Juno News - True North's Andrew Lawton with Tanya Granic Allen

00:00:00.000 I'm joined by Parents as First Educators president, Tanya Granik-Allen, also a former

00:00:09.240 leadership contestant for the PC Party of Ontario. Tanya, good to be with you. Thanks very much.

00:00:13.620 Thanks for having me, Andrew. So you really, before entering politics as a leadership

00:00:19.100 candidate, had set the tone for discussions about the sex ed curriculum. And when you first brought

00:00:23.480 up that issue, you were speaking to a PC Party that not only didn't want to listen on that issue,

00:00:28.820 but had really turned its back on people after promising one thing, doing another. And you look

00:00:36.020 at the PC Party today, you were instrumental in getting Doug Ford elected as leader. The issue of

00:00:41.940 the sex ed curriculum was discussed at great length during the campaign. The government has already

00:00:45.900 taken some action on that that we'll get into the details of. But did you envision this would be the

00:00:51.060 road that Ontario would be going down even a year ago? No, a year ago, we were, I guess, hot on the

00:00:57.120 heels of Patrick Brown's flip flop from his commitment to repeal the sex ed. And I think most

00:01:02.460 common sense Ontarians and common sense conservatives were a little concerned with the direction the

00:01:07.140 party was taking, not just with the sex ed, but also with questionable nominations and potentially

00:01:13.420 corruptive practices and whatnot. So, but with this, the sex ed file, yeah, we had no idea.

00:01:19.320 My colleague, she said, no, Patrick won't be the leader going into the election. And she had this

00:01:23.460 idea, but I said, no, no. I mean, we're just a few months away. And then all of a sudden things

00:01:27.840 happened in January and we have a completely different premier than I think we thought we

00:01:31.500 would. And that shows a lot of things. I mean, first off, you can never take anything for granted

00:01:36.060 in politics. A lot can change. I know that you weren't gearing up for a leadership race until you

00:01:39.840 were. I never in my life thought I would ever run for politics in general, let alone the leader of a

00:01:44.860 party. Because I had interviewed you on my radio show when you were the PAFE president the first

00:01:49.220 time around, and you were not gearing towards political office. You were trying to get politicians

00:01:54.080 to respond to a constituency that was being ignored at the time, which was parents. Now we have a

00:01:59.440 government that has said it's going to listen to parents. I was a candidate in the election. So I was

00:02:03.240 hearing from a lot of people that the sex ed curriculum was a problem. And I wanted to ask you

00:02:09.480 why you think that issue gained such traction? Because I was not hearing about it from the usual

00:02:14.460 suspects of social conservative causes. I was hearing about it from people that had never

00:02:18.360 been politically engaged, new Canadians, Christians, Muslims, non-religious people.

00:02:24.080 Of all the social issues, why do you think the sex ed curriculum was the one that really gained so

00:02:28.200 much traction? Well, the curriculum per se was just so, it's just so terrible. And we're talking

00:02:33.680 about the Kathleen Wynne radical sex ed curriculum. There were just so many elements that were terrible.

00:02:38.160 And I think we've had about three years now of this curriculum in the classroom. And parents know

00:02:43.040 they're sitting down at the dinner table and children are coming home from school and discussing

00:02:46.460 things that parents didn't think in a million years they would hear come out of their kids' mouths.

00:02:50.320 So parents understood that there's something going on in the classroom that they didn't like.

00:02:53.780 You mentioned new Canadians. Most new Canadians, they come from other countries where they may not

00:02:58.980 be able to exercise their democratic freedoms, like freedom of speech or freedom of religion.

00:03:03.240 And they come to Canada in search of those freedoms and hope to be welcomed in a society like that.

00:03:08.700 And they want to impart those potentially traditional family values to their children.

00:03:14.220 And to have a school system that's running completely against that is shocking for a lot

00:03:19.380 of new Canadians. And they found their voice and they're using it. And I'm grateful for them.

00:03:23.120 And I think it's important that people have that opportunity to exercise those freedoms.

00:03:28.060 And what's most important to most families is their children. You go and attack children or you

00:03:32.680 try to go and sexualize children, you're going to hear from a lot of angry parents. And I think we saw

00:03:36.560 that in this election. That's a good point. And more than any other social issue, sex ed really

00:03:43.660 cuts at how children are being raised because it is the state that is by many measures trying to

00:03:51.900 replace parents when it comes to different belief systems and different value systems.

00:03:55.940 And when you look at even the name of your organization, Parents as First Educators, I think

00:03:59.460 that the curriculum entering the political discussions was a wake-up call for a lot of parents to actually

00:04:04.700 reclaim that. And I think that parents, by and large, many of them didn't know the rights that

00:04:09.340 they did have to get involved in their kids' education. And that was something that was

00:04:13.200 really encouraging to see. Even outside of how people voted, just parents that are actually

00:04:16.720 stepping up and being a lot more engaged. Because that now is the battle. If we say parents

00:04:21.240 weren't consulted, parents need to make sure that they are participating in the consultation.

00:04:24.880 Precisely. And I think, you know, parents are busy. Sometimes you have double income,

00:04:29.520 both mother and father are working. They send their children to school with the good faith and trust

00:04:34.240 in that the government is instructing teachers to educate them properly. But when we're teaching

00:04:38.620 elements like the unscientific gender theory to children and using the classroom more as a vehicle

00:04:44.780 of social engineering, the red flags go up. So, yeah, I think parents are waking up. And I'm glad

00:04:51.440 many organizations, including my own, that are sounding alarm that, you know, parents, you are

00:04:55.760 the first educators. You will always be the first educators for your children. So pay attention to

00:05:01.000 what's going on and make sure that they're learning what they should be and avoiding what they shouldn't

00:05:05.480 be learning. Let's talk about where we are now. You were not a candidate by the time the election

00:05:10.460 rolled around. The PC party was very clear that it didn't signal any change in policy. They were still

00:05:15.900 committed to repealing the sex ed curriculum. You were very swift to say it needs to happen by September,

00:05:20.700 which the government has done. Are you happy with the direction we see from the government now as

00:05:26.580 far as what they've committed to do by September? Well, so last week I was ecstatic and I said this

00:05:31.700 was a terrific victory for parents and children. But unfortunately, just a few days ago, the issue

00:05:37.040 of repeal has been evolving. And I always said repeal and replace. And it was the Ford government that

00:05:42.000 brought in the restore. And it seems like that's where they're tripping up because there's been a lot

00:05:45.580 of attacks from the left, big surprise there, saying, oh, you're going to take people back to

00:05:49.940 the dark ages and whatnot, which is completely not true. But the Minister of Education this week

00:05:55.640 mentioned that the children will still be learning gender identity theory, or she suggested that. And

00:06:00.220 I'm asking for clarification. Will children learn this theory or not when they return to school in

00:06:04.840 September? Parents want to know. The society wants to know. And I think we need a little bit more

00:06:08.860 clarity on that. I think Premier Ford has tried to clarify a little bit that parents are the first

00:06:14.340 educators. He came up with some excellent language on that yesterday. And I'm happy to see that.

00:06:18.760 But I think that the government needs to really make their position clear. And considering the,

00:06:23.580 again, the recent, I guess their gaffe, they need to clarify, will that controversial material be

00:06:30.800 taught or not? We've seen a number of teachers, isolated examples, but still it's been part of the

00:06:36.140 discussion on this that have said they're going to, you know, still teach all of these other things

00:06:40.760 anyway. And we've had some that have said they'll do it outside the school system, to which I

00:06:44.300 say, power to them if they want to do it. Teachers who don't want to play ball on this, I mean,

00:06:51.340 is there a proposed remedy to that?

00:06:53.540 Well, I think it's absurd, first of all. Teachers are great, and we're happy to have them,

00:06:59.860 and they serve such an important role. But the role is very clear. You are to teach the prescribed

00:07:04.080 curriculum. And if the curriculum, and if you want to go outside that scope, if you, you know,

00:07:09.020 really want to instruct your classroom on masturbation, or teach that class on, or introduce

00:07:13.400 the topic of oral sex in your classroom, or you really want to introduce the six genders to your

00:07:17.860 children at age eight, which is what we have now with the Kathleen Wynne sex ed curriculum,

00:07:23.360 that's, and our curriculum doesn't have that, then that's crazy. If that's not what we have laid out,

00:07:27.600 then you cannot teach that. And I think parents, again, put their good faith in the teachers to

00:07:31.260 teach the prescribed curriculum. And let me be very clear, we hear from lots of teachers. Yes,

00:07:35.840 we're parents as first educators. That's our organization. But teachers call us all the time.

00:07:39.580 We received so many messages saying, thank you, that I don't have to teach this awful curriculum.

00:07:44.780 I don't have to sexualize my students in the classroom. Because let's face it,

00:07:48.000 what teacher really wants to talk about gender theory to eight year olds? It's confusing for us,

00:07:52.340 most of us adults, let alone a child in grade three. The media and the opposition have come at this

00:07:58.100 issue by saying we're going back to the stone age, like you indicated earlier, by going back to the

00:08:02.140 1998 curriculum. They say Doug Ford's rolling back the clock 20 years. In actuality, we're rolling

00:08:06.900 it back three years. I mean, that curriculum was working right up until a few years ago. But I do

00:08:11.300 have to ask, I mean, there are legitimate grievances that people raise that that curriculum didn't

00:08:15.720 address a lot of the modern realities like the internet, like cyberbullying, like sexting.

00:08:20.980 Do you think that there is going to be something missing when those are not part of what's being taught?

00:08:25.460 Look, I agree with Premier Kathleen Wynne, the former Premier, that yes, this curriculum needed to be

00:08:29.840 updated 100%, especially given what she said in light of technology advances. That was the excuse

00:08:34.920 she used to update the curriculum. And I agree. But she pulled a bait and switch. She used that excuse

00:08:40.380 as an opportunity to actually advance her social engineering and the gender theory. Why do I say

00:08:45.800 that? Because she failed to not once address internet pornography in this curriculum for elementary

00:08:52.140 school students. And that is terrible. Now, I know people said, well, that's because, you know,

00:08:57.080 the deputy minister of education at that time was is now a convicted child pornographer. Maybe that

00:09:01.720 had something to do with it. I don't know what I do know that if she truly wanted to update the

00:09:05.940 curriculum because of technology, she failed. So, yes, we must have elements that keep up to date.

00:09:10.800 The curriculum must be updated, but it must be done so in a responsible manner. And Kathleen Wynne,

00:09:15.500 unfortunately, to simply use that as an opportunity to advance her social engineering.

00:09:19.040 But with that reversion that we believe we're headed towards in September, and I agree with you about

00:09:23.200 the need for clarity. Do you think we're going to be missing out on something significant if

00:09:27.640 those cyber elements are not included? Look, I think there are certain themes are woven throughout

00:09:33.460 all sorts of curriculum. I think parents are the first educators, and I think they in their home

00:09:38.180 are instituting those those limitations. For example, you know, parents monitor what their

00:09:43.160 children do on the internet, or at least they should be doing that. And, you know, I know kids are

00:09:47.220 sometimes accessing things on their school Wi-Fi that they shouldn't. There are overarching policies

00:09:52.020 within a school that kind of regulate what children should or should not be accessing. I think that

00:09:56.140 needs to be toughened up. Look, I don't know how long this consultation will take to bring up a new

00:10:01.140 curriculum. I hope it happens in a good, timely fashion, and I hope the Minister of Education,

00:10:06.160 you know, updates those those important areas. We saw very legitimate concerns about how little

00:10:12.780 consultation there was. And I know the government loved to point to the 4,000 number for parents,

00:10:16.720 but there was very little insight, even among a lot of critics of people like you, that were saying

00:10:22.100 they didn't know how those 4,000 were selected, didn't know that they were handpicked, it was one

00:10:25.960 per school, it wasn't really a representative of the entire cross-section of parents that we have.

00:10:32.540 But at the end of the day, they're going to be parents that have differing beliefs on what should

00:10:36.760 be taught. And the government's going to have to pick a side, and they're going to have to pick,

00:10:40.260 you know, the parents that want a really permissive progressive curriculum,

00:10:43.000 or they're going to have to pick the parents that want a really conservative, pared-down one.

00:10:47.400 And at a certain point, you can't compromise between these two groups, you need to pick a

00:10:51.620 side. How should a government navigate that? Okay, so just to clarify, even though Kathleen

00:10:56.760 Wynne made the claim 4,000 parents were consulted through a Freedom of Information request, it

00:11:01.120 turned out that just over 1,600 were handpicked by principals. Just to clarify that, because I

00:11:05.400 know that's what's been going around. At some point you said they're going to have to pick a side.

00:11:10.440 Well, actually, it's very simple. We just need to get back to basics curriculum. We're doing it with

00:11:14.100 math. We should do the same with sex ed. We don't expect unscientific, unproven things like gender

00:11:19.220 theory to be taught. That's reasonable. You know, do we need to keep current? Of course we do. Things

00:11:24.400 get updated from time to time. This is the time. I don't think one side should win or the other side

00:11:30.140 should win. I think we teach children the basics, and if parents want to seek extra education for

00:11:34.020 their children, look, if a parent wants their kids to learn karate, they take them for karate class. If there's a

00:11:38.080 parent who really wants a child to learn eight genders, then perhaps they can hire a gender

00:11:42.140 expert to come into the home and explain that to them there. But the classroom must teach the basics

00:11:46.600 and must not be used as a tool of social engineering. You touched on something very important, though,

00:11:51.900 which is that all of these parents that are concerned that the sky is falling about this

00:11:55.300 need to be stepping up, and if they think it's so essential that their children are taught certain

00:11:59.340 things, teaching it. And I wonder where we've gone so wrong as a society that because your family

00:12:05.620 thinks something is good, the government should make that the case for every family. And there's

00:12:10.060 such an inconsistency because eventually those parents are going to find that there's a government

00:12:13.280 in power that stands for different things than they do. And they're not going to like when that

00:12:17.240 government turns around and says, well, actually, no, we're not doing it your way. We're doing it our

00:12:20.780 way. Well, that's why I've always been very clear. We need a science-based sex ed that, like I said,

00:12:25.740 teaches the basics. You know, I think, for example, the words love and marriage ought to be

00:12:29.640 mentioned in a curriculum. It's not currently mentioned once in the curriculum. The word love on a

00:12:33.360 curriculum on sex ed. It's shocking for many. But no, I think the government needs to always respect

00:12:38.260 parental rights. Parental rights in direction of their education of their children is enshrined in

00:12:42.520 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So this is an international right. And I think the government

00:12:48.020 must know its place. So I'm optimistic that the forward government will respect that and will

00:12:53.200 always enshrine parents as the first educators and respect parental authority. Let's say you get a

00:12:57.580 win on this. At the end of the day, we get a curriculum that you're happy with, that your members are happy

00:13:01.180 with. Do you hang up your hat and go home? Well, a win on this will always, I'll just understand a

00:13:06.760 full repeal of this curriculum must always include always advanced notification of sexual education

00:13:12.300 lessons and allow the parents to opt out. Because like you said, not all parents will be happy with

00:13:16.540 it. So let's always respect those parental rights. Let's always give them an opt out without

00:13:20.240 repercussions from the principals. But what do I do once we move on from this issue? Well, you know,

00:13:26.580 there are so many more areas that we need to work on to undo the damage of the Kathleen Wynne government.

00:13:32.100 For example, Bill 89, which regulates Children's and Youth Services. We know right now children are

00:13:38.020 being removed from homes if their parents do not agree with them and switching sexes and engaging and

00:13:44.860 accessing sex change procedures, be it hormonal therapies or other medical therapies. That would be

00:13:53.380 considered a form of abuse according to this previous government and they are removing kids.

00:13:57.020 We need to fix Bill 89. There are many other things that need to be done to undo the damage from that

00:14:02.060 last government. And I think to go back to where we started off this discussion, what's happened to

00:14:07.640 the PC party and now to Ontario in the last six months, really, that's how long it's been since

00:14:12.320 Patrick Bown stepped down, I think really reinforced why you should never give up a cause. Because had you

00:14:16.800 just given up and said, you know what, we're not going to get what we need in this party,

00:14:20.280 the course of what happened in the months following that would have been very different than they

00:14:25.560 were. So good work. They certainly will. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you very much.

00:14:27.840 Tanya Granik-Allen, President of Parents as First Educators. Thank you so much.

00:14:31.100 Thanks. All right. For the True North Initiative, I'm Andrew Lawton.

00:14:33.920 Thank you.

00:14:34.920 Thank you.

Juno News - July 21, 2018

True North's Andrew Lawton with Tanya Granic Allen

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