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Education Minister Liz SandalsLianne Laurence / LifeSiteNews

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TORONTO, April 15, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) — Ontario children in grade one need to learn about male and female genitals so they can be taught about “inappropriate touching,” Liberal Education Minister Liz Sandals revealed at a pro-LGBTQ educators conference last week.

“We need students to understand the importance of things like healthy respectful relationships, having the confidence to say ‘No.’ I’ve done a lot of trying to sort out with people that when we say consent, that we’re really explaining that consent has a very explicit meaning, and everything else means ‘No,’ because it’s somehow gotten warped into: ‘They’re teaching everybody to say ‘Yes’ to everything.’ “No, we’re giving people the right to say ‘No,’ starting in grade one when we teach them about their body parts and inappropriate touching. You have the right to say ‘No,’” she told about 160 educators from across Ontario who attended the Friday conference at Toronto’s City Hall. The event was attended by LifeSiteNews.

Gwen Landolt of REAL Women of Canada reacted to Sandals’ comments by saying it is “deeply offensive to parents” that their children will be taught details about sexual abuse.

“It’s intruding onto a child’s innocence,” she told LifeSiteNews. “These children are six years old. Do they need to be exposed to the details of what sexual abuse is? Parents should be outraged at this.”

Landolt and other critics have warned that the Wynne government’s sex-ed program, slated for launch in September, will teach kids too much at too young an age, and that filling children’s minds with explicit sexual details corrupts their natural innocence, giving them adult realities for which they lack the maturity and wisdom to bear.

Some are concerned the explicit information grooms children for sexual encounters with adults, especially since the curriculum’s overseer Ben Levin has now been convicted of child-related sexual charges.

The conference, titled Implementing the Accepting Schools Act, was hosted by the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CCGSD), a pro-homosexual activist organization formerly known as Jer’s Vision. Its purpose was to provide educators from both public and Catholic boards with hands-on solutions for the full implementation of Bill 13 in the classroom. Bill 13, called by critics the homosexual bill of rights, passed in June 2012, giving students the right to form pro-gay clubs in their school, including Catholic ones, using the name Gay-Straight Alliance.

Homosexual activists have admitted that promoting the “safe schools” strategy beginning in the early 1990s was key to gaining widespread public sympathy for their movement’s goal of obtaining acceptance of homosexual relationships and practices.

Tens of thousands of parents have joined together, many of them from a diversity of ethnic and religious backgrounds including Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, and secular, to voice their concerns over the curriculum. They accuse the Liberal government of refusing to consult with them and for taking over their role as parents. They are demanding that the curriculum be stopped. 

Despite massive opposition from these parents and the dozens of groups representing them, Sandals assured the educators that the curriculum will happen since it has been part of the overall plan to make schools ‘safe and accepting’ places for students identifying as LGBTQ.

“So, when I say, ‘It will happen,’ you understand why I am so stubborn. It will happen. I have been working on this for a very long time,” she told the conference.

Sandals said she was “absolutely delighted” to speak at a conference of educators eager to make sure their schools were Bill-13 compliant. She praised the CCGSD for being an organization that “we all respect and want to work with.”

“You’ve really done super work on addressing bullying, discrimination, harassment, and certainly including homophobia, transphobia, bi-phobia, and racism through your programs [for schools],” she said.

“Our government shares this commitment because we know that a safe and accepting school environment is essential for student achievement and wellbeing.”

The CCGSD’s work includes running a field trip for high school students in 2011 that culminated in a drag show. The organization partners with pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood and pro-prostitution groups such as Maggie’s Sex Work. The organization orchestrates the ‘Day of Pink’ in schools across Canada and says its goal is to eliminate what it calls oppression against people who identify as LGBTQ.

Sandals said that Bill 13 has already made a difference in schools across the province. 

“What we see happening in schools now is a gradual change in the culture that values diversity and asserts safe and accepting schools as the standard for every student in every community.”

Sandals told conference attendees that there was still a “huge amount of work to do” in schools for students identifying as LGBTQ and that she was “thrilled that you’re all here today to talk about how to do that work.”

“We believe that the updated health and phys-ed curriculum will go a long way to supporting the success, safety, and wellbeing of every student and every child in Ontario. But, we wouldn’t be here if our work was all finished. So, thank you so much for being here today and for helping us implement further our safe and accepting schools vision,” she concluded.

Find a full listing of LifeSiteNews' coverage of the Ontario government's explicit sex-ed program here.