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To the attention of: Bob Bray

For Immediate Release

CAMPBELL RIVER - A delegation of North Island constituents led by Christian McCay presented their education requests to Michelle Babchuk, the North Island MLA, at a meeting in her office on December 1, 2021. Michelle Babchuk refused to raise their education requests with the Minister of Education.

At the December 1st meeting in her Campbell River constituency office the MLA for the riding of North Island, Michelle Babchuk listened to a presentation McCay, Matthew Storie and Mark Trenholm but refused to advise the Minister of Education, Jennifer Whiteside, of the education requests presented to her by the delegation of North Island Concerned Citizens, her constituents.

Babchuk did say, "I don't believe parents are being excluded from this process. If parents are being excluded I will certainly meet again. I believe that parents should be the primary people involved with their chidlren."

Section 76 (1) of the School Act declares, “All … Provincial schools must be conducted on strictly secular and non-sectarian principles”. The non-sectarian requirement means that schools must not give preferential access to political groups – and a political group exists whenever people collaborate to promote a common ideology and achieve particular objectives within the public realm or governmental sphere. The ARC Foundation, which created SOGI 123, is a political group. So are organizations like Egale and Qmunity. Because SOGI 123 violates the legal requirement to be non-sectarian, because it allows activist groups preferential access to public schools and their children, we are asking that it undergo revision and that the process of revision bring to the table all the relevant stakeholders, parents especially. We would also like to know why this wasn’t done when SOGI 123 was created. 

76 (2) of the School Act declares that “The highest morality must be inculcated”. Michelle, do you believe that the “highest morality” is being inculcated when teachers are encouraging children in 6th grade to access groups promoting and encouraging polyamory? Do you think the “highest morality” is being inculcated when we encourage children to view graphic materials regarding sex change operations? Is the “highest morality” being inculcated when middle school children are encouraged to associate with older youths and young adults for LGBT lifestyle support? Do you think children should be seeing posters that casually use divisive, labelling language, instead of language that is respectful, encouraging, inclusive, and designed to bring people together? Do you think it is appropriate for teachers and resources to use language that consistently promotes the teacher as the only safe person and never the parents which thereby promotes the school as the essential safe place over the home?

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If school personnel are truly committed to promoting inclusion and diversity, then they need to understand that words have meaning, and many of these words have been weaponized by political ideologues intent on maligning those who hold different opinions from their own. Many of these words have become weapons of exclusion and intolerance. They are sectarian in their use and abuse. 

Two broad approaches exist regarding how to help children with varying levels of gender dysphoria – the affirming model, and the mental health model. School districts are being asked to embrace the affirming model for political reasons, and there has been very little effort made to evaluate whether this approach is the better approach, yet it has been systemically implemented.

We are asking for an open investigation and proper evaluation of the competing models, and until such an evaluation can be conducted, we are asking that parents and pediatricians be privileged to determine the best course of treatment for the children in their care, teachers and principals being professionally unqualified to do so. 

Educators are not pediatricians. With very rare exceptions, educators simply do not have the necessary training and experience to be taking the lead in making such decisions on behalf of vulnerable youth. 

We are also asking that our schools, and all classrooms, be rendered unconditionally safe.

This includes assessing and eliminating programs that may render young people vulnerable to those who employ grooming techniques. Parents of middle-school children need to know who their children are being allowed to communicate with and form relationships with, and they need to know what boundaries are being placed on conversations and instruction, and what sexually explicit material is being utilized. Unconditionally safe also means that schools don’t promote identity politics or signal that certain students are deserving of special considerations and protections due solely to the identity group to which they belong. Signalling that a classroom is safe for some students but not others is the antithesis of inclusion. 

All classrooms should be physically safe spaces, and the things that render a classroom physically safe don't tend to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity. If these spaces are supposed to be emotionally safe spaces, then it must be pointed out that many children are confused and disturbed by what is being presented to them in the context of SOGI 123.

Young children often don’t know how to react or respond when their teachers, who occupy a place of privilege and power, present to them controversial and sensitive topics, and it is clear that many educators are introducing highly sensitive topics while failing to properly assess the emotional safety of their students, their level of maturity, and their capacity to understand the subtle and sophisticated aspects of the topics being presented to them. It is also clear that some of these teachers are behaving more like activists than educators.

The requirement for schools to remain non-sectarian is to prevent schools from indoctrinating children – the goal being to educate them. 

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Christian McCay, North Island Concerned Citizens

Mobile: 250-204-7171

Email: christian246@hotmail.com

Website: bcsogi.ca (British Columbia's Gender Studies Curriculum)

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