Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville said on Wednesday that individual universal or gender-neutral bathrooms are allowed in schools and will be planned for, as long as there are also designated boys and girls options.
Drainville made the announcement in a news scrum ahead of the Quebec committee on gender identity’s report and recommendations.
“It’s a decision that’s well-balanced,” said Drainville. “It’s a decision that aims at creating environments that are safe, that create a sense of well-being, a sense of intimacy.
“These are the values or these are the principles that we’ve founded the decision upon and we think it’s well-balanced because you have [sanitary units] for boys and for girls, for men and women, and we’re going to have individual toilets for universal use that are going to be mixed.”
Quebec’s advisory council on gender identity will make its recommendations in December, but Drainville said he made a commitment before the committee was formed and wanted to stand by that.
“We’re living up to our word, and we’re respecting the commitment we made,” he said.
He said that 11 per cent of washrooms in schools are mixed already and that the level will be maintained.
“For the schools where there are mixed washrooms, yes, they will be maintained because we’re not going to start demolishing schools for that,” he said. “This is a pragmatic decision, so we’re not going to start undertaking major repairs for that.”
For those schools that are in the planning stage, if they are less than 30 per cent in progress, the plans will be altered to have boys, girls and individual universal washrooms.
Those beyond 30 per cent planned will continue to be built without change.
“Our conviction is that these spaces need to be preserved because it’s a question of well-being, it’s a question of intimacy, it’s a question of privacy and this is our position,” said Drainville. “We’re sticking by it and we’re very proud of it.”