TORONTO, March 15, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – In what pro-family advocates are blasting as a “broken promise,” Ontario Education Minister Lisa Thompson announced Friday that the government will be instituting a sex education curriculum that exposes children to the topics of “gender identity” and “consent.”
“Our plan will modernize the classroom, will protect the future of our education system, and will ensure Ontario’s students acquire the skills they need to build successful lives, families and businesses right here in Ontario,” Thompson declared at a news conference in Toronto, the National Post reports.
The plain raises the high-school class size cap from 22 to 28, bans cellphones in class, and includes a new math curriculum. But its most controversial elements are its provisions to teach children about “consent” in Grades 2 and 3, and “gender identity” in Grade 8. Lessons about abstinence, cannabis, and body image will also be taught.
To address parental concerns, the province said that parents would be able to opt their children out of the sex-ed lessons, but the full curriculum will not be available for review until its planned May release. It’s slated to take effect in September.
“Thompson’s announcement that the anti-scientific theory of gender identity will still be taught in elementary schools is appalling, and represents a broken promise to the parents of Ontario, and to PC voters in the last election,” Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) National President Jeff Gunnarson said in a press release. “Parents, voters, and even party delegates told Doug Ford loud and clear they do not want the fraudulent theory of gender identity taught at any grade – ever.”
The inclusion of the new sex-ed topics contradicts Ontario Premiere Doug Ford’s repeated campaign promises that he would “respect parents by repealing” his predecessor Kathleen Wynne’s controversial 2015 sex-ed curriculum.
“Why is a supposedly ‘conservative’ government planning to teach children a lie – that being a boy or a girl is unrelated to your biological reality?” CLC Political Operations director Jack Fonseca asked. “Aside from being a total disregard for science, it is dangerous to children. It destroys their reality testing and their ability to discern solid truth. It can also produce psychosexual confusion in the minds of the young, which in turn, makes children more vulnerable to sexual predators.”
Fonseca continued that the opt-out provision was insufficient because it would make children “feel ostracized when they have to leave the class or stay home on certain days,” and that the fairer approach would be to simply “let those who believe in it, teach it to their own kids at home.”
Gunnarson called on Ford to fire Thompson and intervene to ensure the Wynne plan he promised to end doesn’t simply return in a modified form. “If Ford is to keep his coalition of small-c conservatives together for the next election, or for higher political ambitions in the future, he must not allow Thompson to cause him to betray his promise,” he warned.