed.
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They have the they have a degree of workplace experience so that if they don't choose to go to
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post-secondary after they finish and they go into the workplace, they're ready to go. And as well,
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it's important that they have a good understanding of the breadth of different career options that
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exist. You know, one of those areas is specifically the trades. As you mentioned, we have a shortage.
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We need to encourage more young people to look at careers in the trades. They're incredibly valuable
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careers and occupations. Oftentimes, you you complete your journeyman certificate without piles of debt,
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with a job well ahead of your peers. So it's something that we're strongly encouraging our students
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to take a look at. One policy resolution being debated at the Alberta UCPAGM is about parental
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consent for pronoun, name and pronoun changes in schools. Should the policy pass, where do you stand
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on enacting it? We're having very active conversations right now specifically on this. So, you know,
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looking forward to the debate later on today, looking forward to the the guidance and direction of our
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party members. Just on that note, I want to say that I'm always so grateful of the way our party
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operates, that we do operate in a democratic and transparent way and have this process whereby people
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can bring resolutions to the floor, debate them, discuss them in an open format. I know other parties
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don't work that way, but democracy is an incredibly important principle for us. So we are having active
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conversations about this topic currently within government. And so I think the outcome of today
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will help further inform the conversation. We're listening to parents, to teachers, to party members
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and others about what this might look like. My final question is, a number of parents in the last few
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months have expressed concerns about critical race theory, gender ideology, topics like that being
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taught in schools. We saw that with the One Million March for Children. What will you be doing to combat
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so-called wokeness in schools? Yeah, absolutely. And of course, you know, the provincial government
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has the final sign-off when it comes to the approved curriculum. And as many would know, we're in the
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middle of the process right now of redeveloping our curriculum, including developing a new social
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studies curriculum. So that's going to be an important part to make sure that our students are set up
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with the right foundation for success and learn the things that are necessary for them to be
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successful in the future. So we're taking a very close look at making sure financial literacy
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is a mandatory component from K to 12. We're looking at our social studies curriculum and other
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components to make sure that, again, we set our students up for success. Thank you.