THUNDER BAY – Ontario’s “Premier Dad”, Dalton McGuinty is at it again. The Premier seems to feel that his judgement on ‘issues Ontario’ are better than those of parents and citizens of Ontario.
The latest move from “Premier Dad” is to mandate sex education for students in elementary and secondary school, with the first classes starting in Grade One.
Once again, like the HST, McGuinty’s move to teach children about sex were not part of the Ontario Premier’s election platform in 2007. Of course if the truth is to stated, the real value of a McGuinty promise… I digress.
But suddenly in Ontario, where manufacturing jobs have vanished faster than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Premier’s priorities seem again misguided at best. One wonders how exactly the Premier’s sex plan to start teaching sex in Grade one will help bring business to Ontario?
Yep! You read right, Grade One. At the age where kids are starting to learn how to print, read and do basic arithmetic, McGuinty wants to start injecting lessons about sex.
If parents are concerned over the lessons, the Premier has offered an option. “If parents are uncomfortable with certain aspects of this new curriculum, they can and they are free to withdraw their children from the classroom,” states McGuinty.
It is another of the Premier’s take it or else moves, like the HST where McGuinty is basically telling the people of Ontario that if they don’t like what he is doing, they can vote him out in 2011.
The McGuinty agenda has seen growing numbers of critics from an ever increasing number of groups. It is likely that what Ontario voters are seeing is the first steps to the door by what increasingly appears a government wearing out and getting tired.
The Premier’s agenda seems unstopping, and in many cases wasn’t a part of the Liberal campaign platform. The moves are likely to leave growing numbers of voters angry.
In mandating the teaching of sex to children starting in Grade One, there appears to be one important part of the equation left on the sidelines, parents, and families. In McGuinty’s rush to be the unofficial father figure for Ontario it appears that the real parents of Ontario’s children have been left out of the planning.
It is a sad way to run things, more consultation rather than the message ‘take it or leave it’ should be the rule.
The claim from the McGuinty Liberals appears to be that children today are exposed to far more images and information via the Internet.
Perhaps the reality is that the Premier and his Government have never seen what kids in Grade One would find on the Internet? In the massive majority of times it is games and websites like TVOntario Kids, and the Disney Channel.
This move by McGuinty appears to be as well researched as his move to change Ontario’s Drivers Licences a few years ago. It took a mere 125,000 kids joining a Facebook group to shift his government into some sober second thought.
Of course as long as the people of Ontario continue, through the polls to continue supporting the Premier’s agenda, the longer these kinds of policies will continue.
To me, this ‘my way or the highway’ style of politics makes me very uncomfortable, it makes Ontario look like a place that is undemocratic, and out of touch at the top.
That of course is just my opinion, as always, your mileage may vary.
What do you think? Should sex education start in Grade One?
James Murray