Keep Human Rights Commission out of Alberta Education Act

Premier Alison Redford’s Alberta Conservatives have introduced measures in their Education Act that would elevate human rights commissions to enforce abstractions of social variety above the primary right of parents to be their children’s principal educators.

Photo by Tamanna Rumee on Unsplash

It isn’t only that Redford would be trampling parental rights in pursuit of Alberta Teachers’ Association votes. The crucial issue is that the act subordinates education to the soft totalitarianism of the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

It is difficult to imagine a greater public policy fiasco and a state branch in greater disrepute than human rights commissions. Human rights are essential, but their enforcement by commissions has an appalling record of violating religious liberty, censoring the press and abusing fundamental legal rights of Canadians.

Numerous legal malformations afflict the commissions. They lack definition of the terms they use to prosecute citizens; they offer no presumption of …