Poilievre Backs Alberta’s Rule Excluding Transgender Athletes From Women’s Sports

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is backing Alberta’s law to ban transgender athletes from female-only sports after Skate Canada announced it would no longer host any national or international-level events in the province.

Skate Canada announced the new policy on Dec. 16, saying it disagrees with Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, which came into force on Sept. 1. It bars male-to-female transgender athletes from participating in female-only sports.

Premier Danielle Smith criticized Skate Canada’s decision, saying the law her government implemented was intended to protect female athletes.

“Women and girls have the right to play competitive sports in a safe and fair environment against other biological females,” she said in a Dec. 16 X post.

Poilievre commented on the issue on social media the following day, expressing support for Smith’s stance.

“Premier Smith is right: biological men don’t belong in women’s sports—period,” he wrote in a Dec. 17 post. “Protect safety and fairness for women and girls.”

Poilievre has previously backed Smith’s policy and expressed his opposition to biological males participating in women’s sports and using women’s bathrooms.

“Female spaces should be exclusively for females, not for biological males,” Poilievre said during a February 2024 press conference. “Female sports, female change rooms, female bathrooms should be for females, not for biological males.”

He also pushed back on what he called attempts to “demonize” Smith for her move to ban gender-altering surgery for minors younger than 18 and prohibit those younger than 16 from using puberty blockers under the Health Statutes Amendment Act.

“I think we should protect children,” he said during another press conference earlier that month. “Let them make adult decisions when they become adults.”

Skate Canada Decision

Skate Canada, figure skating’s governing body in Canada, said it opposes Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, which prevents transgender Alberta athletes who are 12 or older from competing in female amateur sports in the province.

“Following a careful assessment of Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, Skate Canada has determined that we are unable to host events in the province while maintaining our national standards for safe and inclusive sport,” the organization said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

The organization said it would “continue to monitor” legislative developments in Alberta and would “reassess hosting opportunities as circumstances evolve.”

Skate Canada said its decision applies only to holding events in the province and will not prevent Alberta athletes from participating in its programming or competitions.

Smith called Skate Canada‘s decision “disgraceful,” saying in a statement posted to social media that the “vast majority of Albertans and Canadians” agree with the stance taken by her government.

She said she hopes the organization “will apologize and adjust their policies once they realize they are not only compromising the fairness and safety of their athletes, but are also offside with the international community, including the International Olympic Committee, which is moving in the same direction as Alberta.”

Several other well-known Conservatives also backed Smith, including Tory MP Rachael Thomas who represents Alberta’s Lethbridge riding, Stockwell Day, a former Alberta MP and former federal Conservative cabinet minister, and former Ontario MP Michelle Ferreri.

The federal government has spoken out in support of Skate Canada’s Alberta boycott through Adam van Koeverden, its secretary of state for sport.

Van Koeverden released a statement on social media advocating for the preservation of “integrity and fairness” in sports that also promotes “opportunity” and respects human rights.

“Our government believes in a sport system that provides opportunities for all Canadians to participate and excel without discrimination, including the transgender community, which is disproportionately vulnerable, excluded and marginalized,” the Ontario MP wrote. “National sport organizations like Skate Canada operate independently from the government and make decisions with respect to the individual rights of athletes, based on science and evidence, specific to their sport.”

No upcoming national or international events are scheduled to be held in Alberta. The Skate Canada Challenge for the 2025-26 season was held in Calgary last month, and the city also served as the host for the national championships in 2024.

Gender Laws

The Fairness and Safety in Sport Act is one of three Alberta laws affecting transgender people passed last year by Smith’s government.

The province also introduced the Health Statutes Amendment Act, which placed new restrictions on gender reassignment surgery and the provision of puberty blockers for minors, and the Education Amendment Act, which requires schools to obtain parental consent before any student younger than 16 can change their name or pronouns.

LGBT advocacy groups, the Canadian Medical Association, and civil liberties organizations have condemned the laws, arguing they are discriminatory and harmful to youth and legal challenges were launched against the health-care and school policies this spring.

The legal challenges prompted the government earlier this month to invoke the Charter’s notwithstanding clause on all three to prevent them from being overturned in court. The move shields these laws from judicial scrutiny and allows them to remain in effect for up to five years.

Chandra Philip and The Canadian Press contributed to this report.