Ontario’s new lesbian Premier promises to bring back explicit lower grades sex-ed curriculum
TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ontario’s new Premier Kathleen Wynne promised to bring back a controversial sex-ed program at her first news conference after winning the leadership of Ontario’s Liberals party.
The curriculum, which would have had students learning about “gender identity” in grade 3 and anal intercourse in grade 7, was shelved temporarily by Premier Dalton McGuinty in 2010 after strong backlash from parents.
Kathleen Wynne, Ontario's new Premier
“We are going to evolve the physical health and sex education curriculum,” Wynne said on Jan. 27th, according to Xtra. “We have developed curriculum in this province for decades, and we have done it in a way that has integrity.”
“We are committed to having a conversation with parents,” she added.
Wynne won the leadership contest at the Ontario Liberal convention Jan. 26th and will step into the role of Premier when Dalton McGuinty officially steps down Feb. 12th. Wynne has indicated that she plans to resume the legislature on Feb. 19th.
In her victory speech, she pledged to “build on the legacy” of McGuinty. Like McGuinty, Wynne is in favour of legal, taxpayer-funded abortion and the use of the schools to promote the normalization of homosexuality.
Wynne oversaw the sex-ed program’s development as Minister of Education, a job she held from 2006 to 2010. She also launched the province’s controversial equity and inclusive education strategy, which culminated in a bill forcing Catholic schools to welcome gay-straight alliance clubs, despite opposition from the bishops.
At the news conference, Wynne promised there would be a consultation period for parents, but the timeline is unclear. LifeSiteNews.com spoke briefly with a spokesperson at the Premier’s office, but received no additional information by press time.
The sex-ed curriculum, which would replace the current version from 1998, was quietly posted to the Ministry of Education’s website in January 2010 with plans for it to launch in September of that year.
McGuinty defended the program on April 21st, 2010, insisting that it would be mandatory even for Ontario’s publicly-funded Catholic schools. But the next day, after backlash, he backed down. The “net we cast in terms of consulting was too narrow,” he said, adding that the program needed a “serious rethink.”
The program had sex-ed begin in grade 1, with the naming of genitalia and other body parts. By grade 3, students were to learn about “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” by grade 6 they would discuss masturbation as “common” and “not harmful,” and by grade 7 they would discuss oral and anal intercourse and learn about the use of condoms.
A national poll in December 2011 by Abacus Data found that 59% of Canadians consider it inappropriate to discuss oral and anal sex in grade 7, only 14% consider the discussion “very appropriate,” while 33% call it “very inappropriate.” Fifty-six percent of Canadians believed it is inappropriate to discuss “gender identity” in grade 3.
In February 2011, Liberal cabinet minister Glen Murray told Xtra that the government was planning to re-introduce the sex-ed program, and said parents who opposed it were “rightwing reactionary homophobes.”
Wynne herself signaled in a September 2011 interview with Xtra that the government was still planning to introduce the program. In that interview she said the education system is the “single most important” means of tackling “homophobia” among today’s youth.
Wynne’s equity and inclusive education strategy encourages school boards to participate in the Gay Pride parades, use texts by homosexual authors, and introduce gay-straight alliance clubs.
Since its introduction, public school boards such as Toronto and Hamilton have moved to integrate their “sexual diversity” instruction throughout the curriculum while at the same time forbidding parents from removing their children from the classroom during controversial discussions.
Though in her time as Education Minister Wynne indicated that parents had the right to remove their children from controversial classes, the government took no action to uphold that right.
In September 2012, the current Education Minister, Laurel Broten, reversed course. In a statement to LifeSiteNews she said school boards have the “autonomy and flexibility” to refuse requests from parents as they deem fit.
Broten made the remarks in connection with the case of Dr. Steve Tourloukis, a father in the Hamilton District School Board who filed suit after the board refused to allow him to withdraw his children from classes.
