Earlier this week I noted that Justin Trudeau is discovering that many Canadian Muslims who traditionally vote for his party are growing increasingly frustrated and angry with the public school system’s insistence on indoctrinating their children into LGBT ideology.
Trudeau’s tactic in responding thus far has been a combination of defending LGBT education in schools and claiming that concerns about the curriculum were primarily “American fearmongering.”
Several years ago, some Muslim parents participated in the protests against Ontario’s radical sex-ed curriculum, which was spearheaded by then-premier Kathleen Wynne and then left largely the same with a few changes under Progressive Conservative premier Doug Ford. But those multi-ethnic protests did not, at the time, appear to create a lasting coalition fighting for parental rights and against indoctrination in schools. This time, however, the Muslim involvement in the fight for parental rights may be more long-lasting — and may have significant political effects in the long haul.
On July 20, for example, Trudeau claimed Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is insufficiently enthusiastic about the LGBT movement, and cited as an example a recent photo in which the Conservative finance critic, Calgary MP Jasraj Singh Hallan, stood with several of his constituents, two of whom were wearing shirts featuring the slogan “Leave our KIDS alone!”
This slogan has been a staple chant at parental rights rallies, and Trudeau pounced, claiming that the finance critic had stood with “an anti-LGBT group that is stirring up fears amongst parents.” What Trudeau did not mention is that the three men were Muslim Canadians — one of them, Mahmoud Mourra, has been a key figure in the parental rights protests in Calgary.
Muslim Canadians are following this debate very closely at the moment, and many of them will find it interesting that Justin Trudeau has decided to refer to concerned Muslim parents as “an anti-LGBT group.” Incidentally, the parents aren’t the ones stirring up the fears — their objections are to curriculum that is actually being taught to their kids, and to the mandatory gay “pride” celebrations that are now hosted at nearly every public school in the country.
Muslim parents were also very upset by an Edmonton, Alberta, teacher’s decision to berate Muslim students for declining participation in “pride” events, with a leaked recording going viral and one parent bringing it up with Trudeau directly. There’s now another leaked recording, this time of an elementary school teacher in Windsor, Ontario, chastising Muslim students for skipping “pride” day and calling their absence “disgusting” and an “incredible show of hatred”:
