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DEI

School boards need leaders who focus on education not politics

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6 minute read

From the Fraser Institute

By Michael Zwaagstra

Canada’s largest school board is looking for a new leader. Colleen Russell-Rawlins, director of education of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), will retire this fall.

To say her tenure has been controversial would be an understatement. During her three years in the top job, TDSB doubled down on its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, with tragic consequences. Former TDSB principal Richard Bilkszto took his own life last year after facing relentless harassment from other administrators for challenging DEI orthodoxy during a professional development session.

The harms caused by DEI extend even further. Two years ago, TDSB voted to abolish its merit-based admissions policy at specialized arts and sports schools in the name of “equity.” Parents of students in these schools were not happy about this erosion of standards. After spending years building up these specialized schools, TDSB is now tearing them down.

Add to this the ongoing harassment of Jewish students in TDSB schools and the failure of administrators to crack down on employees who disseminate blatantly anti-Israel propaganda. Expect things to get even worse if trustees replace Russell-Rawlins with someone with a similar mindset and approach.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what will happen if TDSB follows the guidelines provided by the Ontario Public Supervisory Officers’ Association (OPSOA), the organization representing superintendents and directors of education in Ontario.

To be eligible for the position, prospective directors of education must complete the OPSOA’s Supervisory Officer’s Qualification Program. However, this program looks like a woke propogandist’s dream. According to the OPSOA’s website, the qualification program focuses on “anti-oppression, anti-racism, [and] anti—colonialism.” No wonder education directors appear obsessed with these topics.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce has stated that he wants school boards to focus more on academics. He’s even gone so far as to publicly rebuke school boards that get mired in debates over secondary issues such as masks or transgender policy. Lecce is right to be concerned. From 2003 to 2022, Ontario’s PISA math test scores declined from 530 to 495. That’s the equivalent of nearly two years of learning loss. Clearly, something needs to change.

However, things will only change for the better when school boards start hiring education directors who reject DEI ideology and who put academics first. This means choosing men and women who haven’t climbed the career ladder by pushing DEI initiatives.

At a minimum, the province must drop the requirement for education directors to hold supervisory officer’s qualifications. Making the completion of a program replete with DEI buzzwords such as “anti-oppression” and “anti-colonial” mandatory is a surefire way to ensure that education directors will focus on non-academic issues.

Fortunately, the Ford government has started making at least some changes. Back in 2020, Ontario removed the requirement for directors of education to be former teachers. Considering the uselessness of most Bachelor of Education courses, it’s legitimate to ask why anyone would need an education degree to run a school board.

Obviously, none of this means that qualifications don’t matter. The Ford government’s recent announcement that all future teachers must pass a math proficiency test shows that basic competency matters. People working for school boards, particularly those in the top job, must also be familiar with the education system and know how to lead effectively.

It’s important to remember why we have schools in the first place. The purpose of education is to help students master the academic basics, acquire important life skills, and become responsible Canadian citizens—not to indoctrinate students into woke ideology.

Schools can only function if they have the trust of the communities they serve. If parents feel that teachers are ignoring their concerns or are disrespecting their beliefs, they will pull their kids out of the government school system and pursue other educational options. While parents should always have this right, it’s unfortunate when they are forced into it by administrators who are hostile to their values.

TDSB trustees have a real opportunity to make a change for the better by hiring an education director with a track record of putting academics first. Otherwise, TDSB will continue its downward spiral.

Real change starts at the top. Hopefully, TDSB trustees realize the importance of the decision they are about to make and hire the right person for the job.

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2025 Federal Election

Mark Carney is trying to market globalism as a ‘Canadian value.’ Will it work?

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

A campaign to appeal to national sentiment is a strange gambit for Liberals – committed as they are to the replacement of the nation with globalist policies.

The storm over Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs over the Canadian border crisis has been baked into a vote-winning meme by Canada’s Liberal Party. Yet with an election only weeks away on April 28, can a sentimental appeal to a vanished Canada secure a win for Mark Carney?  

Trump’s tariffs were expected to hit Canada on Wednesday’s “Liberation Day,” refueling a furor over Canadian sovereignty which has led some to say this is “shaping up to be the trade war election.”

Responding to the tariffs, which ultimately never came to fruition in the way the Liberals were warning, a meme war broke out with Carney responding to harsh reality with a feelgood slogan.  

“Elbows up!” is the new Current Thing in Canada, a media craze designed to stir nationalist indignation in elderly voters who may even remember the 1950s origin of the phrase.  

The elbows refer to those of Gordie Howe – a 1950s hockey legend from Saskatchewan – a conservative province – and from a time when Canada was populated by Canadians.  

It bears all the hallmarks of an “astroturf” campaign – intended to look authentic, but in reality a manufactured mass belief for marketing purposes. 

“Elbows up” seeks to inspire a fighting mood against the threat – or promise – of tariffs on Canadian trade with the U.S.  

Carney will ‘cave’

It is a classic example of the manipulation of popular feeling into political allegiance. How will the feelings of aging voters affect the imposition of tariffs? Not at all. Nor will the Canadian Prime Minister be able to stop them.  

Silence over ‘devastating’ Chinese tariffs caused by Trudeau

Why? Carney has no alternative. He has already “caved” – to China – over the same issue. “Devastating” Chinese tariffs took effect over a week ago in Canada, as Global News reported:  

Canadian agricultural producers are warning of devastating impacts from new Chinese tariffs that began Thursday (March 20th), which they say will compound the economic strain from the U.S. trade war.

The tariffs are severe, and will have a dramatic impact – as China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner behind the United States. 

“China has imposed a 100 per cent levy on Canadian canola oil and meal, as well as peas, plus a 25 per cent duty on seafood and pork,” the outlet reported.  

These tariffs cannot be corrected by hockey memes, and are a response to tariffs placed on Chinese goods by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Liberal Party – seeking election over outrage on tariffs – has created a tariff crisis, whose costs will be borne by the people who vote for them.  

There are no “elbows up” against China. In fact, their tariffs have been greeted with silence from Carney, who has said U.S.-Canada relations are at an end. 

Corruption, drug cartels in Canada

Anger at Donald Trump obscures the serious problems which prompted his suggestion that Canada could be absorbed into the United States. “Elbows Up” is a cool way of making Canadians look past the fact that the crisis they inhabit has been created by the Liberals and their globalist agenda. 

On February 1, Trump issued an executive order “Imposing duties to address the flow of illicit drugs across our northern border.”

Terry Glavin, writing in January for Canada’s National Post, dismissed Trump’s earlier claims of a crisis over Canadian “border security and drug trafficking” as a “pretext” for his “…declared objective of exerting ‘economic force’ to annex Canada as the 51st American state.” 

Yet this too appears to be a fantasy inspired by national sentiment – which simply ignores reality. 

As LifeSiteNews reported, Canada’s second bank has laundered over 18 trillion dollars in the U.S. and Canada for Mexican and Chinese drug cartels. The world’s largest fentanyl factory was discovered in Vancouver in February.    

Canada a ‘failed state’?

The serious issue of corruption by Chinese Triads combines with a picture of impotent Canadian law and border enforcement to suggest that Canada may be, as Glavin warned, “approaching failed-state status.” When the memes wear off, this is the reality faced by Canadian voters.  

Canadians have complained since 2017 that life is too expensive to have a family. 

Now “a generation” cannot afford a home, and many struggle to pay for groceries. Help is at hand, however.  

Their Liberal government supports Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) – killing the elderly, poor and ill as healthcare – whilst promoting radical “gender” ideology to help sterilize children. 

Will Carney come to the rescue?  

Carney is a committed “Net Zero” fanatic, and is the kind of “Catholic” who fervently supports abortion.  

His moral integrity is demonstrated further by the fact that his $25 billion “green” investment fund was located in Bermuda to dodge Canadian taxes. 

As the Canadian Catholic Register cautions, “[Carney] is a well-connected globalist with deep ties to institutions such as the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, Bank for International Settlements, and the Financial Stability Board.” 

Globalist ‘Canadian’ values

National identity is a strange appeal to make on behalf of a party which appears to be working hard to replace Canadians with immigrants, and which is now lead by a globalist technocrat.  

It is the values of globalism, of course, which are presented to voters as “Canadian values”: open borders, LGBTQ “rights,” “gender” surgery and hormones for children, and the Net Zero deindustrialization program strongly supported by the Liberal leader Mark Carney.  

How long can this appeal to save the nation of Canada from foreign influence convince Canadians to vote for more of the same? The Liberal Party has led Canada into crisis, presiding over corruption so severe that its police, judicial and border authorities are deemed incapable of being trusted by the USA.   

This is not a charge made solely by the Trump administration, but also under Biden – with Antony Blinken pressing the matter of the insecurity of the Canadian border as far back as 2022. In the coming weeks, the real issues which have consigned Canada to a fond memory may well shrink the Liberal lead reported by the polls. 

What do the polls say?

With some headlines trumpeting an “eight point lead” for the Liberals, others show a narrower advantage for the globalist Carney – and one leading firm has them tied with the Conservatives. 

Abacus Data’s March 30 poll had both parties neck and neck at 39%. Abacus, who describe themselves as “Canada’s most sought-after, influential, and impactful polling firm,” “…were one of the most accurate pollsters conducting research during the 2021 Canadian election.”

A second poll shows a narrower lead, and a clear bonus for Carney for simply not being Justin Trudeau.  

338 Canada showed a four point lead for the Liberals on March 31, and its graph clearly illustrates that their lead relies on disaffected NDP voters – and the collapse of the Bloc Quebecois vote. 

Reality enters the chat 

With the issues at home now overtaking Trump and his tariffs, the cost of living and those allied to mass migration such as housing are returning to the forefront of voters’ minds. The issue of reality – and who is the real Mark Carney – may well overtake the fake nationalism of “Elbows up.”

A campaign to appeal to national sentiment is a strange gambit for Liberals – committed as they are to the replacement of the nation with globalist policies – and of its people through mass immigration. Carney has been powerless to halt Chinese tariffs. He is powerless to halt those of Donald Trump.  

If Canadians can see beyond cringe hockey memes these two issues are clearly a reaction to the actions and inaction of a Liberal-led Canada. This is the reason that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is campaigning on the harm done to Canadians by the “lost Liberal decade.” If Canadians can be persuaded by the argument presented by reality, it seems unlikely they will vote for another – whatever the polls may say.

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2025 Federal Election

Poilievre promises to drop ‘radical political ideologies’ in universities

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has pledged to prioritize funding scientific research over ‘radical political ideologies’ at Canadian universities.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to scrap government funding of “radical political ideologies” in higher education if elected prime minister.

During an April 2 speech in Toronto, Poilievre told a French reporter that his Conservative government will focus on promoting scientific research rather than furthering radical ideologies in Canadian universities.

“The money we spend on research will go to research, not to promoting political ideologies,” Poilievre said. “We want, for example, our science and technology research to go into technological breakthroughs, inventions, innovations, discoveries, cures for terrible diseases that can improve Canadian lives.”

“That is what Canadians expect their tax dollars to go to, not to spend it on radical political ideologies that are first of all completely out of touch with the values of Canadians, and second of all, have no scientific value to our people,” Poilievre added.

This was the second time Poilievre denounced woke spending at universities, the first time being at a Quebec rally last week.

The policy proposal has seemed to draw the ire of some in academia, with Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) executive director David Robinson stating, “It’s worrying that a leader of a political party in Canada would try to dictate how research funds will be granted.”

“We’ve seen the impact of this political meddling south of the border where the Trump administration has launched a full-scale assault on universities and the scientific community,” he continued. “This kind of American-style culture war has no place in Canada.”

Under U.S. President Donald Trump, public schools and universities were given until the end of February to eliminate their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs or risk losing federal funding.

More than 30 states have introduced legislation that would eliminate DEI programs from education as part of a broader push against woke ideology spearheaded by Republicans such as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

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