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Analysis

‘Very Dangerous’: Educators Warn BC Conservative Platform Seeks to Force Far-Right Anti-LGBTQ+ Ideology on BC Schools

BC Teachers’ Federation says the BC Conservative education platform echoes language of American-style right-wing culture war politics

The organization representing British Columbia’s 50,000 public school teachers says the BC Conservative education platform will do nothing to address the real needs of the province’s students and instead reads like a set of policies written by right-wing ideologues in the American Deep South.

This week, BC Conservative leader John Rustad unveiled his party’s education platform, with a big focus on purging “ideology” from classrooms by having the government review and remove educational materials from BC schools.

“Ideology has no place in a classroom and parents are tired of being called ‘hateful’ by the NDP,” the BC Conservative platform states. “When kids go to school, parents trust and expect the school to provide a quality education … not activist ideology that could send kids down a dangerous path.”

Social conservatives and the far-right in the United States, Europe and South America have been fixated on conspiracies that public schools are attempting to indoctrinate children with a so-called “gender ideology” in recent years. In 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis brought in a controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law while other Republican states have been banning books from schools and libraries.

The BC Conservatives specifically want to ban SOGI 123 – a set of educational tools designed to make schools safer and more inclusive for students of different sexual orientations and gender identities. The platform says a BC Conservative government would “identify and remove lesson plans, seminars, policy guides, curriculum elements and practices stemming from SOGI 123.”

“It does echo what’s happening in the US,” BC Teachers’ Federation President Clint Johnston told PressProgress. “It 100% sounds that way because that’s what it is.”

“Looking at a party, who is asserting that there’s indoctrination going on in schools, I don’t understand the cognitive dissonance to suggest people are being indoctrinated and then say we’ll stop that by having politicians decide what you can and can’t read.”

The BCTF notes SOGI is not a “curriculum” (the program is a set of optional “support tools” that “individual certified teachers” can choose to incorporate into classroom lessons) and the term “practices” is so ambiguous it could mean a ban on everything.

“The way it’s written, it could encompass almost anything and that’s what’s problematic with it,” Johnston said.

“You’re not going to be taking out the crayons and the pencils, you’re talking about books and other resources. That is incredibly dangerous.”

Pointing to a 2002 Supreme Court ruling that found a school board in Surrey, BC violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by banning books depicting same-sex parents, Johnston said the BC Conservatives “cannot just pick and choose and ban certain materials because the political leadership doesn’t like it.”

“It looks like someone who wants to stick their finger right in and mico-control what is happening in schools and take educators and people who understand pedagogy and children’s development out of that conversation and make it a political process. I think that’s very dangerous.”

BCTF is not alone. Reid Clark, President of the Chilliwack Teachers Association, called Rustad’s education platform a “step backwards rejecting decades of progress in education reform and inclusivity.”

“We can’t return to outdated systems that ignore research and marginalize vulnerable students.”

Inclusion BC, an advocacy group focused on issues of diversity and inclusion, released a statement this week that they were “disturbed by the BC Conservative platform on education.”

“Research in Canada and around the world shows us that all students learn better in inclusive classrooms,” the group said.

The BC Conservative platform claims “SOGI 123 was originally – and falsely – marketed to parents” as an “anti-bullying” program, though BCTF says Rustad’s talking points are misleading.

“It was not marketed solely as an ‘anti-bullying’ program,” Johnston pointed out.

“To pick that one thing and suggest it was brought in on a bed of lies is really, really a stretch, it was brought in under perfect pretenses of what it was, it was going to teach children about the different types of families there are and different types of identities a person can have at an age appropriate-level.”

“If the BC Conservative Party feels like SOGI was falsely marketed, they should probably ask their leader, John Rustad, who by my memory was part of the party that introduced that program – he was part of the BC Liberals, the BC Liberals are the ones who brought in the SOGI program,” Johnston added, noting SOGI has had “cross-party support” since it was first introduced.

Adding to the confusion, the BC Conservatives quietly made significant revisions to their education platform shortly after they first uploaded it to their website.

At a press conference, Rustad said the platform was posted while he was off having “Thanksgiving dinner” and claimed one of his staffers posted an “old version from many weeks ago” by accident.

One policy rewritten by the BC Conservatives is a promise to “uplift all kids by ensuring the ideological neutrality of classroom materials and that kids are made to feel proud about who they are.”

The original version of that policy promised to “remove classroom material that instills guilt based on ethnicity, nationality or religion.”

Johnston says the older version of the policy only makes the BC Conservatives’ true intentions crystal clear.

“Anyone who put that down in a statement or part of their platform, there is no way to assuage me,” Johnston said. “When you look at a term like ‘resources in schools that might instill guilt’, there’s very little other than books or teaching materials and posters.”

“To talk about a politician setting-up a system whereby those materials are removed, there’s really no way that doesn’t have a problematic context to it.”

The BC Conservatives also reworded promises to increase public subsidies for private schools and offer “tax credits or direct payments” to encourage homeschooling – that was edited to simply say the BC Conservatives would “remove barriers to homeschooling.”

The platform also promised to ensure “parents are informed of any suicidal ideations expressed by their child,” which was quietly edited from its earlier version, promising parents would be informed of any “significant ideations expressed by their child.”

It’s unclear what “significant ideations” actually means. Similar ambiguities in Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law has left educators confused about whether they are legally required to report students who come out as gay to them. Conservatives in Alberta also pushed laws requiring students be reported for joining Gay-Straight Alliances while Saskatchewan and New Brunswick passed controversial laws requiring parental approval over how students are addressed in classrooms.

“I think you actually have to look at the first edition that got pulled down, it said any ‘significant ideation’,” Johnston said. “In my opinion, I think it was originally much broader, I think the intent and the idea when it was put on paper was it would be a way to try to make teachers and educators report on students who might have ideas about their identity that did not align with their parents.”

Johnston added that the BC Conservatives’ policy is “pretty wild” given the province already has a “reporting process” for dealing with students who may be at risk of self-harm. That process involves school counsellors and other professionals making assessments on a case-by-case basis. While parents are usually notified as part of that process, there could be situations where students are victims of parental abuse.

“There would be a proper assessment done,” Johnston noted. “That assessment is not made by a teacher in a classroom.”

 

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Luke LeBrun
Editor
Luke LeBrun is the Editor of PressProgress. His reporting focuses on the federal political scene, right-wing politics as well as issues in technology, media and culture.

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