Sex-Ed Protesters Lash Out At Brown For Flip Flopping

[tay]

Parents fighting Ontario’s year-old sex education curriculum booed Premier Kathleen Wynne and Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown at a protest Wednesday.

The updated document includes warnings about online bullying and sexting, but some parents have taken issue with discussions of same-sex marriage, masturbation and gender identities.

Parents fighting Ontario’s year-old sex education curriculum booed Premier Kathleen Wynne and Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown at a protest Wednesday.

Standing in front of the Legislature, about 200 protesters chanted “hear my voice, it’s my child and my choice” as they pressed the government to repeal the curriculum and slammed Brown for supporting it after a recent flip-flop.

“Kathleen Wynne, are you listening? Patrick Brown, are you listening?” mother of four Tanya Granic Allen shouted to the crowd, calling parts of the curriculum “age inappropriate.”

Social conservatives, whom Brown courted in his 2015 leadership campaign, say they feel abandoned by him now.

Feeling abandoned on sex ed, social conservatives boo both Wynne and Brown | Metro News



Unlike at their previous rallies, the protesters also lashed out at Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown, whose flip-flopping on the issue has made him a target of the ire of many social conservatives.

Conservative leadership hopeful Brad Trost raised some eyebrows Wednesday when he compared Ontario’s new sex-education curriculum to residential schools.

Trost joined a couple hundred parents gathered outside the provincial legislature to protest Liberal changes to the way sex education is taught in the province.


Trost said after his speech that the Ontario sex-ed curriculum is “not nearly” the same level of seriousness as residential schools, but “the underlying principle is the same.”

He was hesitant to comment on the controversy surrounding Brown, his former Conservative caucus colleague, but said his “personal friend” has always been “a shy guy when it comes to policy and things like that.”

Brown told social conservatives last year that he would “repeal” the curriculum – a promise he never made publicly. A letter went out under his name last month in a Toronto byelection saying he would “scrap” the curriculum if elected premier, but Brown disavowed it in an op-ed days later, saying he hadn’t seen it and that he now supports the changes.

Conservative leadership hopeful compares Ontario sex-ed to residential schools | Globalnews.ca

 

[tay]

Frozen out by PC leader Patrick Brown, social conservatives are putting the squeeze on prominent Tory MPP Monte McNaughton over the party’s sex-education flip-flop.

Parent activists are turning on one-time ally McNaughton because they feel let down by Brown after his office secretly negotiated — and then reneged on — a pledge to “scrap” the health curriculum during the recent Scarborough-Rouge River byelection.

The Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP, a champion of social conservative causes, sent in the final weekend of the Sept. 1 byelection campaign a fundraising appeal tied to eliminating the sex-education lesson plan.

For his trouble, McNaughton on Thursday received a blistering letter from Tanya Granic Allen, president of Parents As First Educators (PAFE), which opposes curriculum implemented by Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals.

“The last time I heard from you was via a mass emailer you sent out on Saturday, Aug. 27 entitled ‘A PC Government would scrap Kathleen Wynne’s sex-ed changes,’” wrote Granic Allen.

“In that email, you told the recipients that ‘earlier this week, Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown circulated a letter to parents across Ontario’ and you further explained that ‘in this letter, Patrick firmly committed to scrapping the Wynne-Liberals’ new sex-ed curriculum upon the election of a PC government,’ ” the activist continued.

“You also asked us to make a financial donation to Raymond Cho’s campaign, the candidate in the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection.

“Of course, since then, Patrick Brown has ‘scrapped’ this very commitment to Ontario parents and he now essentially supports Kathleen Wynne and her sex-ed agenda.”

McNaughton’s fundraising email was sent to coincide with 13,000 letters — in English and Chinese and signed by Brown — distributed in Scarborough-Rouge River, where sex education was a hot topic in the byelection won by Cho.

After blowback, the PC leader claimed he had nothing to do with the missive bearing his signature and announced that if he becomes premier in 2018 he would not repeal the updated syllabus.

This despite the fact that both Brown’s chief of staff, Nicolas Pappalardo, and PC party president Rick Dykstra were aware of the letter.

McNaughton was away from Queen’s Park on Thursday and was not available for comment. His office was dark when a Star reporter visited.

Conservative sources, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters, said the MPP was encouraged to send out the fundraising email “far and wide” by senior party officials.

Brown, who has distanced himself from social conservatives since the byelection debacle, insisted didn’t know anything about the email.

“I haven’t seen any of these emails from Tanya or Monte. Our position is clear: I support the updated sex education curriculum. We’re building a modern, inclusive PC party,” he said, adding the response from Tories to his renouncing of social conservative policies has been “positive.”

They were key backers of McNaughton’s Tory leadership campaign last year, and when he dropped out to support Brown, many of them followed him to the eventual winner.

“I voted for Patrick Brown. The new Canadians are socially conservative — that is a story that most miss,” evangelist Charles McVety told the Star at the May 9, 2015 Tory convention, praising Brown for making inroads into cultural communities.

McVety has since accused the Tory leader of betraying the people who elected him.

“Poor Patrick. He can’t remember what he has promised and to whom, so he can’t keep his stories straight,” he said last week.

In her open letter to McNaughton, Granic Allen said parents still want to know “what was Patrick Brown’s role in this process?”


https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...nte-mcnaughton-over-partys-sex-ed-stance.html

 

[tay]

You aren't supposed to 'spill the beans' before you take office...... Of course this, despite Wynners approval ratings, is why the PC's won't win......

Social conservative MPP chastised after saying Tory party has secret plan

A Progressive Conservative MPP who once said it’s “not a bad idea” to stop teaching evolution in schools has been taken to the woodshed by PC leader Patrick Brown for promoting a socially conservative agenda.

The dressing down came after Ontario’s French-language television network, TFO, reported that MPP Rick Nicholls promised supporters the Tories have a secret plan if they win the 2018 election.

Brown has been trying to put a more modern face on the party, saying it supports Premier Kathleen Wynne’s updated sex education curriculum, gay marriage and won’t change access to abortion — all measures opposed by social conservatives.

“Social issues are really, really important. We need to form government. Then . . . watch us go!” Nicholls said to applause captured by TFO cameras Dec. 7 at Queen’s Park in a meeting with the Canadian Multicultural Care Group and the Canadian Christian Association.

“That will happen. That will happen.”

Brown, who has recently had to quell concerns about the party’s direction after the recent byelection victory of 19-year-old social conservative Sam Oosterhoff in Niagara West-Glanbrook, said he was not aware of the “full extent” of Nicholls’ comments until Tuesday.

“As leader, and as premier, I will lead an Ontario PC party focused on reversing the economic damage of the Wynne Liberals . . . I will lead an inclusive government where intolerance will have no place,” Brown added.

“Any statement or implication to the contrary, including the comment made by MPP Nicholls, is false and needs to be immediately retracted.”

Nicholls (Chatham-Kent-Essex), who was co-chair of Brown’s leadership campaign two years ago, issued a statement Tuesday saying he “fully supports” the party’s direction under Brown and reversed course on his remarks of last week.

“I retract and apologize for my comments. Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown has made it clear that he is committed to leading a modern, inclusive and pragmatic Progressive Conservative Party,” Nicholls said.

“The party will not be revisiting divisive social issues, either as an opposition party or if we are fortunate enough to form government.”
Brown has been in the hot seat over social conservative issues since his flip-flop on sex education during the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection in late summer, with Liberals saying it’s hard to know where he truly stands.

Several Conservative MPPs, including Nicholls, were absent for last week’s vote on legislation to make it easier for gay couples to become parents.

Nicholls shouted the remark about evolution at then-education minister Liz Sandals in February 2015 during a debate in the legislature over the new sex education curriculum, which some Conservatives opposed.

“I don’t believe in evolution,” Nicholls later told reporters as his off-the-cuff comment about striking it from school curriculums prompted rebukes from several colleagues.

“It obviously did not help our position,” said veteran Tory MPP Jim Wilson, who was interim party leader at the time and frequently blamed his party for poor decisions that led to four successive election losses to the scandal-plagued Liberals.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...ck-brown-retracts-recants-renounces-cohn.html

 

[Mowich]

Betrayed by their party and governed by a wing-nut while burdened with insanely outrageous hydro bills - I truly feel for the folks in Ontario - most especially for the ones brave enough to stand up to this latest case of government meddling which serves only to infringe upon the rights of parents. Bravo to the parents. Stand tall, stand fast.