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TORONTO, August 21, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – An Ontario parent advocacy group received more than 10,000 signatures in ten days after launching a petition campaign to support the Conservative government’s repeal of the Liberal sex-ed curriculum in September.

Even more impressive, these are old-school paper petitions mailed to Parents As First Educators (PAFE), and, as PAFE president Tanya Granic Allen reported last Thursday: “We still have many hundreds of signed petitions pouring in every day.”

PAFE’s petition drive is intended to counter highly publicized outrage and protest from the left over the sex-ed repeal, and to buttress Premier Doug Ford’s resolve to keep his campaign promise to scrap the sex-ed curriculum the Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals rolled out in 2015.

Leading the anti-repeal camp is NDP leader Andrea Horwath, who held two minatory press conferences claiming children will be harmed if the Liberal sex-ed curriculum is scrapped. 

At the second of these press conferences, which took place on August 7, Horwath presented a petition she said was signed by 1,800 health-care workers — doctors, nurses, social workers — who claimed children will be harmed if the Liberal sex-ed is scrapped.

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (EFTO) also entered the fray, declaring through president Sam Hammond it would “vigorously defend” any teacher who defied the government and used the Liberal sex-ed curriculum when students return to class in the fall.

Moreover, two Toronto lawyers announced earlier this month they’re launching a human rights complaint against the sex-ed repeal on behalf of six Ontario families, on the grounds it is discriminatory.

The lead applicant is an 11-year-old transgender “girl” from rural Ontario, as well as parents of students, all under age 13, who say the Liberal sex-ed curriculum has helped their children.

Granic Allen blasted the EFTO for being “out to break faith and trust with the parents and children they are supposed to be serving,” and for encouraging teachers to go “rogue.”

She noted that it was clear that the Ford government is under “immense pressure from the NDP and radical activists to back down on its promise to repeal the Wynne/Horwath sex-ed.”

However, the massive and swift response to PAFE’s petition drive “proves that parents want the Wynne/Horwath sex-ed repealed – and fully!” Granic Allen wrote in a Thursday email to supporters.

That repeal “must include repealing the unscientific, controversial gender identity theory,” she added.

Education Minister Lisa Thompson said in July some parts of the Liberal curriculum — notably, gender identity theory — would be retained. 

Thompson has since stated only there will be wide-ranging consultation on a replacement for the Liberal sex-ed curriculum, and that schools will revert in the fall to the 1998 sex-ed curriculum.

The Liberal sex-ed curriculum teaches there are six “genders”: male, female, two-spirited, transgender, transsexual and intersex. It also introduces homosexuality in Grade 3, masturbation in Grade 6, and oral and anal sex in Grade 7.

Granic Allen reported PAFE volunteers “spent hours” sorting petitions which were then hand-delivered to elected members — including most of the PC MPPs — early last week, just before Queen’s Park recessed Wednesday after a tumultuous and sometimes rancorous five-week summer session.

MPPs will return to the legislature September 24.

Granic Allen is urging concerned Ontarians to continue sending in petitions to PAFE in the meantime, “so that every MPP may have the opportunity to present our petition when they return to the Legislature.”

“Unlike online petitions,” PAFE’s paper petition “is eligible to be considered by the Ontario Legislature and can therefore be presented by MPPs,” she points out.

Moreover, “when MPPs receive our petition forms, they have a moral obligation to respond.”

PAFE will track those responses, or lack thereof, “so you will know where each MPP truly stands on the Wynne/Horwath sex-ed,” Granic Allen said.

To download a copy of the PAFE petition go here; for instructions, go here.