The Hon. Stephen Lecce, MPP
Minister of Education
5th Flr, 438 University Ave
Toronto, ON M7A 2A5

sent via email: [email protected]

June 27, 2019

Minister Lecce:

Congratulations on your appointment as Minister of Education. As the head of this Ministry, you will oversee the shaping of the minds of future leaders in our great province of Ontario. It is my hope that you take this responsibility earnestly.

As the head of the largest parents stakeholder group in the province, it is my obligation to bring you up to speed on the “happenings” (or lack thereof) with respect to the Kathleen Wynne sex ed repeal.

You are taking over the Education portfolio from MPP Lisa Thompson, whose handling of the sex ed repeal has been nothing short of a complete failure.

As such, I am asking that you immediately suspend the 2019-2020  Doug Ford/Lisa Thompson Sex ed curriculum and actually conduct meaningful consultation with Ontario parents in the development of a new sex ed. Allow me to provide some context.

As you are aware, our Premier Doug Ford made a campaign promise to “repeal and replace” the Kathleen Wynne sex ed curriculum.

On June 9^th 2018, shortly after the PC Party won the election, Doug Ford doubled down on this promise in his very first press conference.

Sadly, upon assuming her role as Minister of Education, Lisa Thomspon began her betrayal of Doug Ford’s promise to the parents of Ontario.

Further to Ford’s  promise to “repeal” the Wynne sex ed, there is the issue of Ford’s number one problem area with Wynne’s curriculum. What was the specific example Ford highlighted as a problem with the Wynne sex ed, when he appeared on the Andrew Lawton radio program in February, 2018? Gender Identity theory! When pressed to provide an example of what is wrong with the Wynne sex ed, Ford replied, “tell me what the six genders are?” and referred to the gender identity theory as “liberal ideology”. He further stated that it was “up to the parents to decide…not the government.” Ford added that he couldn’t stand it when the government “forces the ideology that they believe is right.”

Well said, candidate Doug Ford. Unfortunately, the government of Premier Doug Ford has not lived up to the promise of candidate Doug Ford.

On July 16^th 2018, in her reply to the very first question asked of her in the Legislature in her capacity as a Minister, Lisa Thompson assured the entire Legislature that all of the essentials of the Wynne sex ed would continue to be taught. Thompson declared: “We know [students] need to learn about consent.  We know they need to learn about cyber safety. We know they need to learn about gender identity and appreciation...”. Gender identity. Ford promised to get off the back of the parents when it came to gender identity theory in February, 2018. By July, 2018 – a scant five months later – that promise was in tatters.

Perhaps that is why the very next day, July 17^th 2018, Doug Ford, while speaking with the media about consultations, said: “We want to go and consult with the parents and get their input. Then we’ll move forward with changing the curriculum.”

Sadly, the official government consultation did not target parents whatsoever. No letters were sent home with children in every school. No ads targeting parents were created. Not only were parents not specifically consulted, but anyone with an email address- fake or otherwise- could provide input. Indeed, in this respect, the Ford-Thompson “consultations” were even worse than the Wynne “consultations” of 2015. At the least the thousand or so people consulted in that sham exercise were all verified as parents with children in the school system. The Ford-Thompson process was a fiasco – no one really knows who participated!

Doug Ford himself decried the process as being hijacked by “certain groups”. Doug Ford certainly couldn’t have been referring to PAFE, as we never hijacked any consultation. We did, however, submit over 35,000 signatures attached to our formal petition to the Legislature, which asked that the Minister of Education fully and immediately repeal the Wynne sex ed, including the teaching of gender identity theory; replace it with something age-appropriate and which doesn’t sexualize children; instruct all schools to provide advance notification to parents as to when sex ed lessons are to be taught; and provide an ability to opt-out of whatever new sex ed curriculum was adopted.

PAFE submitted these petitions to each of member of the PC Caucus so they could do their democratic duty and present them in the Legislature. We were aware that Cabinet Ministers are not able to submit petitions, so signatures from Cabinet Ministers’ ridings were instead submitted to the Chief Government Whip, who happened at the time to be my own MPP, Bill Walker. 

In the end, only two MPPs did their job and read our petition in the Legislature: MPP Toby Barrett read it out in full, and MPP Randy Hillier read it out in part. That was it. That was how the PC caucus chose to respect the petitions of their constituents. There were 13 PC MPPs who chose to simply “table” the petitions to the Legislature; that is, unlike MPPs Barrett and Hillier, whose remarks are recorded in Hansard, these MPPs refused to stand up and read the petitions and only quietly submitted them to the clerk. A further 38 PC MPPs who had received signatures for our petition did not even bother to table them to the clerk.

Minister Lecce, our records indicate that you are one of the 38 MPPs who shirked their democratic responsibilities and chose to ignore the voices of Ontarians who petitioned you through the Legislature. You neither read nor tabled the petitions to the Legislature. What was so odious about this old democratic process that you couldn’t bring yourself to honour it? We have heard from various Queen’s Park insiders, including MPPs, various narratives as to how member of caucus were intimidated and threatened in such a way to discourage them from presenting the petition. One version is that Ford’s then Chief of Staff, Dean French, bullied Lisa Thompson, and that she requested MPPs not submit the petitions. Another version has Dean French directly instructing elected members of the legislature to ignore the petition. Was this your experience, Minister Lecce?

Meanwhile, Thompson’s own “consultation” process got underway, using the website www.fortheparents.ca. The Ministry organized various online surveys, townhall teleconference meetings, and accepted “open submissions” from September 28 ^th 2018 until December 15^th 2018.

How many people participated in these “consultations”? According a to a Canadian Press freedom of information request, there were 1600 submitted comments between August 22 and 23 - more than a month prior to the launch of the official public consultations. How is this possible? According to Premier Ford, as reported in the Canadian Press December 18, there were approximately 35,000 submissions. A few days later December 31, the Star quoted Thompson with estimates of 72,000 submissions through the consultations. How many of them were parents? How many of these were actually Ontario residents?

And here is another important question: if the Ministry insists on standing by the 72,000 number, does this include the over 35,000 Ontario residents who submitted their opinions on the sex ed repeal through the Legislature via the PAFE petition? It seems to me rather unlikely that your predecessor considered the submission of these 35,000 Ontario residents for the simple reason that most of the signatures are on petitions that were never actually submitted to the Legislature. They remain either tucked away in the offices of the various PC MPPs who received them, or else were thrown into the garbage by these PC MPPs. What did you do with the petitions that were submitted to your office, Minister Lecce? 

I suppose it never really mattered to Lisa Thompson what the result or process was for the consultation, as she had already made up her mind to keep ALL of the Wynne sex ed, including the unscientific gender identity theory, despite the promises of candidate Doug Ford.

And what could be even worse than keeping the Wynne sex ed curriculum? Lisa Thompson, as Doug Ford’s Minister of Education, found a way to outdo the hard-left ideology of the Wynne Liberals. How is this? Thompson did this through what I call the “Thompson Doctrine of ‘Teachers’ Rights’”. In the January 2019 celebrated court case launched by the Ontario teachers regarding the supposed changes to the sex ed curriculum, Thompson made matters worse than they were under Wynne. Thompson instructed her lawyers to argue, in court, that Ontario teachers were free to teach the Wynne sex ed curriculum, or anything else they chose, and that any topic could be taught at any age. So, for example, even though gender identity theory appearing in the curriculum for children in Grade 8 (which is outrageous enough), teachers could choose to teach students in Grade 1 as much of this unscientific neo-Marxist ideology (or “liberal ideology”, as Doug Ford called it) as the teachers saw fit. This “free for all” in education is the very worst legacy of your predecessor, Lisa Thompson.

Therefore, knowing that Ms. Thompson has made a complete mockery of Doug Ford’s promise to repeal the Wynne sex ed along with his promise for real consultation with Ontario parents, I urge you to suspend the Lisa Thompson sex ed, and engage in meaningful consultation with Ontario parents.

It isn’t too late.

Ontario’s children are counting on you to deliver for them.

Ontario’s parents are counting on you to deliver what Doug Ford promised them.

If you’d like to discuss these matters, you know how to reach me.

Sincerely,

Tanya Granic Allen
President

2336 Bloor Street West, P.O. Box 84556 Toronto, ON  M6S 4Z7
(416) 763-PAFE   [email protected]    www.pafe.ca