They Called Her Extreme. The IOC Just Proved Her Right.

In February 2024, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith stood in front of cameras in Edmonton and announced a policy that would bar transgender women from competing in women’s sports across the province. She said the move was about fairness and safety for female athletes. The federal Liberal government said it was about targeting vulnerable people.¹

Then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not mince words. He called Smith’s proposal “the most anti-LGBT of anywhere in the country” and linked the timing to Smith’s recent appearance with American commentator Tucker Carlson. Federal Health Minister Mark Holland said he was “deeply disturbed.” Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani accused Smith of “targeting and demonizing trans children.”²

Twenty-five months later, on March 26, 2026, the International Olympic Committee published a ten-page policy document that does precisely what Smith proposed: it limits women’s Olympic competition to biological females, determined by mandatory SRY gene screening.³

The IOC’s new policy is not ambiguous. IOC President Kirsty Coventry, the first woman to lead the body in its 132-year history, stated plainly that it would be unfair for biological males to compete in the female category. The executive board’s working group — scientists, endocrinologists, ethicists, and sports medicine specialists from five continents — reached a consensus that male sex provides performance advantages in all events relying on strength, power, and endurance.

Smith’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act became law in 2024 and took effect on September 1, 2025. It requires every school, post-secondary institution, and provincial sports organization in Alberta to limit female-only competitive divisions to athletes assigned female at birth.⁴

The backlash was fierce. In December 2025, Skate Canada announced it would no longer host national or international events in Alberta, calling the law incompatible with its standards for “safe and inclusive sport.” Federal Secretary of State for Sport Adam van Koeverden threw Ottawa’s weight behind the boycott, saying the Liberal government believes in a sport system without discrimination, “including the transgender community, which is disproportionately vulnerable, excluded and marginalized.”⁵

Tristan Sosteric / Unsplash — The Alberta legislature in Edmonton, where Premier Smith’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act was passed in 2024.

Smith called Skate Canada’s decision “disgraceful” and predicted the IOC would move in Alberta’s direction. She was right.

In November 2025, Smith invoked the Canadian Charter’s notwithstanding clause to shield the Fairness and Safety in Sport Act — along with two other transgender-related laws — from court challenges. It was the second time in a month her government used the clause. Critics called it an abuse of power. The Canadian Medical Association, Amnesty International, and Egale Canada condemned the move.

The substance of the debate, however, has now shifted. The world’s most authoritative sporting body has arrived at the same conclusion Smith did: biological sex matters in competitive sport.

The Liberal government’s position on this issue has been consistent only in its vagueness. When asked directly during the 2025 election campaign, a Liberal spokesperson declined to state a position on women’s sport eligibility, saying only that Carney would “defend Canadians’ Charter rights.” Carney himself has not publicly addressed the IOC decision.⁶

To be clear, this is not only a vindication for Smith. There are legitimate concerns about the IOC’s testing methodology. The scientist who discovered the SRY gene has publicly opposed using it to determine biological sex. France’s sports minister called the decision a “step backwards.” Ninety advocacy organizations warned the policy could harm cisgender women with natural hormone variations.

But the factual record remains. In 2024, the federal Liberal government attacked a provincial premier for proposing a policy that the world’s top sports authority adopted two years later. The federal Liberals backed organizations that boycotted Alberta for doing what the IOC now requires of every sport at the Olympic level. And when the IOC issued its ruling, Ottawa was silent.

Canadians were told that protecting women’s sport was extreme. The International Olympic Committee — advised by endocrinologists, sports scientists, and ethicists from five continents — disagrees. The question Canadians should now ask is not whether Smith went too far, but why the federal government spent two years saying she had.