The Elementary Teacher’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) is encouraging its members to use a graphic sex education program that the new Conservative government ordered scrapped and many parents view as intrusive and discredited.
The program was designed in part by a former deputy education minister who pleaded guilty to making and distributing child pornography.
But as the Toronto Sun reports, union president Sam Hammond told the group’s annual meeting in Toronto on Monday that teachers who defy the government and teach the old Liberal-enacted curriculum will receive the union’s full support — including legal action.
“Teachers will not be muzzled by a government whose political agenda takes precedence over the protection and education of their students,” ETFO President Sam Hammond said Monday at the union’s annual meeting in Toronto.
Hammond said the union’s lawyers will be on retainer for any teacher who decides to ignore the direction of the education minister and teach the banned curriculum.
Despite such talk, Hammond called the provincial government’s decision to change the sex ed program “reckless behavior.”
But former Ontario Conservative leadership candidate Tanya Granic Allen called the union talk reckless, saying, “Teachers cannot go rogue.” Allen told The Daily Caller Tuesday, “The union is out to break faith and trust with the parents and children they are supposed to be serving. The teachers cannot take control when the parents have consistently said they don’t want the [former Ontario Premier] Kathleen Wynne sex ed program.”
Allen is currently distributing a petition that calls for the full repeal of the Liberal sex ed program, including “the unscientific information on gender identity,” she said.