Manitoba overrules rural school board attempt to deprive students of health-care privacy

Manitoba has blocked a rural school board's attempt to strip students aged 16 and older of legal protections entitling them to confidential health care, issuing a formal directive that threatens the board's dissolution if it does not comply.

The Hanover School Division passed a motion in June instructing staff to disregard Manitoba's three-decade-old "mature minor" legislation, which grants students 16 and over the freedom to access health care independent of caregiver oversight. Education Minister Tracy Schmidt issued a directive on July 22 overturning the motion, citing "significant concerns" with what would amount to "unconstitutionally" restricting health-care access to students with disabilities, mental health needs, and other conditions.

Schmidt wrote that her department, along with Manitoba Health, reviewed the plan and found it violates the Manitoba Health Care Directives Act, the Public Health Act, and rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. "Your presumed knowledge of your legal and constitutional responsibilities would lead a reasonable observer to conclude you passed this motion at best for public attention and at worst to pick a fight," Schmidt, who has worked as a lawyer, wrote in her directive to board chair Dallas Wiebe.

The Hanover board also created a "responsible use of education resources" policy forbidding schools from using materials that "place primary emphasis on sexual desire rather than legitimate educational objectives." The Hanover Parent Alliance for Diversity characterized both policies as targeting 2SLGBTQ+ youth and equating the materials rule to a book ban.

Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara penned a separate letter in July to Steinbach Regional Secondary School's health clinic, which provides mental health supports, reproductive care, referrals, and prescriptions to students. Asagwara affirmed that health-care providers are legally and professionally bound under provincial legislation and the Charter to uphold the rights of mature minors to make informed decisions about their own health care.

Schmidt said the "nuclear" option in her directive—dissolving the board and appointing a trustee in its place—remains available if the division does not comply, though she expressed hope it would not come to that. Schmidt and the health minister plan to visit the Steinbach clinic soon.