While there are many ironies in the realm of politics that provoke painful chuckles from those of us who follow them, there is perhaps none so galling as the renewed attacks on Christian schools by the most repugnant member of Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s cabinet, Education Minister David Eggen. In the past, you will remember, he suggested that homeschoolers should be assessed post-secondary in case they were doing particularly poorly—having only been taught by their parents and other educators rather than the employees of enlightened men such as himself, of course. Eggen’s assurances that he wouldn’t interfere with Alberta’s homeschoolers was then quickly swept away when he tried to shut down Alberta’s largest Christian home-schooling association a few months later, citing a “lack of accountability.”
It is a rich irony that a man seemingly so concerned about a “lack of accountability” is the very man who exposed Alberta’s young students to unimaginably disgusting types of pornography—and has yet to address that situation with any kind of public apology. The staggering level of hubris consistently displayed by Eggen was front and centre when he accused Jason Kenney of being an extremist last month for daring to suggest that parents have the right to know what their children are involved with when at school. Parental rights’ advocate Theresa Ng noted the brazenness of Eggen’s attack:
“David Eggen has the audacity to say that those who advocate for parental involvement in their children’s lives are ‘extremist?’” she wrote on her blog Informed Albertans.
Ng broke the story two weeks ago that the Alberta GSA Network website, which the NDP education ministry funds and recommends, included links “directing K-12 children to sexually graphic material, including advertisements for sex toys, graphic images of BDSM and advice to ‘pay for porn.’”
Since Ng’s revelations, links to 18 such “resources” have been removed from the website, which was produced by the University of Alberta’s Institute for Sexual Minorities Studies and Services (ISMSS).
Eggen has offered “no public apology for the fact that his department funded and recommended a website that led children to sexually graphic material,” wrote Ng.
Nor has the minister assured the public that Alberta Education is no longer employing the people who “recklessly and incompetently organized” the website, or that they are not involved in the province’s curriculum overhaul, she wrote.
I won’t link to any of the articles, but resources promoted by Eggen’s department included headlines such as “Super practical sex positions everyone can try at home” and “8 things they teach you at blowjob school” and “Masturbation Matters: 15 Better Ways To Get off.” I can see why Eggen wants parents to remain unaware of what their children are up to at school—if people were fully aware of the sorts of poison the NDP Education Department wants to disseminate to their kids, there would be a lot more outrage. As Theresa Ng noted in her original expose:
Unbelievably, it only takes two clicks for K-12 children to easily access sexually graphic material from this website, which is funded with taxpayer money and even recommended by Alberta Education.
The Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services (iSMSS) is paid by the Alberta Government to organize the Alberta GSA Network, intended to support a target audience that includes children ages 5 to 17 years old.
Dr. Kristopher Wells, who is a Faculty Director with iSMSS and the “driving force” behind the creation of the Alberta GSA Network, has publicly shared posts from Fruit Loop [one of the recommended resources] on his own social media, including a “fast-paced ad” featuring naked young people who “share an erotic kiss on a tennis court” and “are often seen embracing, rolling around on the ground together.”
You would think that a man in charge of this sort of fiasco might have the decency to put his own faux outrage about parental involvement in the lives of their children and Christian school kids being exposed to Christian points of view on ice for a bit. But of course, he does not, as a recent news story concerning a speaker from Red Deer Pro-Life, a volunteer community organization giving several talks on how to defend the pro-life viewpoint from a scientific and philosophical perspective at a Catholic high school has revealed. Eggen responded with uncharacteristic swiftness, announcing with exaggerated solemnity that the government had contacted Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools to convey their “deep concern.”
There’s more to this particular story, of course. Red Deer Pro-Life had emailed Minister Eggen’s office on April 3 to convey their own deep concern about the sexualization of children in Alberta due to the revelations of what Eggen’s department had been up to. A week later, a selectively edited video of one of the pro-life presentations was sent to the press, and the minister, of course, was immediately available for comment. The man who spends much time bloviating on about bullying was more than happy to bully a volunteer organization for presenting information he deemed offensive—and does he really have any credibility on this whatsoever?—in order to distract from the fact that websites his department promoted exposed children to bizarre and disgusting sexual behaviors, including some I dare not even name here.
The New Democratic Party’s vision of education in Alberta, as overseen by David Eggen, excludes anyone who questions the ethics of abortion or the philosophy of the pro-choice movement. Pro-life Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Muslims are out of luck—only ideology pre-approved by Eggen and his cronies—which includes bizarre, pornographic sex tips—is allowed. In spite of the fact that the taxpayer dollars of thousands of Albertan parents who disagree with Eggen pour into the education system, that doesn’t matter. Eggen wants to hold schools “accountable” for presenting points of view consistent with their values and the values of parents who send them there, but will not be accountable for exposing children to pornographic materials.
Eggen is a disgrace, and he should resign. But considering his shamelessness, he won’t. Fortunately, Albertans can look forward to giving this fluke government and their gang of dangerous ideologues the boot at the earliest opportunity.
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For anyone interested, my book on The Culture War, which analyzes the journey our culture has taken from the way it was to the way it is and examines the Sexual Revolution, hook-up culture, the rise of the porn plague, abortion, commodity culture, euthanasia, and the gay rights movement, is available for sale here.
The same arrogant prejudice and discrimination exists everywhere in NDP ranks. In BC their hipocracy is legendary.