Is Premier Dalton McGuinty afraid to talk about sex? It certainly would explain a few things.

In response to a question from NDP MPP Rosario Marchese, Ontario Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky admitted no progress has been made on a new sex ed curriculum almost a year after Premier McGuinty's government caved to religious groups and withdrew a revised program.

Following his decision to pull the new curriculum last April, McGuinty promised a “rethink” and further consultations with parents. 

But based on an exchange between Marchese and Dombrowsky in the Queen's Park legislature March 3, it appears the government has done little to follow up on its promise.

 Dombrowsky: What was evident with the sex education part of our curriculum was that we needed to do a better job. My ministry is working to understand what is the best way, given that we did have a consultation process that obviously was not adequate for parents. So we are looking at ways that we can do a better job of getting their feedback on a very important curriculum for students in our schools.

Dombrowsky's dodge provoked Marchese to ask if McGuinty is "the education premier" for everything except sex education.

Marchese: Why is the premier afraid to talk about sex?  

The education minister's comments come less than a month after MPP Glen Murray told community members, in a Feb 8 meeting he hosted at the 519 Church Street Community Centre, a new policy could be expected soon.

Murray says the public can expect a revised curriculum soon. “I think the new curriculum is pretty good,” he said. “I have to tell you, many of the things that offended people are already in the curriculum. We talk about all kinds of families and human sexuality in our elementary schools.”

The question on the floor of the legislature comes as Minister Dombrowsky continues to avoid questions about the Ontario Catholic school system's ban on the word "gay" and a provincewide prohibition on gay-straight alliances ordered by the Association of Catholic Bishops of Ontario.   

The Canadian Press did gave the exchange - and the issue - some coverage with a CP piece that has so far appeared on CTV, parentcentral.ca (TorStar) and in the Guelph Mercury. 

Now, if only someone would ask about the GSA ban in Ontario's publicly funded schools.

Video from Queen's Park:

Transcript:

Mr Rosario Marchese: My question is to the premier. Last spring, the government introduced a new health curriculum for Ontario students, but at the last minute, under duress, it cancelled changes to sex education. The government promised it would start a new round of consultations on updates to sex education. What is the status of those consultations, Premier?

Hon Dalton McGuinty: To the minister of education.

Hon Leona Dombrowsky: What we have done, first of all with respect to the curriculum that is out there, is that we have new physical and health education, save and except for the sex education piece. All of the good work that went into that document is now being implemented in our schools, save and except for the sex education curriculum, which continues to be what was in place in our schools.

We have a process in Ontario where we review our curriculum on a regular basis, and that was the process that was followed. People — parents especially — in Ontario made it very clear that the way that they were engaged around changes to curriculum did not meet their needs, and our premier made a commitment that we were going to consider how we could do a better job of that. My ministry is taking a very careful look at how we’ve done it in the past and what some of the most effective ways are, going forward, that we can ensure that the issues of parents —

The Speaker (Hon Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr Rosario Marchese: Health and education groups in Ontario haven’t heard a word about the consultations that were promised a year ago. Nothing has been done. There are no consultations.

Ontario children and youth need accurate information about sexually transmitted diseases, sexuality and early pregnancy to develop into healthy adults, but Ontario’s sex education curriculum is outdated. It appears that this is the education premier for everything except sex education. Why is the premier afraid to talk about sex?

Hon Leona Dombrowsky: I think it’s important to clarify that we have sex education in our schools now. We have had it for many years, and that continues to be the case.

We have an improved physical health education curriculum in our schools. That did go forward.

We are looking at the process that we have to review curriculum. We review curriculum all the time.

What was evident with the sex education part of our curriculum was that we needed to do a better job. My ministry is working to understand what is the best way, given that we did have a consultation process that obviously was not adequate for parents. So we are looking at ways that we can do a better job of getting their feedback on a very important curriculum for students in our schools.

UPDATE MARCH 4: The planned protest took place this morning. Caller.com, a news site out of Corpus Christi, reports the crowd reached 100 and, as might be expected in Texas, a handful of people gathered in a counter-protest across the street. See pictures from the demonstration here.

A local news report on the protest:

MARCH 3: We could use more heroes like 17-year-old Texas high school student Bianca “Nikki” Peet.

Four months ago Peet approached her school's principal with a request to form a gay-straight alliance (GSA) at Flour Bluff High School in Corpus Christi, Texas. Not only was her request refused, but last week, in an effort to close all loopholes, school officials decided to ban all extracurricular clubs.

By canceling all extracurricular clubs on campus, Flour Bluff ISD hopes to avoid the  Equal Access Act -- a federal law, passed in 1984, that requires schools receiving federal funding to offer "fair opportunities for students to form student-led extracurricular groups, regardless of their religious, political and philosophical leanings." The district still maintains that they do not have to follow the Equal Access Law.

Though Peet's fight has attracted support from such groups as Gay-Straight Alliance at Texas A&M University, the ACLU and GLADD, the superintendent of the school district, Dr Julie Carbajal, has said repeatedly there is “no chance” the district will approve the proposed GSA. 

A protest against the decision is planned at the school tomorrow (March 4). Paul Rodriguez, president of the GSA at Texas A&M University, said he’s expecting more than 300 people to attend.

“I couldn’t believe my ears,” Rodriguez told Instant Tea. “I couldn’t believe that an administration of a public school would actually go to that length to show hatred, to show intolerance. It’s just appalling.”

Rodriguez said supporters of the GSA have contacted both Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union, which are investigating. But the goal of the protest is to convince district officials to change their minds.

“As far as Nikki and her supporters go, they were very nervous about going to school today, because they don’t know what kind of hostility or bullying they’re going to face,” Rodriguez said. “They’re afraid they’re going to get blamed for all the non-curricular clubs not being allow to meet. We’re hoping to redirect that anger to where it really belongs. If we can get all those people on board and join us in this fight for equality, that would just be awesome.

Blaming the activists? Sounds familiar.

Show your support for Peet's struggle by signing this petition at change.org. You can also RSVP for tomorrow's protest here (can't make it to Texas tomorrow? RSVP as "maybe" to show your support and spread the word). Follow Peet on twitter here.

The email address of Flour Bluff's principal, James Crenshaw, is  jcrenshaw@flourbluffschools.net. The school's phone number is 361-694-9100.

A scathing Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) report on police conduct during the G20 has sparked new calls for a joint federal-provincial public inquiry to determine who was responsible for "serious violations of fundamental rights and freedoms." The report was released days after the broadcast of a Fifth Estate documentary that featured shocking videotaped evidence of abuse by uniformed officers. 

Premier McGuinty, busy tweeting about canoe trips, has rejected calls for an inquiry. According to the Toronto Star, McGuinty is staying mum on the arrests that took place at Queen's Park, where he had personally invited people to protest during the G20 in a so-called free-speech zone (add victims of G20 abuse to an angry list that includes queer youth in publicly funded Catholic schools and students demanding queer-positive sex education curriculum).

March 1 editorials in the National Post and the Toronto Star both called for an inquiry. 

A CBC post on the CCLA report has received a whopping 1,453 comments. The most popular, with 1,130 "agrees," reads:

A dark day in Canadian civil liberties and free speech, 1,100 Canadians arrested and few charged. A comprehensive public inquiry is the only way to go. 

Days after the brutal events of the G20 weekend, the Toronto Police Service’s lesbian, gay, bi and trans liaison officer, Thomas Decker, was quoted in Xtra dismissing calls for answers: “The Pride weekend has shown that an overwhelming majority of the community appreciate and support [the] police.”

Decker's comments followed a protest at the 519 Church Street Community Centre against Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair's Pride reception, which was held at the community centre days after the G20.

The executive director of The 519, Maura Lawless, has since expressed regret for allowing police to host their event at the centre:

“In retrospect, the event should never have gone ahead and that’s clear. We were trying to find a balance.”

You can watch the Fifth Estate documentary on the CBC site here or via the embedded video below.

The CRTC's decision to abandon planned revisions to a regulation that critics argue would lead to "Fox-style news" in Canada is making waves in the US.

In a March 1 column on The Huffington Post, Robert F Kennedy Jr applauds the broadcast regulator's decision. He calls it a rejection of "efforts by Canada's rightwing prime minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news."

Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast.... any false or misleading news." The provision has kept Fox News and rightwing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high-quality news coverage, including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987.

Kennedy claims the planned changes were meant to facilitate the launch of Sun TV News, Quebecor Media's all-news channel. With its populist, conservative-leaning approach to reporting, many were calling the channel "Fox News North."

It's clear from his piece that Kennedy, an environmental activist and the nephew of one of the most popular presidents in US history, is no fan of our current prime minister:

Harper, often referred to as "George W Bush's Mini Me," is known for having mounted a Bush-like war on government scientists, data collectors, transparency and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery: false patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity. 

While that may be true, it hasn't hurt Harper in the polls.

Kennedy argues that rightwing ideology can become popular only through dishonest propaganda:

Since corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public. In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the sock puppets of billionaires and corporate robber barons have become the masters of propaganda and distortion on the public airwaves. Fox News's notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin protests is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly avoided.

Below is a trailer for Sun TV News:

Premier Dalton McGuinty may want to take a break from tweeting about his favourite Arcade Fire song to reflect on a recent survey that shows most Ontario students disagree with Premier Dad about sexual education.

Nearly 82 percent of the 2,600 Ontario high school students surveyed via Facebook and email by the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association (OSTA) said they thought all sexualities should be taught in school during sexual education class.

The survey of 15 public and Catholic school boards across Ontario was conducted with assistance from Scholarships Canada and Student Vote.

Asked if they'd ever been bullied in school, 46 percent of students who completed the survey said yes.

Interestingly, the board with the highest number of students who reported being bullied, nearly 60 percent, was the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic District School Board.

A few months ago, days after Xtra's report on the Halton Catholic District School Board's ban on gay-straight alliances provoked a provincewide storm of controversy, a report in the Ottawa Citizen lauded the efforts of the superintendent for the Ottawa Catholic School Board in welcoming gay and lesbian students. However, the board's support for its students came with a condition:

Here in Ottawa, (Tom) D'Amico said the English Catholic school board doesn't use the name "gay-straight alliance" because the Assembly of Ontario Bishops -- to whom school boards look for spiritual guidance -- prefer a name that reflects a more general focus on equity and social justice.

As our subsequent investigation revealed, social justice may be a concern, but the Catholic bishops dictate that gay identity doesn't exist. D'Amico doesn't mention this significant detail, prompting one Ottawa blogger to call the Ottawa Catholic board's policy "homophobia with better PR."

Zane Schwartz, one of the student trustees who led the survey, told The Globe and Mail the project was an attempt to demonstrate that students should be playing a larger role in shaping educational policy:

“Students are always going to be the ones that experience [policy] decisions, and I think that puts us in a unique position to report back on what’s working and what isn’t working.”

Members of the OSTA have requested a meeting to discuss the results with Minister of Education Leona Dombrowsky.

A student trustee from the Simcoe County District School Board has agreed to discuss the results of the survey with Xtra. We'll update this post with her comments later today following our discussion.