The provincial government has said a rural Manitoba school board can’t force staff to disregard legal protections entitling older high school students to confidential health care.

That’s according to a directive that Manitoba Education Minister Tracy Schmidt issued to the Hanover School Division board last month, overturning a board motion.

“I think it’s fantastic that the minister has held them accountable,” a parent and spokesperson with the Hanover Parent Alliance for Diversity told CBC News on Wednesday. CBC has agreed not to name the parent due to safety concerns for her and her child.

“Having an agenda in the Bible Belt, pushing the parents’ right movement ideology and violating the rights of the child, violating human rights, violating law, is unacceptable. That’s not what a school board should be doing.”

The Hanover school board’s recent motion told staff to disregard the province’s three-decade old Manitoba “mature minor” legislation, which gives students 16 and older the freedom to access health care independent of caregiver oversight.

In her July 22 directive, Schmidt cited “significant concerns” with what would amount to “unconstitutionally” restricting health-care access to Hanover students 16 and above “with disabilities, mental health needs and other conditions.”

“I would encourage the Hanover school board to focus on their mandate, which is to ensure that the students in Hanover School Division have access to all of the educational resources … and that they continue to find opportunities to provide health-care services in their school division,” Schmidt said in an interview Wednesday.

She wrote that her department, along with Manitoba Health, reviewed Hanover’s plans and found they violate Manitoba’s 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 a July 22 letter to Dallas Wiebe, the chair of the school board.

“We encourage you to focus on the education of children in your division and leave the health care policy development to the health care experts.”

Wiebe did not respond to CBC’s request for comment ahead of publication.

The controversial Hanover board motion passed June 2. It stipulated that a parent or guardian in the division should “be regarded as primary health-care provider for their child. As such the ‘mature minor’ category is not to be honoured in any HSD building.”

At that same meeting, the board also created a “responsible use of education resources” policy that forbade schools from utilizing materials that “place primary emphasis on sexual desire rather than legitimate educational objectives such as human health.”

‘They need to follow laws’

There’s been local pushback.

A petition titled “Oppose new Hanover School Division health policy” garnered over 1,100 signatures.

The Hanover Parent Alliance for Diversity suggested both new Hanover policies target 2SLGBTQ+ students in particular, equating the rule on materials to a book ban, and calling the “mature minor” directive discriminatory.

“Hanover School Board is a public school board, so they have to keep separating church from state, and they have to believe in whatever they believe in private,” said the alliance spokesperson.

“They need to follow laws in the secular world.”

Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara also penned a letter in July to Steinbach Regional Secondary School’s health clinic, which provides mental health supports, reproductive care, referrals and prescriptions to students.

Asagwara thanked its nurse practitioners and other staff for their work to support youth.

The clinic offers “safe and compassionate care at critical moments” in the lives of students, who may be seeking mental health support, primary care, reproductive health care or “guidance in navigating complex personal challenges,” the minister wrote.

“The services you provide as trusted health experts help ensure students can access care with dignity.”

Asagwara also asserted health-care providers are legally and professionally bound, under provincial legislation and the Charter, to uphold the “the rights of mature minors to make informed decisions about their own health care.”

Neither Asagwara nor Schmidt’s letters explicitly referenced the 2SLGBTQ+ community, or how those youth might specifically be impacted by a policy that would restrict their access to confidential health supports.

On Wednesday, Schmidt said that is a concern government raised with the division, and one reason they called a meeting with division officials this summer.

If all else fails, the “nuclear” option in her directive would entail dissolving the board and appointing a trustee in its place, Schmidt said, but added she hopes it doesn’t come to that.

“We all want the same things here, and that is for kids to have access to high-quality education, for kids to be healthy, for kids to be safe,” she said.

“I’m going to continue to work with Hanover School Division to make sure that every single child in Manitoba has that opportunity.”

Schmidt and the health minister plan to visit Steinbach Regional Secondary School’s clinic soon.