Interim Staff:
The third annual National “Pride” Flag Walk-Out Day (NPFWD) was held May 30 and June 2 in protest of LGBQT indoctrination taking place in classrooms across Canada. The timing of the walk-out, in which families are encouraged to keep their children out of school for the day, coincides with the days many schools raise the LGBQT pride flag to promote homosexual and transgender identity as part of “pride month.”
Campaign Life Coalition, the driving force behind the NPFWD since 2023, said they did not have access to school attendance figures and the widespread media blackout meant that numbers were not publicly reported. Still, CLC national president Jeff Gunnarson said, “we believe it was a success in terms of our goal of continually educating more parents and building resistance to LGBTyranny.”
Jack Fonseca, CLC director of political operations, explained why many concerned parents kept their children out of school during the opening of pride month ceremonies. “What people expect from schools is not a lot of political and sexual propaganda,” said Fonseca. “They expect reading, writing and arithmetic.”
In 2023, there were confirmed absence rates of 30 to 75 per cent in many school boards, which was “successful beyond our dreams.” Those numbers were available because local news reporters asked school officials about attendance figures, which they are no longer bothering to report.
In Hamilton, Kitchener, Mississauga, Oshawa, Ottawa, and Toronto, there were pray-in activities at school board offices. The purpose of the pray-ins was to call for spiritual leadership to end pride month celebrations in schools.
Gunnarson said the walk-outs and pray-ins “sent the message that the ‘Pride’ flag is objectionable and Catholic school boards who choose to fly it despite opposition from bishops will be held accountable.”
CLC said that “the most important development during this 3rd annual National “Pride” Flag Walk-Out Day might have been a powerful statement against the Pride flag by the most influential Catholic prelate in Canada, His Eminence Cardinal Frank Leo of the Archdiocese of Toronto.”
On June 1, the cardinal issued a pastoral letter stating that June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He wrote, “We need to make sure that the symbols we use are consistent with our Catholic faith and not borrowed from ideological fora, promoted by lobby groups, and endorsed by political movements.” He explained, “We ought to honour and respect our traditions and not compromise the integrity of the faith by using symbols that are contrary to God’s divine revelation.”
The Archdiocese of Toronto has under its purview five Catholic school boards but only two, Dufferin-Peel and York, have enacted policies that ban the LGBQT pride flag.
