TORONTO – Somewhere in the Covid-19 era, whatever remained of the assumptions serving as guiding principles for development of our Canadian (more specifically, in Ontario) society seem to have withered on the vine.
Voices of moderation, typically speaking to tolerance and integration, have given way to vocabulary depicting – if not justifying – excesses both in language and in deeds as the new normal. Where once (yesterday it seems) the predominant culture demanded that we be “tolerant” of our differences and content to “live and let live”, now it is one where we value moralizers and finger pointers – “social justice advocates”.
They go back in time “to correct” every wrong, every slight – perceived or imagined – no matter how far back in history, to expunge “hatred and hatefulness” from the record. It is a revisionist and insidious form of discrimination that poisons social harmony. The observation is in no way intended to justify anything.
One does have to question what possesses people to attack a mother’s interest in what her children are being taught in a classroom. Sharee Di Vittorio, a Coptic Christian whose child(ren) attend(s) a Catholic school in York region, presented a delegation to a Board meeting, as was her right. Some of those revisionists (members of the OECTA Teachers’ union executive, as we reported at the time) called the police for her “hateful remarks”. No charges were laid.
Whether the OECTA executive has any legislated authority to proceed against parents in this manner is an issue that will not go away. It will reflect back on the administrative leadership of people like Directors Brendan Browne and Domenic Scuglia, to name but two. Ms. Di Vittorio was subsequent to her democratic intervention dismissed from her place of work at Auto Trader.
This attack by provoking economic harm for defending one’s legal right to protect the authority of parents for the upbringing of their minor children is, to be blunt, presumptuous, and disgraceful. Definitely despicable if coming from teachers.
Auto Trader did not respond to Corriere’s email requests for confirmation or explanation. OECTA has a habit of non-response, even when approached face to face at Board meetings.
In Saskatchewan and in Ottawa, Muslim parents, apparently tired, if not offended, by, in their view, the excesses of month-long celebrations of a lifestyle that runs counter to their values, took to the streets in protest. This prompted a reaction from the Prime Minister suggesting that these Muslims had fallen under the influence of far-right groups.
In the Toronto District School Board, parents and [some] administrators are being attacked by radical revisionists for permitting parents to withdraw their children from “drag queen” readings in their classrooms. The TDSB has completed a school year that saw a virtual collapse in safety, decorum and respect in schools. It cannot fill the vacancies because teacher absenteeism is at a modern all-time high according to some employed (but not for long) in the system.
“Progressives” cannot seem to agree among themselves. In England, a Trans group, severed itself from the LGBT group and challenged the Commission responsible for granting charitable status (and its attending tax benefits) to the LGB community because it was not progressive enough.
The connection between “rights” and “money” may never have been so crassly depicted.
On the other end of the balance, the Toronto Catholic District School Board is infected with some of those same ills referenced above. Oddly, the most prominent defender of “parental involvement” in the classroom is the Premier of New Brunswick.
