Premier Dalton McGuinty has rarely seemed as skittish as he has during the week of sound and fury over sex education in Ontario schools. And not without cause.
There’s little so terrifying to provincial political leaders as any issue that threatens to lead back to debate over the public funding of two school systems.
In fact, this weekend marks an auspicious anniversary. Come Sunday, it will be 25 years since the election that ended the 42-year Progressive Conservative dynasty.
Before retiring in 1985, William Davis announced the extension of full funding to Catholic schools. His successor, Frank Miller, wore that policy like an albatross. Miller squeaked out a razor-thin minority in the ensuing election. But he was soon ousted by a Liberal-NDP accord that installed David Peterson as premier.
In 2007, former PC leader John Tory was ruined by proposing to extend public funding to schools of other religions. Just recently, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath ordered her caucus not to participate in a panel debate on funding two school systems.
That history is a subtext to McGuinty’s impersonation – as a proposed revision of the Health and Physical Education curriculum dominated the news – of a man trapped in a revolving door.
At first, the premier endorsed the plan. Within days, he reversed himself, saying the reforms required a “serious rethink.”
Astonishingly, he admitted this week that the about-face was ordered after scanning only the controversial proposals on sex-ed reform in the 208-page document – rather like those who highlight the naughty bits in novels and demand their banning.
McGuinty said his government “failed to do our job” in explaining the plan. In that, he allowed debate to be framed by those (mostly religious) voices who denounced it as a roadmap to Sodom and Gomorrah.
The plan’s aspiration was to build “elementary schools for the 21st century.” That it did.
Most of it was about living skills - diet, exercise, choice-making, seatbelts, bike helmets, using sunscreen.
Throughout, it was rooted in respect for family, suggesting exercise as a family, eating family meals together.
“As part of good teaching practice, teachers should inform parents about what their children are learning and when various topics are to be addressed.”
Very little spoke of sex education. The parts that did were not expressed as licence, but as knowledge as power.
“Refusal skills (need) to be practised and reinforced,” it said. “Students need to be taught about their right to refuse and about ways of showing affection appropriately.”
Moreover, it made the hardly scandalous case that “children need to have relevant information about health topics before they reach an age at which they need to make decisions pertaining to those topics.”
It suggests matter-of-fact instruction for which generations who came of age in ignorance would surely have been grateful.
“Having erections, wet dreams and vaginal lubrication are normal things that happen as a result of physical changes with puberty.”
At a guess, any MPP who went home and had a conversation with their teens or grown kids would have learned how early contemporary youngsters become familiar with the terms, and how much they desire clarity on what it all means.
The premier is evolved enough not to have found much, if any, of the new curriculum very scandalous.
His decision, based on a quick scan of the material, was a political calculation.
He could see the impact in the socially conservative communities in ridings his government holds.
He could see – as made clear by his hasty assertion that the Catholic sex-ed curriculum would be the same as the public – where it could lead.
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