Will Premier Smith follow through？
Episode Stats
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Summary
In the wake of Premier Rachelle Kennedy s victory in the Ontario election, many are asking, "Where's the oil in the ice cream?" and why is there still so much confusion about parental rights in Ontario's public schools?
Transcript
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with me now is john hilton o'brien the executive director of parents for choice and education
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a frequent columnist for the western standard john you were here you saw the standing ovation
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that premier smith got when she made a declaration that parents would always be
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in charge of their own children you also were here for the debate on the famous resolution 17
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which called on the province to actually articulate policy you must be pretty happy now i'm mostly
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happy only mostly where is the oil in the ice cream well the premier in her press conference
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also came out and said that she needed to balance those arguments with other stakeholders
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and that's a bit concerning for us so who are the other stakeholders and what kind of a balance
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you think she might be contemplated i guess i'll have to ask her but what do you think's going on
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here she seems to be talking about uh well the advocates for sexual gender and minority groups
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and the teachers union so in what sense would the teachers union have a have a position in parental
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rights when the um when kids go to school i mean they're in the school is thought to be in locus
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parentis like in place of parents but that's only for the time they're in school and then they go back
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it's never been the thought that uh schools would usurp parental authority has it well the ata would
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disagree with you if you go on their website you'll find a document that talks about how teachers no
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longer stand in local parentis the ata thinks that parents now stand in patterns patria as agents of the
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state and they're prepared to exert the rights of the child against the parent and it's a complete
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perversion of the idea of human rights so john because we have done some work in the past you and i and
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we've probably published something like 20 of your columns in the past two years i know what you're talking about
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but this may seem like weird dramatic uh crazy stuff just how embedded is this and how big a problem
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is this for premier swift it's a pretty big problem you see it's not just that she got the biggest round
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of applause for talking about parental rights in a positive fashion but when you look at all of the
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resolutions brought to the floor by grassroots members they volunteered the information that they
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are very concerned about parental rights so much so that they're willing to jump through almost endless
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hoops to do it and when we look back and we ask what really defeated rachel notley the answer is that
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she trampled on human on parental rights not just human rights and that was the end of her political career
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so i hope that the premier takes notice of that round of applause and the sheer volume of parental
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rights notices that she got through these motions do you think that this issue has the capacity to
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do to her what it did to rachel notley if she gets it wrong i think so i also think that mr kenny's
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failure to support parental rights was a key failure key failure for him and it may have played a part
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in his loss of the leadership of the party you stand against parents at your peril so this is a serious
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game that we're playing it's not just one resolution among 20 and it's not just uh you know one paragraph
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in a longer speech it is and i'm speaking as someone who is trained as an ethicist that's what i did my
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graduate school in we all have a moral sense that really it is the parents who should be in charge and
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anyone who starts saying that they're not is traveling into very murky waters now premier smith did
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say one thing that i want i wonder if you can affirm this at least she said it doesn't matter whether
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you're gay or straight you care about who is influencing your children and she's absolutely
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right about that in fact it may be enough to simply shed sunlight on who is making these decisions
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and on what decisions are made what do you think premier smith should do next and what do you think
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an organization like yours needs to do to try and bring this to a conclusion that would be acceptable
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to the people who gave her a standing ovation well there's a bunch of big concerns that are behind
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all of this to do with who's making decisions about medical care for children and who's making decisions
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about classrooms so what was foreseen in this motion was that we establish a parental bill of rights that
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removes loopholes that would let professionals take power away from parents so we need to remove those
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loopholes we need to clarify that it is in fact the parents who are in charge and
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and the professionals are acting simply in loco parentis as agents of the parents and that this
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relationship can be ended if they are not acting as agents of the parents so john one last thing the
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the uh the argument that is offered by the people who think like the ata is that some children are
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insecure at home they don't feel they can reveal their sexual problems uh their sexual identity
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and therefore they need a safe place to do it and school is that safe place intuitively that sounds
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like a reasonable argument but how would you answer that well behind that is a fundamental misconception
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about human rights simply put the parents have the right to exercise their children's rights against
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the state anytime someone is saying that we the state should be exercising the children's rights against
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the parents they are perverting those human rights this is not a reasonable thing for them to be saying at all
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so what should what should the child what's the problem do well when a teacher suspects that a child may be
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abused at home that teacher has a legal obligation right now as well as a moral one to report this to
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the correct authorities to child welfare and investigation should begin what we
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should be doing if we think that the problem is a matter of discomfort with communication is we
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should be facilitating the communication between the child and the parent because that's the problem
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it is not such a concern that the child is struggling with his or her identity the problem is that the
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child is having trouble communicating with the parents so you facilitate that communication you do not
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talk to the child and say that it's okay for them to keep secrets from the parents and tell them to
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the teacher because that's making it worse john hilton o'brien executive director of parents for choice
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and education thank you for this thank you for stopping by and after what you've seen today i imagine
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you're going to have more to say in the pages of the western standard yes thank you very much nigel i certainly