A parent whose child attends school in the York Region District School Board (YRDSB) has learned the hard way that there is no way to “opt-out” of the massive betrayal of parental rights that is the Ford/Wynne sex-ed curriculum.

The “opt-out” proves to be a farce. 

The parent was informed by Superintendent of Schools Liz Davis that the request for the student to be excused from exposure to content dealing with LGBT rights and gender ideology because they contradict her family’s religious beliefs could not be accommodated.

Specifically, the parent was told that any attempts to prevent the student from “developing an understanding of equity and inclusion” would violate both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Ontario Human Rights Code.

PAFE has had confirmation that other Ontario boards, such as the Ottawa Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) and the Halton District School Board (HDSB), have issued similar responses to requests like this. 

While this is terribly disappointing, it was also entirely predictable. 

We all watched as Doug Ford used the anger of Ontario parents against the sex-ed curriculum created by Kathleen Wynne and convicted child sex predator Benjamin Levin, rife as it was with wildly age-inappropriate material, to sweep to electoral victory in 2018.

Then we saw him back-pedal, conduct a rigged consultation, and produce a curriculum that everyone agreed was identical to the one he’d been railing against.

We hoped that, at least, the “opt-out” possibility Ford spoke of would provide betrayed parents with a means to protect their children, but the opt-out proved to be just another Doug Ford lie.

The “opt-out” was a cop-out, designed to fail.

Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario President Sam Hammond warned that some school boards would refuse to accommodate exemption requests, and told parents, “You do not get to opt out of human rights.”

That was the playbook from the beginning, and that’s why Superintendent Davis says that freedom from religious discrimination “is not absolute” in her message to the YRDSB parent.

All that is absolute, it seems, is the need for the concepts of homosexuality and masturbation, and the irrational and anti-scientific theories of “gender identity” and “gender expression” to be forced upon impressionable children, so that many of them question whether they are a boy or a girl. 

We must continue to find ways to fight back against the publicly-funded school system, which even under Doug Ford has become nothing more than a corrupt indoctrination institution that brainwashes children with toxic ideologies of all kinds.