News & Analysis

Report on May 14th Car Rallies Against Radical Sex-ed

"Let’s slam the brakes on Ontario’s radical sex-ed curriculum."

That was the resounding message driven home by moms, dads, and other concerned citizens in car rallies across the province this past weekend. The massive protest on wheels was organized by the Canadian Families Alliance, of which Campaign Life Coalition is a member.

On Saturday, May 14, demonstrations were held simultaneously in more than two dozen ridings across Ontario. Enthusiastic parents decked out their cars with flags, bumper stickers, and signs. They were fuelled by a desire to protect kids and raise awareness about the age-inappropriate material being forced onto elementary school students throughout the province.

GOING THE WRONG WAY

Ever since the Liberal government introduced it’s highly explicit curriculum, countless objections have been raised about exposing children to its harmful content. This controversial program is the same one the Liberal party was forced to scrap six years ago because of a massive backlash by voters.

From teaching “sexual consent” at the earliest levels of education, to mapping out “sexual plans” for older elementary students, it’s easy to see why parents are giving Premier Kathleen Wynne a failing grade and taking to the streets to turn things around.

Reports are coming in from organizers across the province and it looks like the rallies were a success.

HITTING THE ROAD

We received a great video from Bilal Sabra, the team leader in Ottawa South, showing a long line of vehicles ready to rally against irresponsible sex-ed:  watch video. On a busy Saturday morning, it would've been hard to ignore a motorcade that’s 11 cars long!

“[The] government must respect religious parents,” Bilal said in a news release, “whose faith forbid such sexual acts such as (masturbation, oral sex and other sex acts ) before being legally married." He was referring to the fact that the Wynne/Levin curriculum encourages 11-year-olds to masturbate as a “pleasurable” vehicle for self-discovery, and introduces 12-year-olds to the topics of oral and anal sex.

In the riding of Scarborough Southwest, there was an even larger car rally. Twenty-two drivers turned up to hit the road in protest against the sex-ed program.

“It was so, so great,” said Team Leader Meheretab Meja. “Everyone was prayerful and excited about taking a stand.”

                    

Mr. Meja reported that the strong participation in his riding was the result of last minute promotion by seven area churches who had very short notice about the event. He told us that several pastors said they wished they’d had more time to promote it because they could’ve brought out many more people. “Our community wants to do it again”, said Meja. “I think we can get 150 cars involved next time if we give churches more time to make announcements.”   

According to Meja, the Scarborough Southwest participants were very appreciative for being given the opportunity to express themselves. “The next day during Sunday church service, my pastor asked me to stand up and thanked me for leading the local car rally”, he reported.

The reaction from onlookers, both pedestrians and motorists, was overwhelmingly positive. According to Thecla Ross, the team leader in the riding of Brant: “People waved and gave thumbs up along the way. So we did get noticed.”

                                        

In some cases, the weather provided less than ideal conditions, but that didn’t dampen anyone’s spirit.

“The rally proceeded as planned, despite the rain,” said Ruth Spencer, the team leader of the Peterborough car rally. “Thank you for the opportunity to stand against the sex-ed curriculum in Ontario.”

SHIFTING INTO HIGH GEAR

“We had cars out in the rain and did the route…. It took us about an hour and 15 minutes and I believe that we got the best exposure we could have hoped for under ‘wet’ conditions,” said Roy Trepanier, the team leader in the provincial riding of Dufferin-Caledon. He’s right about the exposure. Despite rainy weather, the flags and bumper stickers were great ways of grabbing the attention of onlookers.

Many media outlets also took note, both mainstream and local. The Caledon Citizen newspaper photographed Trepanier’s group. There was also mention of the province-wide car rallies at CityNews, CP24, AM680 News, and the Toronto Star. In Thunder Bay, local news covered the car rally, too.

Team Leader Joanne Norlund-Carroll spoke with the media about the deceptive tactics the Wynne government employed to bring in the sex curriculum.

“Parents were not properly consulted,” Norlund-Carroll said. “It was a fake consultation with select parents chosen in each school board.”

                    

In Kingston, the Team Leader reported that curious passersby even stopped to ask questions about the curriculum while they were setting up before the rally started. There were very few negative reactions reported.

In Essex, after picking up a few goodies at a local Tim Hortons drive-thru, the team leader said something happened that was completely out of the blue.

                    

“Coming down the main street on our way back to the point of origin we met an oncoming group (of cars) with the same flags,” said Connie Gambriel, Team Leader in the riding of Essex. “We had a festive time greeting each other in passing. I'm not sure where that group was from, but they were 10-12 cars strong.” The other car rally was likely the Windsor West team whose driving route must have intersected with that of the Essex group.

JUST SAY "NO" TO RADICAL SEX-ED

Those who took part in the car rallies hope that the timing of the demonstrations – planned for May when sex-ed instructions are starting to be rolled out in schools across Ontario – will spur more parents to look closer at the curriculum and get involved in the fight to repeal it. 

“Amongst other controversial lessons, the program will teach eight-year-olds that being a boy or a girl is merely a social construct,” explained Sandra Wright, the car rally team leader in the riding of Oxford. “The sex curriculum is age-inappropriate, too explicit and pushes children toward premature sexual experimentation.”

“We also hope to encourage our local MPP (Ernie Hardeman – PC) to speak out more boldly at the legislature against the curriculum,” explained Wright. “Contrary to the claims being made by the Liberal government, this curriculum is not science or evidence-based. Instead, it represents the ideological, child-sexualizing ideas of a convicted child pornographer, Ben Levin, the former Deputy Education Minister under whom the curriculum was written.”

A reporter from the local Sentinel Review interviewed Wright about the car rally and took photos. Hopefully, the news coverage will alert many more people to the fact that the sex-ed program is age-inappropriate and too explicit.

FEELING THE PRESSURE

Now is not the time for parents to slow down. More work needs to be done to hammer home the message that Ontarians needs to say “NO!” to inappropriate sex-ed for our children.

Reports from mainstream media outlets show that a strong, unified voice can get results. Just watch this video from the 680 News website about what happened at Thorncliffe Park elementary school in Toronto, where explicit genitalia discussions where dropped from the lesson plans. That’s the school where concerned parents pulled hundreds of kids out of class in response to the radical curriculum last fall. Subsequently, there was this write up in the Toronto Star revealing that parents also succeeded in fending off age-inappropriate homosexuality lessons for Grade 3.

A local parental rights organization based in the Whitby area, called Durham Concerned Parents, organized car rallies across three adjacent ridings: Whitby-Oshawa, Ajax-Pickering, and Oshawa. Their convoy through the large geographic region exposed a huge number of people to our message. This local group will not even take a break. They have scheduled meetings with their local MPPs to lobby them against the sex curriculum. Both the NDP MPP Jennifer French (Oshawa) and the Liberal MPP Joe Dickson (Ajax-Pickering) will meet with the concerned parents group next month. This is a wonderful example of keeping one’s foot on the accelerator, and holding the Wynne Liberals to account for sexualizing children. 

This all goes to show you that taking action can work. But the car rallies across the province certainly would not have made an impact if it wasn’t for the commitment of the volunteer Team Leaders in each riding. So, a big thanks to all those who were able to take part. Here’s a look at some additional pictures sent in by riding Team Leaders from the May 14th car rallies.

     
     
     
      
      
     

 

HELP US CONTINUE FIGHTING AGAINST THE SEXUALIZATION OF CHILDREN

It's very expensive for Campaign Life Coalition (and the other Canadian Families Alliance partners) to organize events like this car rally. And yet, these protests are vital to keeping the pressure on the government and school boards to rescind this destructive sex curriculum.  Would you please make a generous donation, right now, to help cover the production and shipping costs for all the car flags, bumper stickers and decals?

When you do, please earmark the donation towards our sex-ed efforts by typing into the Comment field "For sex ed fight re: car rallies".