Ontario's new sex-ed curriculum threatens to become federal election issue

It’s Ottawa’s turn for the uneasy lessons of sex ed.

With school restarted, so is the standoff over Ontario’s new health curriculum, and some angry parents say they’re determined to send a message to federal Liberals over provincial frustrations.

Voters say the curriculum has the capacity to sway the outcome of at least one riding – Don Valley West, home to the Toronto neighbourhood of Thorncliffe Park, where hundreds of parents home-schooled their children this week in protest. Many of them say they see sex education as a sign that the Liberal Party has become less friendly to immigrants, particularly religious Muslims.

For the local Liberal candidate, it doesn’t help that several Toronto-area Conservative candidates have made the sex-ed school curriculum part of their campaigns. When he knocks on doors in Thorncliffe Park, former Liberal MP Rob Oliphant – who held the riding from 2008-11 – has been breaking, gently, with his provincial colleagues’ line on the issue.

“I’m not running provincially, I’m running federally, but ... I will stand with the Thorncliffe community,” he said in an interview. “I think the implementation of the curriculum needs to be looked at.”  (more...)

Ontario's new sex-ed curriculum threatens to become federal election issue