You may have heard about the changes New Brunswick's conservative government recently made to their provincial "Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity" policy - Policy 713.

On Thursday, New Brunswick's education minister announced that it will no longer mandate school staff to use the chosen names and gender pronouns of children under 16 years of age without parental consent.

While this change to New Brunswick's Policy 713 does not go far enough (the majority of the policy's far-left mandates remain untouched), it is a move in the right direction.

Unfortunately, in Ontario, nothing similar has been done by the Ford PCs in their five years of majority rule.

The Ford PCs have absolutely no interest in changing the education policies implemented by the prior Ontario Liberal government and instead have been championing the education policies of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne.

In June 2021, two Windsor-Essex school boards introduced policies similar to Policy 713, ensuring that both elementary and high school students could change their gender pronouns and name at school without the knowledge of their parents. Click here to read about it.

Despite the Ford government having all the power they needed to step in - as they showed us when they seized total control of the Peel District School Board for two and a half years - the PCs did not lift a finger to defend parents' rights in Windsor-Essex.

And let's not forget, last year in March 2022, the entire Ontario PC caucus (along with Derek Sloan's co-conspirator Rick Nicholls) voted in favour of the NDP's ultra-woke Bill 67 based on Critical Race Theory that called for fining our children in school for "subconscious racism." Unfortunately, I was the only MPP to vote against it.

Instead of implementing policies similar to the change to Policy 713 made by the New Brunswick PC government, the Ford PCs have taken Ontario's education system in the opposite direction.

Last Thursday, on the very same day that New Brunswick's government announced their policy change - the Ford PCs voted along with the Ontario Liberals in favour of Bill 98, the so-called "Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act."

This was the PC government's first major education bill in five years and it contained no measures to preserve parental rights in our school system, no changes to Ontario's radical sex-ed curriculum that pushes gender ideology in elementary grades, no steps to refocus our academic efforts on basic skills like reading, writing and mathematics, and robs parents of the power to make a change in the future by taking power away from democratically elected trustees and placing it in the hands of faceless, government-appointed bureaucrats. Click here to read our email about Bill 98.

In the five years of their majority government rule, the Ford PCs have made no attempt to reform our education system while they have had the opportunity.

Why?

Because the Ontario PC Party is nothing more than a provincial wing of Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party of Canada.

After breaking every campaign promise they made, betraying blue voters, and demonstrating that they have none of the values they feigned to hold, the Ford PCs are continuing the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals' legacy and paving the way for Trudeau's federal policies at the provincial level.

Thankfully, we have the New Blue Party of Ontario - created to challenge the left, balance the narrative, and change the course! 

With your help, we will continue to educate Ontarians, build our party, and hold the Ford PCs to account.

If you are able, please consider chipping in (by clicking here) to help us prepare for the three upcoming provincial by-elections.

Thank you for your continued support!

Belinda Karahalios
New Blue Party of Ontario