Brown downplays rift in party over sex ed

Ontario’s new Progressive Conservative leader says he won’t muzzle an MPP highly critical of the Liberal government’s sex ed curriculum and is downplaying a rift in his caucus over it. While statements by MPP Monte McNaughton have allowed Premier Kathleen Wynne to tag the Conservatives as homophobic, Patrick Brown said Thursday that some Liberals are grumbling, too.

“The federal Liberal candidate in Kathleen Wynne’s own riding has said the implementation of the curriculum was wrong and has criticized the premier,” Brown told reporters Thursday.

Rob Oliphant, the federal Liberal candidate in Don Valley West, told the Star the sex ed curriculum — updated for the first time since 1998 — comes up at almost every door in Thorncliffe Park, which has a large immigrant population.

Oliphant said while he totally supports the curriculum, which he emphasizes is a provincial issue, he believes the concerns of the residents should be considered.

“What I am looking at is a way I can help open up that conversation so that no kids get left out,” Oliphant said, referring to a school in Don Valley West where parents kept several hundred 300 children out of class in protest Tuesday.

Privately, many Conservative MPPs have grumbled at McNaughton’s push to have parents be the “first educators” on sex ed, saying it makes the party appear intolerant and behind the times.

“There’s a divergence of opinion in caucus,” Brown acknowledged. “We’ll have our policy process where everyone will have their say.”