Category: Human Rights

The saga of the ban on Gay-Straight Alliances in this province’s Catholic schools continues. However, there is much cause to be optimistic. This past November, the McGuinty government introduced Bill 13, also known as the “Accepting Schools Act.” Among the provisions in the bill is the following: Every board shall support pupils who want to…

  The picture of the television screen above was taken from my hotel room in Toronto a few weeks ago. The caption read “Forcing Liberal Agenda on Kids” and was referring to the new provisions in the Ontario curriculum that would make schools more inclusive for queer students. Naturally, the accompanying imagery wasn’t of children, but of…

The new school year has come, and contrary to my hopes, LGBT students in Catholic schools are still banned from forming Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs. However, to satisfy the provincial government, these schools are to roll out their own groups using a framework devised by the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association which is to manage the issue…

Following up on my last post, I sent this message to my MPP asking for clarification on his statements: Thank you very much for your reply. I did hear the comments made on behalf of the Premier. It was not clear to me, however, if this meant that students would no longer be forbidden from…

A little over three months ago, I sent a letter to my local MPP discussing the ban on Gay-Straight Alliances in Ontario Catholic schools and imploring action. His name is Yasir Naqvi, and he also happens to be the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Education. Yesterday, his reply arrived. Dear Mr. McArdle, Thank you for…

On Tuesday, the Minister of Education for the province of Ontario attended a breakfast to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. It was there where the Xtra! finally caught up to her, and was able to talk about the Gay-Straight Alliances and its province-wide ban in Catholic schools. Unfortunately, it turns out that the minister sides…

An article came out in the Xtra today discussing the current state of the ban on Gay-Straight Alliance clubs at the Halton District Catholic School Board. It’s been four months since the issue garnered the attention of the national press, but for all the talk, there has been no progress. The situation with the Ottawa…

Much has happened since I wrote my last entry on the matter of Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs and the Ottawa Catholic Schools. The Xtra wrote a piece on the petition, which has now exceeded 550 signatures. I was interviewed on CBC radio, and their online news section gave it some attention. Meanwhile, a girl from…

For all those of you who have been following me for a while, I apologize that the focus of my blog has become all about LGBT issues. I talk about what I’m interested in, and right now it has to do with these problems. For the last few weeks, I’ve been campaigning to lift the…

This was originally an update to my previous post about homophobia in Halton, but  I got pissed off enough that I thought it warranted it’s own post. The Ottawa Catholic School Board is just as homophobic, but they learned from Halton’s public relations disaster. They learned how to spin their anti-LGBT actions as equity and…