The progressive panic attack after the defeat of the NDP government in British Columbia last week has continued unabated. On October 27, the president of the BC Teachers’ Federation, the labor union representing all public school teachers, issued a statement pushing the narrative that the BC Conservative government poses a threat to minorities in the province.
“The results of the October 24 provincial election were not what I, or many of you, had hoped for,” Carole Gordon wrote. “I recognize that with the outcome of a Conservative government, many of us may be feeling disappointed, scared, or deeply concerned about what might come next. I know these results may be particularly concerning for Indigenous, racialized, and 2SLGBTQIA+ members. The BCTF will use every avenue available to protect your rights and challenge discrimination.”
In short: The BC Conservative Party, which ran on a common sense platform largely devoid of right-wing language, is a direct threat to the rights of BC students.
The long march of the LGBT movement through the province’s educational system was actually quite short. The Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) teaching resources and educator network were introduced into BC schools in 2016 after being developed by the BCTF and the ARC Foundation, an LGBT activist group founded to promote LGBT curriculum in schools from kindergarten to Grade 12. ARC received over $2 million in taxpayer dollars to assist in its mission.
The BCTF is committed to maintaining the progressive stranglehold on public education regardless of who the voters – most of whom send their children to public schools – choose to send to Victoria. Their 2026-2027 “leadership priorities” include:
Continuing to support decolonization both within and outside of our structures and advocate for Indigenous Peoples’ struggles for justice around the world.
Enhancing local and member political organizing capacity toward electing progressive school trustees and mobilizing on working conditions especially in preparation for bargaining.
Responding to immediate member needs related to excessive workload, violence in classrooms, and the influence of the far right.
Enhancing support and protection for members experiencing marginalization and applying a decolonizing and anti-oppression lens to practices and accountability processes.
The “far right” the BCTF is referring to includes, in their view, those who oppose the radical SOGI curriculum, which includes introducing children in kindergarten to the idea that someone’s “gender identity” may differ from their “sex assigned at birth” – in other words, that children can be born into the wrong body. This can include a children’s story book about a transgender teddy bear. Being “far right” isn’t about being a Nazi; it means holding views that virtually every Canadian held just a few years ago.
During the 2024 election, BCTF issued a statement condemning the BC Conservative Party, noting “promises to eliminate SOGI 123, an evidence-supported resource that is proven to reduce violence and discrimination for all students”; during the past election, the Surrey Teachers’ Association urged members not to vote for the BC Conservatives, specifically citing “progress” on “2SLGBTQIA+ rights.” As Rebel News noted, this “progress” includes sexually explicit and pornographic books being made available to students.
For LGBT-aligned groups like BCTF, protecting “progress” means ensuring that their ideology remains entrenched in the public school system and other provincial institutions even if their political patrons are thrown out by frustrated voters. Unless the BC Conservatives are willing to do the difficult work of rooting out the ideology and the idealogues, they will succeed – while each new successive generation plodding their way through the public school system absorbs the narrative that even mildly conservative politicians pose an existential threat to their very existence.
