Monte McNaughton
Progressive Conservative leadership hopeful Monte McNaughton (Lambton–Kent–Middlesex) has come out against his party’s education critic after the latter backed the Wynne government’s plan to introduce controversial changes to the province’s sex ed curriculum.
MPP Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North) said Dec. 12, that backing the Wynne sex-ed program is in the PC Party’s “best interest,” but McNaughton told LifeSiteNews Dec. 15, that he “wholeheartedly disagrees” with Dunlop’s stance.
If he becomes leader of the PC Party, he said, he will “have a different policy when it comes to sex-ed in the province of Ontario.”
“I’m the only MPP that’s talking and voicing these concerns publicly, because I’ve heard from thousands of parents who are concerned about the hidden agenda that Kathleen Wynne has when it comes to sex-education in Ontario,” he said.
In his statement, Dunlop said: “We have heard from the education industry that this change has been waited upon for almost four years and that teachers are ready to teach the program to children. A school classroom is a great place to provide a safe environment to learn about relationships and sexual education.”
“After consultation with various groups around the new sexual education curriculum, I think it is in our best interest as a party to support this initiative,” he added.
Barrie MP Patrick Brown (CPC), who is also running for the provincial leadership, told The Interim that if he was leader he would have an education critic who shared his values. While not naming Dunlop, Brown said he would “appoint someone who opposes early sex ed.”
Patrick Brown
Brown said that in the early grades, schools should “focus on the three Rs” of reading, writing, and arithmatic.” If there is extra time in the school day, Brown said, schools should teach financial literacy, the skilled trades, and in an age of increasing obesity, physical fitness.
Brown said “I thought we were done with this (sex ed) in 2010.”
A sex ed curriculum was shelved in 2010 under the then-McGuinty government after massive parent outrage. Critics have pointed out that the sex-ed program – which teaches children to question whether they are a boy or girl, about masturbation, and to accept various forms of sexual relationships as morally and biologically equivalent to marriage between a man and a woman – was developed while accused child-pornographer Benjamin Levin served as deputy minister of education and Wynne served as minister of education.
LifeSiteNews asked Mr. Dunlop by email and phone if he is aware of the numerous parents who object to the updated sex-ed, saying it will corrupt their children’s innocence and usurp parental rights about when it is appropriate to teach their children about sex, but did not receive a response by press time.
Dunlop made news at the end of November after publicly throwing his support behind two grade six students at an Ottawa Catholic school whose principal originally blocked their “gay rights” project due to age inappropriateness.
Teresa Pierre, president of Parents as First Educators, criticized the PC Party for not holding the Wynne government accountable.
In a letter to supporters today, interim Ontario PC Leader Jim Wilson praised the PC Party for being tied with the Liberals in the latest polling, saying that it was due to the party “holding the Liberals to account for their incompetence, lack of accountability, and hollow words.”
Pierre told LifeSiteNews that it was “ironic” for the PC Party to say it is holding Wynne’s government accountable while at the same time it is “failing to hold her accountable for sexualizing children in schools.”
In November, McNaughton became the only member of the legislature to raise concern about the Wynne sex ed plans when he questioned her in the legislature about why she doggedly refused to release any details of the content of the proposed changes. “What are you trying to hide?” McNaughton asked the premier.
A PAFE online petition to Premier Wynne, signed by over 28,000 people, demands that the proposed changes to the sex-ed curriculum be scrapped because “they are graphic and age-inappropriate and don’t align with the principles of many religious and cultural groups.”
“We do not believe that pre-pubescent children should be overloaded with graphic information about sex. As parents, grandparents, or other concerned Ontario voters we want to preserve their innocence as long as possible,” the petition states.
Pierre called on the PC Party to not renege in its duty as official opposition. “The duty of the official opposition is to oppose the government. That’s the responsibility given to them by the people of Ontario.
“This official notice by the education critic shows that the PC Party at this time is neither attending to their first responsibility of opposing the government nor to their duty to ensure that parents remain the first educators of their children against Kathleen Wynne’s agenda to encroach on the innocence of our children,” she said.
Pierre said that Ontarians who are concerned about the “hyper-sexualization of children in the classroom” should contact the education critic and “tell him firmly that we expect someone in Parliament to oppose Kathleen Wynne’s agenda to disregard parental rights and take away the innocence of our children.”
Portions of this article originally appeared Dec. 15 at LifeSiteNews and is reprinted with permission.
