On delayed sex-ed updates, just relax

Ontario’s new PC government has, as expected, withdrawn a controversial 2015 sex-ed curriculum for a fresh review, with a greater emphasis on consulting with parents. Possibly this is the waste of time some have suggested it is. Maybe not. What it certainly is not is nearly the emergency some critics are making this out to be.

Contrary to widespread public belief, the new curriculum introduced by the former Liberal government was mostly about things other than sex: That was folded into a broader healthfocused curriculum that tackled such other controversial topics as exercise and nutrition. Most of it was unobjectionable even to its critics. Of more than 200 pages in the document, perhaps half-a-dozen paragraphs were the centre of controversy.

Some of that controversy was politically motivated. But there are certainly areas where it’s reasonable to question the presentation of information, or to believe things are being introduced too early. Having those views doesn’t make one a bigot or a prude. Taking an extra year to review the curriculum perhaps isn’t ideal, but it’s also no catastrophe.

Nor is it anything new. The introduction of the first new sex-ed curriculum since 1998 was delayed many years by the very Ontario Liberals who later introduced it. Former premier Dalton McGuinty blinked in the face of public backlash and shelved the first revamp. It fell to his successor, Kathleen Wynne, to implement it five years afterward.

This is helpful context to recall when listening now to hysterical critics of the Ford government claiming this review puts lives in danger. The 1998 curriculum, augmented by some updates the province has said will be rolled out to address contemporary issues — cyber safety, same-sex marriage and gender-identity subjects were specifically noted by the education minister — will do fine for now. Educators themselves will use these updates and their own discretion to educate the students as needed (it has been odd seeing Ontario’s self-styled progressives, normally boastful of supporting teachers, portraying them now as mere automatons, incapable of even the slightest extrapolation from printed lesson plans).

A year or so from now, after some likely token consultations and tweaks, the Ontario sex-ed curriculum will probably be back in its roughly same form. The only damage done will be a brief delay to claim a better consultation process than the last government’s. Criticize Premier Doug Ford for that if you like. But what’s happened here is nothing new for Ontario.