Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:45 am
As announced in early August, on 20 September Canadians concerned for the safety of children and the future of education gathered by the thousand not only in Ottawa, where between 10,000 and 15,000 people came out, but also in many other cities across Canada in the “Million Person March” against the indoctrination of children with radical LGBT ideology in schools.
People poured into streets coast to coast from Abbotsford (British Columbia) to Halifax (Nova Scotia), Calgary, Winnipeg, Windsor, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and several other cities in response to Justin Trudeau’s liberal government’s attempt to impose Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) in schools.
Parents and concerned citizens carried signs reading “Leave Our Kids Alone”, “Stop Sexualization of Children”, “Protecting Children’s Innocence”, “Stop SOGI In Schools” and the like.
Kamel El-Cheikh, one of the Muslim parents organizing the protest, said, “We’re just starting. September 20 will be families and kids liberation day. We will be relentless. We will be unapologetic. From Victoria, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa we will defend our children and parents’ rights at all costs. Remember, we are the powerful majority. We are one nation under God. God keep our land glorious and free.” He promised that the “Million Person March” would not be a one-time event but the beginning of a national movement, adding that he has centered his political activism in the “Hands off our Kids” website at www.handsoffourkids.com.
The key message protesters wanted to send to education policy makers and school boards is that they have crossed the line and that parents are no longer going to put up with it. It’s the responsibility of parents to make sure their children are safe, that they go to school to get an education, and not to be indoctrinated into any ideology.
According to CTV News, parents “accused schools of exposing young students to ’gender ideology’, and said parents have the right to know whether their children are questioning their gender identity.” In many Canadian provinces, children under 16 years of age can decide to change their gender or pronouns without their parents’ permission or knowledge, and woke teachers are openly telling their students that they will not inform their parents if students want to change their names or pronouns. Hence, it only makes sense that one of the most viral photos from the march is of a woman holding a sign that says, “Never Trust Anyone Who Says ’Don’t Tell Your Parents.’”
LGBTQ radicals staged counter-protests, inspired by a leaked controversial Zoom call showing public sector unions conspiring to thwart the March through intimidation. In the call, chaired by the president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, union representatives called parents “fascists” and claimed that they are opposed to gender ideology because of their “hate”. Counter-protesters were loud, offensive and violent, however, police forces were prepared and came in sufficient numbers to hold off the LGBT radicals and protect participants of the “Million Person March” from their attacks.
Activist Celeste Trianon, who organized the counter-protest in Montreal, said, “We need to talk to people, teach them the right vocabulary, the proper words, at an age-appropriate time, in order to explain that inclusion is a good thing. We need to make sure that their trans and queer peers at school feel welcome.”
This is precisely why Canadian parents are speaking out in the first place. When something requires “the right vocabulary” that goes hand in hand with penalties for not using the “proper words”, we get an undeniable feature of an ideology, and a totalitarian one at that. To make things worse, this ideology implies the sexualization of children, although exposure of children to sexually explicit content is against the law. Namely, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection has a mandate to react, among other, in cases when sexually explicit material is made available to a child”, which is exactly what happens whenever LGBT teachers talk to children about their personal “sex life” and relationships, “queerness” and “queer sex.”
Also, Article 26.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children,” which means that parents are well within their rights when they oppose school content and materials deemed inappropriate or explicit and want their children to be able to opt out of such classes. They have the right to oppose the new materials that teach children they can change sex, that biological sex is fluid and changeable, and that there are more than two genders.
And for all of their talk of “spreading love and tolerance” and seeing “a wave of love and support and care on that day”, gender ideologues and “allies” were the ones yelling, shouting obscene words, threatening and even being violent (pushing, hitting Million March protesters, even to the point of knocking them down).
To illustrate what has triggered parents into such a massive public protest, here are just two examples. This June, a teacher in Edmonton berated Muslim students for not supporting Pride enough, and told them they “don’t belong here” and that they “can’t be Canadian” if they don’t support Pride Month. Another teacher in Windsor, Ontario, repeatedly told students who did not attend “Pride Day” that they were “disgusting” and that failure to attend the event was “an incredible show of hatred.” So much for spreading tolerance and love.
The Million Person March is trending on X with the hashtag #1MillionMarch4Children.