(LifeSiteNews) — The Saddle Lake Cree Nation of Alberta announced that it is planning to defy Premier Danielle Smith’s ban on sex-change “treatments” for children by offering them on reserve land outside of provincial jurisdiction.
Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment, banned medical professionals from performing sex-change surgeries on anyone under age 18 and prohibited the prescription of puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors except by Ministerial Order. The United Conservative Party government invoked the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to ensure its implementation.
LGBT activists have depended on judicial support to enforce their agenda; now, they are trying a different tactic. On September 9 at an event to mark the 150th anniversary of the signing of Treaty 6, Saddle Chief Dale Steinhauer stated that she will be working to ensure that sex changes for minors will be able to continue in Alberta — on indigenous territory.
“No longer will our children and families have their rights taken away,” she announced at Fort Pitt Provincial Park, Saskatchewan. “When one group’s rights are removed, we are all affected.” The Saddle Lake Cree Nation is 170 kilometers northeast of Edmonton and, according to the CBC, it is now “working to attract clinicians to provide care on its reserve land” and starting to “fundraise to develop its health law and defend it against potential legal challenges.”
“To the medical profession and regulatory bodies like the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta: when will you stop this violence?” Steinhauer stated. She ignored the fact that sex-change “treatments” for minors can cause permanent infertility, disfigurement, and a range of other long-term and irreversible damage and has been rejected by medical bodies in the United Kingdom and many other places.
Dr. James Makokis, a Saddle Lake Cree doctor who identifies as “two-spirit,” echoed Steinhauer’s characterization. “That is a public health emergency that has to stop,” he said. “When there’s a threat to the buffalo calves in the herd, all of the adult buffalo form a circle around those young ones, because they’re the next generation.”
I suspect that the buffalo hunters of yore would have been bewildered by the suggestion that their children had a right from time immemorial to access puberty blockers and sex-change surgeries that only became mainstreamed in the last decade, but as I noted previously, the fusion of indigenous activism and the LGBT agenda is one of the strangest political coalitions of the past two decades.
Makokis claimed that facilitating sex changes was important for reducing suicide but did not mention the horrifying viral story of the young indigenous man who sought euthanasia after such “treatments.” As the Daily Mail put it in 2023:
In social media posts, Lois Cardinal, a self-proclaimed ‘sterilized First Nations post-op transsexual’ said regret over her medical transition led her to apply for a lethal injection in January. Cardinal, who lives on a native reserve near St. Paul, Alberta, posted her medical records from the request online this week to draw attention to radical gender ideology. Her case underscores the perils of Canada’s ultra-liberal healthcare system – one of the world’s most permissive for both euthanasia and affirming an individual’s chosen gender.
According to Kehewin Cree Nation councilor Tyler Youngchief, however, this move is necessary because his own child “came out” as transgender … at the age of three. The child is now seen. “The moment he started vocalizing he was a boy and that’s who he is, there was no hesitation between my spouse and myself or his siblings,” Youngchief told the CBC. “It was just full-on acceptance right from our whole family.”
It is important to highlight this: He is talking about a three-year-old.
According to the CBC: “Steinhauer cited the medicine chest clause unique to Treaty 6, which says the Crown will keep a medicine chest in the home of each federal government agent working on or near a reserve. It’s widely understood by First Nations to be a commitment to provide comprehensive health care, and Indigenous leaders have criticized the Crown for failing to live up to the promise.”
The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) 2SLGBTQQIA+ Council had previously condemned the UCP government’s bills on trans policies for minors. “Our children are a gift from the Creator and deserve every measure to ensure their safety, including the right to self-determination and affirming one’s gender through chosen pronouns,” said AFN national chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, clearly echoing the wisdom of the great chiefs of old. “We call on the Government of Alberta to immediately withdraw this harmful legislation.”
Smith did not take the bait. “They are an independent nation, so I’ll be interested to see if they’re able to attract a doctor to do that,” the Alberta premier said in response to a question about the announcement.
