Thread by @DrJaredWesley

Our 7 year-old wanted to attend today's committee meeting on @DShepYEG's private member's bill, The Anti-Racism Act (Bill 204). So I took her. Here are her random reactions. 🧵#ableg

[Here's some background on the bill👇. Keep in mind: she's 7, and I had never once spoken to her about race-based data before the hearing.

I scribbled her whispered comments as the hearing went on, and a few as we drove to her Kid Ninja class. This is pretty close to verbatim.]

Why are most of the people of colour in the gallery and on the videoconferencing [instead of at the committee table]?

[Short pause]

How come they can eat and we can't?

[Long Pause]

I mean, there's plenty of room up there at the table. [Thank goodness my mask covered my 🤣.]

[At this point in the session, the Committee had to decide whether or not to allow members of the public, seated in the gallery, to provide testimony on the bill.]

Why do they have to vote on letting people talk to them about laws? I thought this was a HeArInG. They should do some more LiStEnInG.

[30 minutes later]

Why did they just decide not to let all of the Indigenous and Black people talk to them? [She seemed genuinely perplexed.]

[After @JanisIrwin's statement on the bill]

I know that security guy said we can't pass them notes or anything, but what about a hug? I'd like to give Janis a hug right now.

Wait, so that [UCP] guy on the video just said he didn't have enough info to vote [to let the bill proceed]. But he's the same guy who voted not to hear people talk about the bill?

[1 min later]

Did he just say he didn't want to let the whole legislature talk about the bill?

[On the way to the gym]

I think I know why some of those people don't want to collect information about people of colour.

They either don't want to know their challenges. Or they don't want to know because they'd have to do something about it. [Me: 🤯]

[Long pause]

That's probably why they wouldn't let any of us at the back of the room talk.

[Another long pause]

What kind of government doesn't want to know about people's challenges?

[Short pause]

I think we need a new government. [Fin]

As a dad, I have mixed emotions about the whole thing. On one hand, her teachers are doing a fantastic job teaching about discrimination and empathy. On the other, I worry about how a change in curriculum could upend that.

On one hand, I'm proud to see her think critically about the world around her. On the other, I worry about what another decade of head-in-the-sand government approaches to racism will do to her morale and sense of purpose.

Bill 204 is a great piece of legislation. Likely one of the most thoughtfully-crafted and publicly-engaged private member's bills to come out of this legislature. (Kudos @DShepYEG and team.) It deserves a debate in the legislature.

UCP members of the committee hid behind bogus critiques around privacy. Once that was debunked, they said they needed "more time" to "come together" and bring forward their own antiracism bill. None is forthcoming.

Many will look at today as a bad one for Alberta democracy. It was, in many ways. But - sitting in that gallery with my daughter and members of various BIPOC communities - I couldn't help but feel a bit hopeful. This could be a beginning, not a final stage.

And yes, I will be taking my 7yo to as many committee meetings as she wants. She's a riot.

globalnews.ca/news/8707601/a…