Quebec schools must have designated boys and girls bathrooms: education minister
Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville said on Wednesday that individual universal or gender-neutral bathrooms are allowed in schools and will be planned for, as long as there are also designated boys and girls options.
Drainville made the announcement in a news scrum ahead of the Quebec committee on gender identity's report and recommendations.
"It's a decision that's well-balanced," said Drainville. "It's a decision that aims at creating environments that are safe, that create a sense of well-being, a sense of intimacy.
"These are the values or these are the principles that we've founded the decision upon and we think it's well-balanced because you have [sanitary units] for boys and for girls, for men and women, and we're going to have individual toilets for universal use that are going to be mixed."
According to the Quebec Official Gazette, "school service centres must ensure that individual, universal and accessible toilets are available for students who need or wish to use them. These facilities must be appropriate, safe and strategically located for adequate supervision, such as in a common circulation area."
New policy is discriminatory: trans activist
Celeste Trianon is the director of Juste Trans, a legal clinic supporting trans and non-binary people across Quebec.
She finds the new policy, which only allows for solo mixed-used bathrooms, discriminatory.
"It's basically a regime of separate but equal against trans and non-binary students and really anyone who would not feel safe using a gendered washroom. This directive does not respond to any problems. It does not respond to the fact that there are assaults, sexual assaults, and so much more happening in school bathrooms," she said.
She said the policy creates more problems for trans and non-binary students without making bathrooms any safer. She is organizing a protest on May 10 against the directive.
Quebec's advisory council on gender identity will make its recommendations in December, but Drainville said he made a commitment before the committee was formed and wanted to stand by that.
"We're living up to our word, and we're respecting the commitment we made," he said.
He said that 11 per cent of washrooms in schools are mixed already and that the level will be maintained.
"For the schools where there are mixed washrooms, yes, they will be maintained because we're not going to start demolishing schools for that," he said. "This is a pragmatic decision, so we're not going to start undertaking major repairs for that."
Schools at beginning planning stages will need to follow mandate
For those schools that are in the planning stage, if they are less than 30 per cent in progress, the plans will be altered to have boys, girls and individual universal washrooms.
Those beyond 30 per cent planned will continue to be built without change.
"Our conviction is that these spaces need to be preserved because it's a question of well-being, it's a question of intimacy, it's a question of privacy and this is our position," said Drainville. "We're sticking by it and we're very proud of it."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Trump confronts repeated boos during raucous Libertarian convention speech
Donald Trump was booed repeatedly while addressing Saturday night’s Libertarian Party National Convention.
This type of screen time has the worst effect on kids: experts
According to some experts, there is one type of screen time that is continuously excessive, and it's having a severe effect on our children.
Family of toddler found dead at small-town Ont. daycare no closer to answers after year of investigation
A year has passed since two-year-old Vienna Irwin was found on the property of a home-based daycare in small-town Ontario, but her family says they are no closer to answers of what happened that day.
Grayson Murray, two-time PGA Tour winner, dead at 30
Two-time PGA Tour winner Grayson Murray died Saturday morning at age 30, one day after he withdrew from the Charles Schwab Cup Challenge at Colonial.
Humboldt Broncos crash victims and families react to decision to deport truck driver
The family of one of the victims of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018 says they are 'thankful' for a decision by a Calgary immigration board to deport the driver of the truck involved.
Fatal plane crash reported near Squamish, B.C.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has confirmed it is working with local Mounties and the BC Coroners Service after a plane crash near Squamish, B.C. Friday night.
'God forgives but we don’t': Loud outburst from stabbing victim’s family during sentencing hearing
An emotional outburst in a London, Ont. courtroom Friday disrupted the sentencing hearing of a woman who pleaded guilty for her part in the death of 29-year-old Mohammed Abdallah.
Three dead after vehicle plunged down a 100-foot embankment in Shediac, N.B.
Three people have died after a vehicle veered off the road in Shediac N.B., Friday morning.
Appeal denied for Edmonton soldier accused of trying to kill her 3 children
An Edmonton woman found guilty of trying to kill her three children has been denied an appeal.