Ontario is getting sued over its sex-ed curriculum

A Canadian civil liberties group is suing the Ontario government, alleging that its move to get rid of the modernized sex ed curriculum and replace it with an older one in the interim is “discriminatory.”

Michael Bryant, executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, described the government’s decision to revert back to the 1998 version of the sex-ed curriculum as a "ham-fisted dog-whistle of bigotry, of homophobia, dressed up as a consultation fix."

“[We] are doing everything legally possible to keep our classrooms free of censorship, discrimination, stigma, degradation,” Bryant said in a press conference on Thursday.

After promising during his election campaign to repeal the modernized sex-ed program introduced by the Liberals in 2015, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced on Wednesday that schools would be required to follow an interim curriculum while they carried out consultations.

He warned that teachers who failed to stick to the interim curriculum, which was last updated in 1998, could be penalized. The government is also setting up a website where parents can lodge complaints against instructors who fail to do so.

The decision to replace the 2015 sex-ed curriculum with the 1998 curriculum is arbitrary and unreasonable, said Cara Zwibel, director of fundamental freedoms at the CCLA.

The CCLA is seeking an injunction to stop the changes, arguing that the move results in violations of Charter-protected rights, including the right to equality and the security of the person, that it violates the human rights code of Ontario, and that it is also inconsistent with some of the obligations school boards have under the Education Act to create a positive and inclusive environment in schools.

With classes set to resume in just a couple of weeks, the organization is asking to have the case heard as soon as possible.

On Wednesday, the Ontario government announced it will start public consultations this fall on a host of issues, including how to build a “new age-appropriate Health and Physical Education curriculum that includes subjects like mental health, sex-ed, and legalization of cannabis.”

While there’s mention of the facts that schools need to be inclusive places in the interim curriculum, it does not lay out learning objectives and lessons associated with gender identity or sexual orientation or consent, for example, Zwibel pointed out.

“If you were to look for the word 'gay' in the curriculum, the only place it shows up is in the glossary definition of ‘homophobia,’” she said. “That, I think, speaks volumes is actually there. There was real, rich, meaningful content in the 2015 curriculum, and all of that has been removed.”

Zwibel argued that while the government has a right to launch new consultations, there’s no reason to scrap the 2015 curriculum in the meantime.

“To me, it sends the message that the content is somehow harmful or hurtful to students, and I think what’s really saying is, ‘We don’t want them to learn about different kinds of families, different kinds of people, different kinds of sexuality and gender identity — we want to keep that material hidden from view.”

Cover Image: Doug Ford. (The Canadian Press/Nathan Denette.)