Province sued over ‘ham-fisted’ sex-ed rollback
CCLA calls Ford government’s directive a ‘dog whistle of bigotry and homophobia’
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has launched a legal challenge seeking to stop the province’s “discriminatory” sex-education rollback.
The application seeking an injunction was filed Thursday at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by the rights group and Becky McFarlane, the mother of a 10-year-old girl.
“(We) are doing everything legally possible to keep our classrooms free of censorship, discrimination, stigma degradation,” said Michael Bryant, executive director and general counsel for the association.
“This directive is a discriminatory misuse of government power. A ham-fisted dog whistle of bigotry and homophobia dressed up as a consultation fix.”
Bryant made his comments speaking outside the courthouse, alongside lawyer Stuart Svonkin, who is representing them in this matter.
“The government has just ripped out all of the material in the sex-ed program other than the heterosexual sex-ed content. It’s as if Becky and her family don’t exist. It’s as if they are the others, the unspoken others.”
He said the Ford government’s directive to stop teaching the 2015 curriculum discriminates against the LGBTQ community, and violates the equality rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The government has yet to respond to the application.
The announcement comes a day after the province released a revised interim Health and Physical Education curriculum for Grades 1 to 8, similar to what was used between 1998 and 2014. That replaces a curriculum introduced by the Liberals in 2015, which had been updated to address current issues, such as gender, same-sex marriage, sexting and cyberbullying.
Many educators, health professionals and some religious groups supported the 2015 curriculum, but it upset some parents who thought it was not age appropriate. As a result, the Progressive Conservatives vowed during the election to repeal it, and to hold provincewide public consultations with parents.
Those consultations are scheduled to begin in September.
The curriculum change only affects elementary school students. High school students will continue to be taught the 2015 curriculum.
Premier Doug Ford warned Wednesday that if educators don’t follow the revised interim curriculum that they will face consequences. The province has created a website called Fortheparents.ca so parents can report concerns about what their child is learning, and if they feel a teacher is deliberately ignoring the curriculum, they have been advised to call the Ontario College of Teachers’ investigations and hearing’s department or file a complaint online.