This news release is being distributed on behalf of the Member for Great Slave. It represents the views of the Member, not the views of the Legislative Assembly or other Members.
(YELLOWKNIFE) Friday, November 21, 2025 – Since 2024, with continued attacks on trans peoples’ rights by the Government of Alberta, the NWT’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community has called upon the Government of the Northwest Territories to provide safe access to out of territory health care for our trans and gender diverse residents.
Those calls for action have now become a desperate plea. The Government of Alberta introduced Bill 9 on November 18, 2025, a mere two days before the International Trans Day of Remembrance. This Bill denies trans youth their Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protections by invoking the notwithstanding clause, shielding the government’s 2024 legislation from rights-based court challenges.
It is the Alberta government’s decision to eliminate Charter rights for some, so they can successfully enact unconstitutional legislation that is currently under legal challenge, and limit trans health care. It is not lost on me that if Bill 9 passes, we will end up mourning trans folks who can no longer safely access life-affirming health care.
Despite the Minister of Health and Social Services assuring me and residents publicly that health practitioners in Alberta provide safe and affirming care to NWT residents, I must insist on behalf of those residents that in this political climate, Alberta is not a safe place for trans folks to receive care. The Minister said in May 2025 that she “has directed her staff to secure alternate out-of-territory care pathways so that physicians can refer patients to a jurisdiction where they may continue to receive the care they need.” The time for those pathways is now.
Today, I am calling on the GNWT, specifically the Minister of Health and Social Services and the Premier, to take real and concrete action on their past commitments to support 2SLGBTQIA+ people of the NWT by:
- redirecting all health care that is required out of territory away from Alberta to another jurisdiction, and
- to work closely with the Northern Mosaic Network to implement all recommendations from their groundbreaking research project with the University of Manitoba, What We Heard: Patient and Provider Perspectives on the 2020 Health Care for Transgender, Non-binary, and Gender Nonconforming People: Guidelines for the Northwest Territories
For further information, please contact:
KATE REID, GREAT SLAVE
@email