The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear a challenge to Saskatchewan's Parents' Bill of Rights, the 2023 law that requires parental consent before a student under 16 can use a different gender-related name or pronoun at school. The case has drawn national attention, not only for the subject itself but for the constitutional question underneath it, and the court granted leave to appeal in November 2025.
The law has a layered history. In August 2023 the province first introduced the rules as a policy under the Education Act. A month later, after a hearing, the Court of King's Bench granted an injunction pausing the policy, accepting evidence that it could cause irreparable harm to gender-diverse youth. The government responded by passing the rules into law as Bill 137 in October 2023, and it invoked section 33 of the Charter, the notwithstanding clause, to shield the law from being struck down. Alongside the pronoun rules, the law also requires schools to notify parents before certain sexual-education content is taught and lets parents withdraw their child from it.
The notwithstanding clause is the heart of what makes this case matter nationally. Section 33 lets a legislature override certain Charter rights for a renewable five-year period, and it exists to balance the authority of elected legislatures against the courts. The newer question now before the Supreme Court is what a court can still do once that clause has been used. Saskatchewan's Court of Appeal ruled in August 2025 that even though the law cannot be struck down while section 33 is invoked, a court can still hear the challenge and issue a declaration saying whether the law violates the Charter. Both the province and the challengers asked the Supreme Court to weigh in, and the court is considering the appeal separately from a related challenge to Quebec's law on religious symbols, which also relies on the notwithstanding clause.
The two sides frame the law very differently, and the case gives each a full hearing. Premier Scott Moe's government describes the law as making sure parents are involved in significant decisions about their children, and the province's justice minister has argued that section 33 was used exactly as it was meant to be, as a legitimate democratic tool. The challengers, led by the UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity together with Egale Canada, argue the law causes irreparable harm to gender-diverse youth, that it can force teachers to out or misgender students, and that it breaches the Charter's guarantees of security of the person and equality under sections 7 and 15. The Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation has said it puts teachers in a difficult position, and the province's child and youth advocate raised similar concerns in a 2024 report.
While the appeal proceeds, the law remains in effect, and Saskatchewan's largest school divisions have said their staff are expected to follow it. The Supreme Court's eventual ruling will settle the immediate question in Saskatchewan, but because it turns on how far the notwithstanding clause reaches, its answer is likely to matter well beyond one province.
Binder University follows this as a developing legal story and takes no position on the policy itself or on how anyone should feel about it. This is education about the law and the case at hand, not legal advice, but as always welcomes comments from readers and members alike.