Lecce RUNS AWAY as parents slam gender ideology in Ontario schools
Episode Stats
Words per minute
180.44417
Harmful content
Misogyny
7
sentences flagged
Hate speech
3
sentences flagged
Summary
In Ontario schools, teachers and school boards are keeping private from parents their own children undergoing social gender transitions using a different name and different pronouns at school, and not telling the parents. On Friday, we went down to FordFest to try and figure out what the heck is going on inside Ontario's schools.
Transcript
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I just want to ask about Bill 98, just your own legislation.
00:00:08.840
On Friday, we went down to FordFest, the annual PC party and Doug Ford celebration.
00:00:14.080
We went there to try and figure out what the heck is going on inside Ontario's schools.
00:00:18.960
Last year, when footage emerged of a transgender shop class teacher in Oakville
00:00:23.840
who wears giant prosthetic Z-cup breasts in front of his class,
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but because the Ontario government refused to do anything about it for months.
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Since then, independent journalists and parents began to take a closer look
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at what's been going on behind their backs at our schools.
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And let's just say that the discoveries have been downright disturbing.
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We now know that schools in Ontario have been actively hiding from parents
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the trans identity of their children while at school,
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allowing them to use a different name and different pronouns and not telling parents.
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We spoke with a TDSB trustee and he confirmed that the largest school board in Canada
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We also know that male students have free access to
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female bathrooms and change rooms while at school.
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If you want to know what happens to a student who opposes this measure,
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just ask student activist leader, Josh Alexander.
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School surveys have been sent out to students in grades as early as four
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asking about their sexual identity and in grades as early as seven
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Why exactly school boards need to know this information hasn't been made clear to us.
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How about the discovery of sexually explicit books
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at Ontario public school libraries like Gender Queer and Lawn Boy?
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Throughout all of this, Ontario test scores in math and other subjects have plummeted,
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thanks in large part to the government shutting schools down during the pandemic.
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They are now gathering in their hundreds outside of Ontario schools
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to protest gender ideology inside the classroom
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to ask him about what is taking place inside these schools
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if their children are undergoing a social transition at school.
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As you're going to see, the second he saw us approach,
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and we didn't even ask him any tough questions either.
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We also spoke with PC Party supporters and attendees at FordFest
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to ask them what they thought of how education is being handled
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are keeping private from parents their own children
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using a different name and different gender pronouns at school
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In my opinion, the gender should be separated from the school.
1.00
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Yes, being a parent myself of three kids from the ages of 10 and down.
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You know, if my kids had a problem with identifying what gender they go by, I think it's the parents' right to know.
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And it's not for a teacher or school or anybody else to withhold that type of information from the family.
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If one of my own children was to come out, say they wanted to be gender neutral or, you know, they want to be referred to as whatever, I have no problem with it being a parent.
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My children have the right to make their own decisions.
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The school boards do not have the right to hold that back from any parents in any which way, shape, or form.
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If there's something that is happening with my children, I expect the school and the school board and those teachers to let us know.
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Especially when they're under the age of majority, when we are their guardians and we basically are their voices.
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What do you make of the way that the province, Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce, have handled education in Ontario so far?
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The fact that they're trying to silence parents' voices is absolutely despicable.
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They are forgetting in loco parentis, which means they are an agent of the parent.
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You might have heard me speak to another gentleman here.
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In New Brunswick, they've just passed a law to stop the practice of withholding the information from parents,
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allowing children to socially transition with other parents, knowing.
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I think that Ontario needs to start forcing schools to have to tell the parents.
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So I'm with DDSB Concerned Parents as well as Durham Parents United.
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And I only just started getting up and going to my school board when there's meetings and trying to talk to my trustees and whatever else.
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It's very easy to come up and just let your voice be heard.
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You can't be afraid of being called names anymore.
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Your children are worth so much more than that.
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What do you make of how education has been handled by Doug Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce?
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He doesn't want to spend public money on the public.
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He doesn't want to subsidize the private sector.
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You cut back on education, all your public services.
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One of the big issues going around right now is that teachers are withholding information about students undergoing a gender social transition using a different name and different pronoun at school, not telling parents.
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Well, my granddaughter's a transgender and that, so I guess they've got to protect themselves, I guess.
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Remember, 1960 in Ontario, there were only three or four people that were transgender.
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The common line of defense for this is that outing a child to their own parents is a dangerous thing.
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Or do you think that parents should know if their child is using a different name or pronoun at a school?
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If they want their parents in on it, then it's up to them.
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What do you think about education, the way it's been handled by the Premier and the Education Minister so far?
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Everyone should be educated and they're doing a very good job.
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What do you make of the fact that in schools now, teachers and principals at schools are withholding the social transition of children,
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allowing children to go by a different pronoun and name than the parents have, and they're keeping that information from parents?
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In New Brunswick, they've just passed a law to repeal that, to make that process illegal.
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Do you think the government in Ontario should do the same?
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The provincial government should get involved if they believe in parents' rights.
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If they believe in parents' rights, unfortunately, the current government does not.
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The provincial government doesn't believe in parental rights.
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If they were, they would have let the parents decide what type of curriculum and what their children learn in school.
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So I'm guessing you think there needs to be a law to stop this practice from schools?
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Because they did it in New Brunswick, but they haven't done it in Ontario yet.
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But personally, I don't think that the current government is on the liberal side.
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So, but if they were, yeah, should be a law, absolutely, that will make parents the sole decider of their children,
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The question we're asking parents here, and I know it's a bit of an education file, but it is in the news.
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Does the government believe that parents have a right to know if students are going through a social transition at school
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Because right now, school boards are keeping that information private, confidential from parents.
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I've got so much going on in the Attorney General's office, getting the courts running and humming.
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Okay, we're trying to find him, but I appreciate you taking the time.
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Minister Lecce, I'm with True North, Harrison Faulkner.
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Grace Lee, that's the media person in our office.
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We tried to track him down all the way from the field over here to the bathroom.
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He doesn't want to talk about Bill 98, his own policy.
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But further, I'm guessing he doesn't want to talk about what parents have to say about teachers withholding gender identity,
00:10:39.180
You'd think that's the kind of thing the education minister of the PC party would be all over.
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But just the idea of talking to us in independent media doesn't seem to be what they want to do.
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Well, we reached out to Stephen Lecce's communication staff to ask them the questions we were going to ask Stephen Lecce before he ran away from us.
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They didn't respond to our email and get back to us in time for this video.
00:11:01.560
Okay, yes, so we're here asking parents what they think of the education file being handled by the province.
00:11:07.160
In particular, we know that at the TDSB, or it's also happening in other schools,
00:11:12.500
that teachers and school boards are withholding the information of children undergoing social transitions,
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different names and different pronouns from parents.
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Could you explain why that's taking place in Ontario schools?
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I'm still yet to get a grasp of that, but it does happen, I'm afraid to say.
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But again, I haven't gotten to the bottom of that yet.
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Is it the kind of thing that you think would be important for school boards to do,
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or as a trustee, do you think that's the kind of thing that should be stopped in schools?
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Do you face any pushback from other TDSB trustees for your positions?
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We also know that last year there was a TDSB census given out to students.
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In grades as young as four, students were asked about their sexual identity.
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And in grades as young as seven, they were asked if they were transgender.
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Why does the TDSB want to know that information about students at that age?
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They don't know they're alive yet, so why would you?
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Well, that's interesting because I think from a lot of people's perspective,
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they view that the school boards are homogenous groups that are pushing this.
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But it's interesting to hear from a trustee that you don't think it should be happening.
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As you just saw, we tried to track down the Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce,
00:12:35.860
In fact, he ran into the bathroom trying to get away from conservative independent media.
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All we did, actually, was just ask him about a recent piece of legislation he passed, Bill 98,
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You'd think that's the kind of thing that an education minister like him would want to talk about.
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But he must have known that we were going to ask him later about parents wanting to know what's going on
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with their children in schools, because right now they don't.
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Right now, as we talked to you before, teachers are withholding the social transition of children from parents.
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We spoke to supporters of the government that had very serious words to say about it as well.
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They want to see the government do something about this.
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Maybe that's why Stephen Lecce didn't want to talk to us.
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We also tracked down the attorney general, Doug Downey.
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It seems to be a hot-button issue, but you would think for conservatives it would be a home run,
00:13:30.840
the kind of thing that would play well with their base.
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But for whatever reason, the government doesn't want to talk about it.
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We also spoke to one man who has a transgender granddaughter,
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and he likes the idea of students being able to keep their social transition secret from parents.
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It's important to tell both sides of the story here,
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but I can tell you for certain the majority of people we spoke to want to see the government do something about this.
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For True North, in Scarborough, Harrison Faulkner.