The Doug Ford government has finally released a revised 2019 Health and Physical Education program for Ontario elementary schools. It should be implemented for the school year 2019-2020. The changes to the 2015 Wynne Liberal radical sex-curriculum continues to pose dangers to children. However, one positive change is that parents now have been given the option to withdraw their children from any component of the curriculum.
Policy/Memorandum No. 162 instructs all school boards to develop a mechanism to permit parents to have their children opt out of the sex-curriculum. Parents should note that this is a small improvement for the radical and child abusive curriculum is still flawed and dangerous in so many ways. (We suggest that parents make a copy of the new opt out Policy and use it at their local schools. Be prepared for resistance to exempting your children, and so don’t be afraid to stand your ground.)
We mention two components of the curriculum that are still very problematic. One is the topic of gender identity. The concept of gender is ideologically and politically driven. It’s not based on science or biology. However, the curriculum permits it to be taught to vulnerable children. The other danger is the inclusion of “Community Partners.” This allows teachers to use people from the community, including activists, to come to the classroom to teach some aspect of the sex-curriculum. Whether parents must be first informed is not clear. Nevertheless, it remains a component of the curriculum that can too easily be exploited by those that wish to do so. We should also not forget that the convicted child predator Benjamin Levin was the primary architect of the Wynne 2015 sex-curriculum. Nobody in government has ever apologized to parents about this or retracted his input. This is why many parents protested and wanted the explicit curriculum complete scrapped.
Community Partners makes possible for representatives from activist organizations such as The Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity, Planned Parenthood and EGALE Canada Human Rights Trust to actually instruct any sex-lesson, present a workshop or conduct a field trip for any school or board. Parents need to closely monitor what’s going on in their local schools in order to protect the well-being and safety of their children. Don’t leave this to the government, the board, the school or the corrupt teacher unions. Parents need to remember that these institutions all supported the 2015 version of the radical sex-curriculum. The few changes that have been made for 2019, such as opting out of the curriculum, are the result of parents and groups opposed to the curriculum from the beginning when it was first introduced. Doug Ford was elected because he promised to repeal the sex-curriculum. The revised curriculum is proof that he has totally reneged on his promise.
Ontario parents should not forget the long eight-year board/legal battle that the Hamilton father Steve Tourloukis fought to simply have the option to withdraw his children for the toxic material. He legally lost the battle but morally it was a victory. Today’s government announcement that parents can remove their children from the curriculum is no doubt fruit of that battle. The legal fight was not in vain. Parents should now opt out of sex-curriculum completely, and if at all possible remove their children from public education. It has become corrupt in so many ways. Our heartfelt thank you goes out once more to Tourloukis for his courageous strong stand for choice in education and the respect of parental rights. Parents are the first educators of their children, not the government. Parents keep in mind what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Article 26, section 3 states, “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”
Lou Iacobelli is a retired educator who blogs Everyday For Life Canada, where a version of this article originally appeared on August 21 and is used with permission.
