A good political scientist is also, at the very least, a bit of an historian. Alberta, like the rest of the western world, had not had gay rights in the mainstream for the vast majority of its history. Then in 1997 the Vriend Case was decided at the Supreme Court stating that a Catholic School Board was legally wrong to fire a teacher for the sole reason he was a homosexual. In other words, one's religion didn't trump another person's Charter rights. This set off a firestorm of debate across the province. Premier Ralph Klein vowed at one point to use the Charter's Notwithstanding Clause, to stand up to the Courts pushing their wildly anti-family agenda. Many Alberta politicians were furious at the ruling. Many Albertans were disgusted and they let it be known. That was in 1997. Alberta has always been a socially backwards province. It is a province of three major cities: Grand Prairie, Edmonton, and Calgary and a pile of small towns and other smal...
A discussion on political, economic and social issues in British Columbia, and Canada