New sex-ed curriculum similar to old version
TORONTO • Ontario’s new sex- education curriculum retains many elements of a previous Liberal government document that the Progressive Conservatives had slammed as ideological, leading critics Wednesday to accuse them of playing politics with students’ health.
When in Opposition, the Tories largely stayed away from naming specific concepts in the curriculum that they had an issue with, but a protest movement led by social conservatives singled out gender identity, masturbation and references to anal intercourse as problematic.
In the new elementary curriculum, released Wednesday, sexual orientation will be a mandatory topic taught in Grade 5, earlier than in the Liberals’ 2015 curriculum, which had it in Grade 6. Gender identity will be a mandatory topic in Grade 8 — it was previously mandatory in Grade 6.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the new curriculum will also include a new focus on mental health, teachings on concussions and the risks of vaping, and expanded lessons on consent, cannabis risks and online safety.
“This is a transformed and updated, modernized curriculum with a central focus on safety,” he said. “With great respect, in process and in substance, this is a dramatically better product.”
Premier Doug Ford and other Tories had said the Liberal curriculum was ideological and had promised during last year’s election to repeal it and engage in a wider consultation. Some parents complained that the Liberal consultation, which reached out to a parent representative from each school, was not broad enough.
Once in power, the Tories scrapped the previous curriculum, implemented an interim one and launched an online consultation, which included various education issues, for around $1 million — moves Lecce defended.
“There was not that support from the public from the old version,” he said. “There just wasn’t that social licence.”
NDP education critic Marit Stiles said the premier spent much time and money playing a “political game.”
“Doug Ford wasted a year playing politics with our kids’ safety and well- being,” she said.
One of the most vocal opponents of the Liberals’ curriculum, Tanya Granic Allen, tweeted Wednesday that Ford’s new curriculum was a betrayal.
“The radical Wynne sex-ed is still there - ALL OF IT. And gender identity is mentioned 40 times,” Granic Allen wrote. “Ford LIED to the parents.”
The government has said that teachers can use their professional judgment and can speak about such topics as gender identity if they arise in the classroom earlier than the curriculum mandates. Granic Allen said that means gender identity can be taught to children in Grade 1 and “there’s some topics you simply don’t teach to children.”