Families to launch human rights case over outdated sex-ed curriculum

Thestar.com
August 9, 2018
Kristin Rushowy

At least six Ontario families are launching a human rights case over the province’s plan to use an outdated sex-ed curriculum, saying it will harm their children -- the first legal challenge amid a growing backlash over reviving the two-decade-old lessons and the impact on LGBTQ youth.

While the main applicant is an 11-year-old trans youth from rural Ontario, a number of families from Guelph, Toronto, Sudbury and other cities will support the case with evidence of how the new curriculum -- which the Ford government said it will suspend this fall -- helped support their elementary school children.

Lawyers Marcus McCann, right, and Mika Imai will be announcing a human rights challenge on Aug. 9, 2018 of the province’s plans to change the sex-ed curriculum. At least six Ontario families are launching the case, saying the curriculum changes will harm their children.

All of the kids involved in the case are younger than 13.

“We’ve been in conversation with parents of trans and queer youth, currently in Grades K to 8 … and these families are very concerned about the planned changes,” said lawyer Marcus McCann, who along with colleague Mika Imai will be announcing the human rights challenge Thursday at Queen’s Park.

“Our belief is that shelving the curriculum is raising red flags from a human rights perspective.”

Imai said they will request an expedited hearing, and may seek an interim order to keep the updated curriculum in place this fall.

While the families were going to hold off until the government officially ordered boards to revert to the 1998 curriculum, with school just weeks away “we just can’t wait,” added McCann. “The stakes are too high.”

On Wednesday, another public school board issued a statement of concern about reviving the old curriculum, which was used from 1998 to 2014 and contains no mention of same-sex families, gender identity, cyberbullying or sexual consent.

Education Minister Lisa Thompson said her government is fulfilling a campaign promise by holding public consultations on the new curriculum, in use since 2015, after hearing from some parents who complained they were not consulted and that the material is not age-appropriate.

The government will begin consultations this fall, although no specifics have been released.

Thompson has said the ministry will work with boards to provide resources for the 20-year-old curriculum and that there’s “ample room” to discuss issues not covered in it.

Jake Somerville’s child began transitioning in kindergarten and “we found that the school, the teachers, played a really big role,” said the Guelph father, helping her socially and “working with children in the classroom who had a lot of questions about what she was going through.”

The teachers brought in books and would talk about boys wearing dresses or wanting to, and rather than separating boys from the girls for classroom groupings, teachers would find other ways -- not related to gender -- to do so.

“That was in 2015,” Somerville said. “The (new) curriculum had already started. We found the teachers … were so knowledgeable about what needed to be done … we didn’t have very much exposure to the trans community, so it was refreshing to go into the school system” and be supported.

By using the old curriculum, “it leaves it open for every single school to have a different climate, all across the board,” said Somerville.

For families outside of Toronto, the worry is greater because they are fewer supports available outside of school, said Sudbury mom Sylvie Liard, who has one young child she describes as gender non-conforming.

“Going back to the older curriculum, where nothing was addressed, is unfathomable,” she said.

NDP Health Critic France Gélinas, who represents Nickel Belt, said “in northern Ontario, you are lucky if you have a family physician. If you can see your family physician within six weeks, you are doubly lucky.”

That means schools are the only way for families to get information, she added. “There is just no other infrastructure for that kind of knowledge to be shared in a way that is positive, in a way that is factual, in a way that gives you hope.”

Some school boards have said they will continue to be inclusive and promote equity, and talk about same-sex families, consent and other issues not covered in the old lessons.

A Toronto mom involved in the human rights case said her 11-year-old, who does not want to be labelled, was targeted at his elementary school, called names and beaten by a bully.

But a new principal and teachers helped turn things around, she said.

“Now he wears what he wants to school, and has his hair the way he wants to” and “has a strong support system” among teachers and classmates.

“Having this education at school has taught him to have a voice and acknowledge there’s nothing wrong with him,” she said. “He’s totally okay and the rest of the world needs to catch up to him.”

Parents are creating an online fundraising campaign to help cover their legal costs.

McCann, of law firm Symes Street & Millard, said other organizations are also expected to launch legal challenges in the coming days.