SCARBOROUGH, Ontario, September 2, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Social conservatives and Leftists agree that Patrick Brown’s Conservatives won the byelection Thursday against the long-ruling Liberals by pretending for most of the campaign that he would scrap the government’s controversial sex education curriculum.
In mid-campaign, the Tories distributed 13,000 copies of a letter bearing Brown’s promise to scrap Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne’s sex-ed curriculum, which promotes homosexuality and transgenderism in the early grades. After pushback from mainstream media and his party’s LGBT wing, he withdrew the promise.
But Tanya Granic Allen, president of Parents as First Educators, a leading opponent of the sex-ed program, pointed out in a news release, “This is a riding where 90 percent of the residents are visible minorities and for many, they don't speak or read in English.” She believes most knew about Brown’s promise to scrap the curriculum, but few were aware of his last-minute turnaround.
“Patrick Brown managed to get the 'scrap' sex-ed vote Scarborough-Rouge River while telling the rest of the province that he is for the curriculum,” Allen’s news release stated. As Allen sees it, the Progressive Conservatives won because of the unpopularity of the curriculum’s libertinism among first generation immigrant parents.
Tory candidate Raymond Cho, 79, finished 10 percent ahead of the Liberals in vote share and 12 percent ahead of the New Democrats, who also supported the sex-ed program.
The Liberals also claimed Brown managed to win by delaying four days after issuing the promise to scrap the sex-ed curriculum to claim it was all a mistake. “If a letter goes out with your signature … why would you wait four days to correct it? Why wouldn’t you own the mistake immediately?” Deputy Premier Deb Matthews complained.
Brown claimed the letter was sent by zealous critics of the curriculum among Cho’s campaign staff. “Many of the campaign activists there felt it was a hot issue at the doors. They wanted to campaign on it. Ultimately, they went further than I was comfortable with,” he told the CBC. “What I didn’t feel comfortable with was the word ‘scrap’ or ‘stop’ sex education, because that’s certainly not my intention.”
And, in fact, Brown had earlier said he would not dump the curriculum, according to the mainstream media who said he had committed a “double U-turn” on the issue.
Or a triple one, because social conservatives rallied behind Brown during his campaign for the Tory leadership on the strength of his avowed opposition to the sex-ed curriculum and spotless social conservative voting record as a federal MP, supporting pro-life measures and voting against same-sex “marriage.”
Jack Fonseca of the Campaign Life Coalition was harshly critical of Brown, predicting his turnaround would hurt him in the end.
“By his flip-flopping and backstabbing the very parents who voted for him as leader,” Fonseca told LifeSiteNews, “Patrick Brown has proven himself to be a man lacking any integrity or principles whatsoever. … He also smeared the parents who made him leader by channeling Kathleen Wynne and insinuating they were all ‘homophobic’ and ‘intolerant.’”
But Brown sacrificed not only the trust of social conservatives, Fonseca argued, “he has shown the entire province that he is a duplicitous, two-faced politician who will say anything to anyone in order to acquire power. … I would not be shy to predict this strategic blunder could cost the PC’s the general election in 2018.”
(Just before the byelection, the Tories were polling well ahead of the Liberals throughout the province based on a lengthy series of economic and ethical blunders — and on the sex education curriculum.)
Fonseca told LifeSiteNews that Brown has been betraying social conservatives since they helped elect him leader, by walking in Toronto’s Gay Pride Parade, vowing to leave Ontario’s liberal abortion access policy alone, and by contriving “to block the nomination of Conservative candidates who were discovered to have pro-life convictions.”
RELATED
Sex ed flap shows Patrick Brown is in gay activists’ pocket: critics
Tory leader Patrick Brown: ‘I’m very proud’ to support gay ‘marriage’