A change in the promotional focus of Anti-Bullying Day across Canada has created concerns among some parental rights groups in the country, leading to a campaign to encourage a boycott of Pink Shirt Day on Feb. 28.
Led by Culture Guard, an organization focused on preserving traditional family values and fighting against what president Kari Simpson says is the “pride-ification of the nation,” she is encouraging parents and parental values groups to protest by keeping their kids home from school on Feb. 28 or by not wearing pink.
A bulletin created by Culture Guard highlights what Ms. Simpson describes as examples of activists hijacking the anti-bullying message to promote a controversial sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) curriculum and confuse children with a different mandate.
“This is another perfect example of how the sex activists are using every tool in the toolbox to indoctrinate kids with this propaganda,” Ms. Simpson said in an interview with The Epoch Times. “This is the new version of inclusion where there is no escape from their version of inclusion. And their version of inclusion does not include everybody’s version of what Canada is.”
Pink Shirt Day began in 2007 in Cambridge, N.S. when two students responded to an incident where a boy in their school was bullied for wearing a pink shirt. The two Grade 12 students bought 50 pink shirts and handed them out at school the next day to build solidarity and support for the boy.
The following year, Vancouver radio station CKNW expanded on that effort by creating its own Pink Shirt Day movement to spread awareness on the prevalence and effects of bullying. The station also raised money for anti-bullying organizations and initiatives.
‘No Kid Should Feel Bad’
Supporting the original anti-bullying strategy is not the problem, according to the co-founder of Parents for Parents’ Rights, Elton Robinson. Mixing the message by labelling some parents as the enemy is.“Bullying covers everything,” Mr. Robinson said. “No kid should feel bad, no matter what they are or what they believe, they should not feel less than anybody else in school.
“With the Pink Shirt Day, what they’ve done is they’ve started to infiltrate it with transphobia. And I understand that there are people who are bigots. But the only reason why Parents for Parents’ Rights started was the secret policy we have in our school system in Ontario. And it’s across Canada; keeping secrets from parents.”
As teachers have children under their supervision for six hours a day, Mr. Robinson argues they can tell if a child is in an unhealthy environment at home, which is the reason he says schools used to hide a transitioning child from parents. Conversely, he says, those same teachers can identify the majority of children who live in a safe and healthy home, and should continue to keep parents involved.
“Unfortunately, they don’t want to listen to that part,” he said. “They’re missing the safety of the child, and not only that, keeping secrets is completely wrong. You teach your kids at a young age that the only people they’re supposed to talk to if they have issues is their parents.”
Ms. Simpson said the current public system is structured to allow teachers to “be bullies and impose different indoctrinations on children.” That approach, she said, only makes children feel angry, accelerating the atmosphere of bullying.
‘Divided People Into Camps’
This year, Statistics Canada has focused its promotion of Pink Shirt Day almost exclusively on bullying data against “sexually and gender diverse youth.”The Epoch Times reached out to Statistics Canada for data related to other categories of bullying such as race, religion, and disabilities, and whether the anti-bullying campaigns during the past 17 years have had a positive impact, but didn’t receive a reply by press time.
The change in focus doesn’t sit well with Parents Rights Coalition of Canada co-founder Shannon Boschy. To him, the shift is not about protecting a vulnerable group of kids but a directive to create more division.
“The intersectional worldview is ’the oppressor and the oppressed,'” Mr. Boschy told The Epoch Times. “Instead of decreasing bullying through education, it has divided people into camps and pitted the oppressed against the oppressor, and legitimized abuse of some people by other people. They can use that identity to claim victimization because non-binary and trans are the more oppressed class of everybody, and it’s an exploited loophole.”
Mr. Boschy speaks from experience. His youngest daughter came to him at age 15 and told him she was transitioning and didn’t feel safe in his home any longer.
“She gave me basically a recited script with all the markers of a school-sponsored transition,” he said. “I didn’t realize the depth at the time, but I’ve been studying school policy in Ontario for a couple of years now, and it’s just a cancer.”
Mr. Boschy ran for school trustee during the last civic elections in Ottawa but was not elected. His stances toward SOGI and parental rights garnered attacks against his character by opponents and media, he said, but he felt he had to represent people who couldn’t speak for themselves, while trying to expose those he says were using an anti-bullying cover to pass a harmful agenda.
“It’s diversity, equity, inclusion, and trans inclusion that’s smuggled in under the rubric of anti-bullying,” Mr. Boschy said. “So they bypass sex-ed curriculum, bypass public debate, bypass any accountability for policies that are written and implemented because they say this is anti-bullying and this is helpful. But it’s all upside down.
“People are just terrified to speak, but we need to push back against this. We’re going to get cancelled and we’re going to get attacked and called names. And I can’t make the situation worse because it’s already as bad as it can get. So I’m going to stand up, I’m going to speak out and put my name on the line and take the slings and arrows.”
