What is the most insane school board in the entire country? I think one just might be the Ottawa Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) might be one of the most overtly woke school boards in the whole country, at least in the northern hemisphere. Joining me tonight to discuss just some of the woke madness coming out of the OCDSB is Cosmin Gerja of True North Centre.
00:01:39.140I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you are watching The Gunn Show.
00:01:41.840I think the Ottawa Carleton District School Board might be one of the most overtly woke school boards
00:02:06.420in the most overtly woke country, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.
00:02:12.400Cosman, Georgia from True North, has been the lead investigative journalist in the entire country,
00:02:18.320digging into some of the more radical policies and initiatives at school boards from coast to coast to coast.
00:02:24.440And the OCD-SB has come on his radar with some really bizarre decisions.
00:02:31.620For example, back in September, the board removed Lord of the Flies after the William Golding novel was described by a student as rife with, quote,
00:02:40.860white male supremacy, which tells the story of a group of boys in a hierarchical order who fight for power and degrade one another, end quote.
00:02:49.260Good job missing the point there, little lady.
00:02:51.580Three weeks before Remembrance Day, the board wondered if singing O Canada at school gatherings was, quote, distasteful,
00:02:59.820and they mused if the tradition, which is entrenched in Ontario law, should be just, you know, replaced altogether.
00:03:07.980Now, more recently, and possibly more troubling, the school issued a 42-page gender identity and gender expression document,
00:03:15.560which was meant to foster inclusive learning environments for all students.
00:03:19.460Now, this document requires the schools to recognize the gender self-identification of students at any age
00:03:26.460and prevents schools and teachers from sharing the new identities of the students with their parents.
00:05:40.300So before I go into the specifics of that guide, I would say that Canadian parents would be horrified
00:05:46.660to see the type of gender ideology, critical race theory that is being pushed on the next generation of Canadian kids at these school boards.
00:05:56.420And like you said, yes, the Ottawa-Carlton District School Board is one of the worst and most aggressive boards
00:06:05.000that has been conducting themselves in this way.
00:06:07.700But there are other school boards, the Toronto District School Board, you know, where I'm originally from,
00:06:12.720the Waterloo Region District School Board.
00:06:15.080They all have similar ideas regarding, you know, gender, race, and other identity issues.
00:06:23.560Now, this latest guide, it's actually the second iteration of a guide that was originally published back in 2016.
00:06:30.960It's called Gender Identity and Gender Expression, Fostering Inclusive Learning Environments for All Students.
00:06:38.640And this will be presented to the OCDSB, so that's the Ottawa-Carlton District School Board's Advisory Committee on Equity,
00:06:49.500on Thursday, this coming Thursday, November 25th, 2021.
00:06:52.940So, there's really not a lot of time for parents to get involved, and if you are not actively on top of this stuff,
00:06:59.440and, you know, life gets in the way, and you don't even think this stuff is being taught to your kids,
00:07:04.080this is something that you hear about in American news media, but it's here, and it's coming.
00:07:10.100Tell us a little bit about what this guide entails.
00:07:12.780Sure, so, it's a sort of reference guide for educators, staff, teachers, on how to deal with, you know,
00:07:21.840kids that might identify a different gender, so, you know, kids from the queer, LGBT community.
00:07:29.400But the guide, it's a very comprehensive update to that 2016 document, which is only about, like, 14 pages.
00:07:37.900This is about 46 pages, and it goes into detail on how to, you know, whether parents need consent,
00:07:45.660kids need consent from their parents to change their names to a different gender on their school records.
00:07:52.900So, there's a part at the end of that that has, it's a guided questions section that instructs teachers to ask their students
00:08:02.120whether they would like to hide this information from their parents,
00:08:04.920whether they would like to hide, you know, their gender transitions.
00:08:08.920And it's funny because there's a disclaimer in that section that says, you know,
00:08:12.740oh, we're not encouraging or, you know, telling teachers to lie to their parents necessarily,
00:08:21.440but it doesn't say that they shouldn't lie.
00:13:22.980And there's discussions about, you know, what to do on school field trips that are overnight stays.
00:13:27.300But that document does not, you know, exclude the possibility of a student saying, yes, I want to go into the, you know, ladies change room,
00:13:39.160even though I'm a biological male, and, you know, do my business there.
00:13:45.020It actually states explicitly, do not question, you know, teachers are not allowed to question or surveil washroom use.
00:13:52.240So, I think, you know, there are, in some cases, genuine people who view themselves in a different way and wants to, you know, be accommodated.
00:14:04.020But the problem with this policy is that it creates a condition where, you know, a potential bad actor could take advantage of this very loose and, you know, hard to enforce thing.
00:14:19.480And it could create some serious problems for, you know, parents and children themselves and the school board in the future.
00:14:27.900We can see this playing out in the United States.
00:14:30.340There was a case where, you know, the school essentially hid a sexual assault that was committed by a student in a similar situation as the one I'm discussing right now.
00:14:42.440Yeah, and I think for me as a parent, I see this as the parents are being excluded from this conversation.
00:14:48.960We are being put on a need-to-know basis.
00:14:51.460Well, it's my kid, and I need to know everything.
00:14:53.920And I don't think the school should ever be the arbiter of the information that I receive from them about my child.
00:15:01.060I think that's a really concerning thing outside of all the other issues at play here.
00:15:06.560Isolating parents from information they must have about their children is a real problem here, especially when we know the rates of suicide and attempted suicide for kids who are struggling with their gender identity.
00:15:20.120You'd want to flag this issue to a parent so that they could be on the lookout for anything manifesting at home.
00:15:27.600Absolutely. I don't think the teachers or educators, the bureaucrats, will do anything to change this.
00:16:27.440Yeah, I think keeping this sort of information away from parents flies in the face of the reason they say they're doing it in the first place.
00:17:14.940Again, I think you're the leading reporter on school board issues in the entire country because I don't think anybody's really digging into this.
00:17:22.920We all sort of look at the macro issues of bad federal government, bad provincial government,
00:17:28.280but we never look at the government that we can really affect the most because it's the closest to us.
00:17:35.220And that's the school board, that's municipal politics.
00:17:37.260Anyway, getting back to what I wanted to ask you about, the Ottawa Carleton District School Board's Indigenous Education Advisory Council
00:17:47.040debated whether making students sing O Canada at the start of the school day was distasteful or should be replaced.
00:17:55.380This is crazy, but it's also just unsurprising at this point.
00:18:00.680Yes, and there's very little lack of self-awareness.
00:18:03.880That was, you know, I think within a month or so of Remembrance Day.
00:18:08.420And they were talking about this as if, you know, singing O Canada is some horrible, evil thing.
00:18:15.260And that Indigenous students, you know, present must feel, you know, terrified or ashamed every time they sing O Canada,
00:18:23.380which I think is just a ridiculous idea.
00:18:46.320I'm not sure, you know, the communist anthem, whatever.
00:18:48.660Yeah, it's funny because that's actually the law in Ontario, right?
00:18:54.740That opening or closing exercises must include the singing of O Canada and may include the recitation of a pledge of citizenship in the form set out in the regulations.
00:19:04.840So, this is the law in Ontario and it's, there's nothing wrong with that law, but the chair suggested that Indigenous students,
00:19:15.940and as I read this, I'm like, this is soft bigotry, actually.
00:19:19.260This is thinking that Indigenous students are some sort of victimized monolith that all feel the same way about certain things.
00:19:26.120And they all just, they must just hate Canada by virtue of being Indigenous, which is racist.
00:19:32.300But she suggested that Indigenous students be permitted to sit and not participate in the singing of O Canada.
00:19:38.540Elder Dumont expressed the opinion that the government of Canada needs to hold people accountable for the deaths of students at residential schools.
00:19:45.680What has that got to do with the school presentation?
00:19:50.300I don't understand how any of these things mesh and teaching little kids that maybe you have a reason to hate Canada.
00:19:57.240I don't think that's a great idea for the future of this country.
00:20:01.700So, even legally speaking, there is exemptions within the Ontario law for singing O Canada.
00:20:08.960But as it was stated by the OCDSB, you know, you don't have to give any reason to be exempt from singing O Canada if you just want to sit down and they won't question you.
00:20:21.460So, it is technically legal what they're saying, but the type of attitude they're taking, willing to trash the country, you know, bring it down, bring the nation down and paint it as some inherently evil, systemically racist thing.
00:20:37.960So, yes, this is happening in a lot of school boards and a lot of educators and teachers, not all of them.
00:20:46.640You know, I know teachers, I speak to them, but they do have this belief, this mentality, this sort of ideology that's kind of swept the country under our noses.
00:20:56.760Now, Cosman, before I let you go, because this is still staying with the Ottawa Carleton District School Board.
00:21:02.540Back in September, you reported that they removed Lord of the Flies from the English curriculum based on a complaint from a student who noted that she does not need to learn more about white male supremacy, which tells the story of a group of boys in a hierarchical order who fight for power and degrade one another.
00:21:30.180I think the story of Lord of the Flies has a lot to do with mob rule.
00:21:36.560And this one little girl is the mob that got a book burned.
00:21:41.020Yeah, so that was included kind of off the cuff in one of the board meetings minutes.
00:21:49.500And basically, what was described there was, yeah, the fact that this student in particular complained in an article written in a local or student newspaper about that book, you know, in my eyes, completely missing the point of the story, which is actually a critique on power structures.
00:22:59.200You send your parents or you send your kids to school thinking that they're going to learn actual valuable things that will help them in their future.
00:23:08.200But the brainwashing apparently starts younger and younger and younger.
00:23:13.600Cosmin, how can people find your work?
00:23:16.020Because, like I said, you are one of the only journalists in the entire country doing this important work.
00:23:20.780So how can they find your work and how can they support the work that you do and the work that True North does?
00:23:47.240And I think, you know, I'm happy that you're shining a light on this issue.
00:23:51.200Yeah, I think this is one of those places where the culture war can actually be won in the direction of freedom if we sort of nip it in the bud before the little brainwashed people get into the power structures.
00:24:02.840So I'm glad that you're recognizing this.
00:24:05.760And I know you have a little one at home.
00:24:07.100And so I'm sure you have personal motivations for doing this kind of work.
00:24:31.320You know, friends, other school boards might be equally as far left and crazy.
00:24:36.660But the Ottawa Carleton District School Board is probably the most upfront about it in the entire country.
00:24:41.980So I think as parents, we probably should appreciate the honesty and we should be grateful for the work that Cosmin Georgia is doing over at True North to shine a light on some of this stuff because it should not be allowed to happen in darkness and without the knowledge of parents.
00:25:02.300Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.