Alberta UCP candidate who made transphobic comments will not be in caucus: Smith

The UCP candidate for Lacombe-Ponoka will not sit as a part of the caucus in the legislature if she wins the seat on May 29, leader Danielle Smith said Thursday.

Jennifer Johnson has come under fire after a recently released recording features her speaking to the Western Unity Group in Stettler on “The Hazards of the Public Education System and Homeschooling/Pod Schooling as a Solution” where she pushed debunked stories about schools having litter boxes for students that identify as cats, saying, “We can be top three per cent, but that little bit of poop wrecks it.”

She also said Alberta has a first-rate education system but is against transgender children as young as 14 getting double mastectomies and chemical castrations to help them transition.

“This is more than a teaspoon of poop in the cookie pouch,” Johnson said.

“It does not matter that we’re in the top three per cent in the world. Who cares if they got an 89 in Chemistry 30? Who cares that they are entering post-secondary if they are chemically castrated?”

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In a statement released Thursday ahead of the single provincial debate between Smith and Notley, the UCP leader said Johnson used “offensive language and a vile analogy when speaking about the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.”

Smith says that elected officials have a responsibility to represent all communities and “although there are certainly legitimate policy discussions to be had on youth transgender issues, the language used by Ms. Johnson regarding children identifying as transgender is simply unacceptable and does not reflect the values of our party or province.”

The video in question also shows Johnson telling the Stettler audience that “hard-core pornography” is available in elementary schools.

“And if you studied anything about pornography, you know how that affects your brain for life. So this is really serious,” she said.

“I talked to these teachers and superintendents and said, ‘How do we fix this?’ They’re stuck. They didn’t have any answers.

“We’ve got to get rid of sex education from the schools, K to 12.”

She made these calls to action as U.S. states like Florida have started banning certain books in schools.

This event took place before Johnson won the UCP nomination.

Kristopher Wells, Canada Research Chair for the public understanding of sexual and gender minority youth, called Johnson’s remarks “some of the worst and most homophobic or transphobic comments we’ve ever seen from a political candidate.”

“This is often the gateway,” said Wells, an associate professor at MacEwan University in Edmonton.

“First, you start with the dehumanization, then you move to strip away rights, and, pretty soon, you see the violence. And it’s exactly this kind of rhetoric that contributes to that.”

-With files from Alejandro Melgar and The Canadian Press