Understanding Alberta Bills 9, 12, 13
Learn more about these 2025 bills.
Update: as of December 2025, Bills 9, 12 and 13 have received royal assent. Note that an injunction against bill 26, which blocks the ban on gender-affirming care for Alberta youth and upholds access, is still in effect. Stay tuned here for updates.
2025 Statements on Bill 9
Health Sciences Association of Alberta
Egale Canada & Skipping Stone Foundation
2024 Statements on Bills 26, 27, 29
Alberta Psychiatric Association
Alberta College of Family Physicians
Egale Canada and Skipping Stone Foundation
O'Brien Institute for Public Health
Precision Equity & Social Justice Office
Canadian Centre for Gender + Sexual Diversity- for Educators
Canadian Mental Health Association Resource List
Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline
LGBTQ+ Healthcare Directory Resource List
Trans Patient Care guide – College of Registered Nurses of Alberta
WPATH Standards of Care for Working with Transgender and Gender-Diverse Individuals
An affirming approach to caring for transgender and gender-diverse youth
Considerations in the Care of Transgender Persons
Gender-Affirming Surgery for Transgender Individuals: Perceived Satisfaction and Barriers to Care
A Holistic Framework for the Evaluation of Kidney Function in a Gender-Diverse Landscape
Social Media and Safe Spaces: A Mixed Methods Study on Identity Formation for LGBTQ+ Albertans
Learning about Bill 12
Background
Bill 9 invokes the notwithstanding clause to hinder legal challenge to previous bills 26, 27, & 29
- Bill 26 bans gender-affirming medical treatments for youth under 16
- Bill 27 mandates parental consent for human sexuality & gender education, and for use of students' preferred names and pronouns
- Bill 29 requires youth athletes to gender verification to compete in amateur girls' and women's sports
Health Research
- Systematic reviews supports that gender-affirming treatments improve health outcomes for youth:
- 50% decrease in suicidality
- 60% decrease in depression, anxiety, stigma, and mental health challenges
Impacts
- Interferes with health providers' ability to have safe medical conversations and provide established standards of care
- Disregards health research and limits researcher's ability to advance knowledge
What Can I Do?
- Sign the TransAction Alberta petition
- Use our letter to your MLA template (link below)
- Share this infographic
Learning about Bill 12
Background
- Bill 12 introduces major changes to disability support benefits for more than 79,000 Albertans who rely on Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH). The new Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP) will cut $200 (11.5%) in monthly benefits.
- Albertans who rely on AISH are already below Canada’s poverty line. Disability-related expenses, estimated at 20% above normal living costs, make the impact even worse.
Health Research
- People living at low income experience higher levels of chronic disease, infectious disease, poor mental health and substance use disorders compared to those at higher income.
- They are also at risk of housing and food insecurity that exacerbates poor health outcomes.
Impacts
- Many current AISH recipients will fall into deep poverty, and may face difficult decisions on their financial priorities: housing, food, medicine, transportation. All of these will exacerbate current health conditions of patients.
What Can I Do?
- Learn more about Bill 12 and its impact on persons with disabilities who currently receive AISH
- Contact your government representative to express concerns about Bill 12
- Share this information resource with others
Learning About Bill 13
Background
- Bill 13 will prevent regulators from making education or training mandatory unless it relates to professional competence and ethics.
- Professional bodies would not be permitted to make cultural competency, unconscious bias, or diversity, equity and inclusion education or training mandatory
Health Research
- Substantial evidence supports discrimination, bias, and culturally unsafe interactions severely damage a person’s sense of well-being, trust, or safety in health systems, and are associated with poorer health outcomes, including mortality, across many domains
Impacts
- Bill 13 will make it harder for professional regulators to protect the public from discrimination, bias, and unsafe practices by removing tools that can help health care providers reduce harm to Albertans
What Can I Do?
- Use Template to send your own individual letter to a government representative to ask them to vote NO to Bill 13
- Share this infographic with others
