The atmosphere in Winnipeg is tense. On the one hand, there are demonstrators who claim to be part of the parents’ movement. Their signs contain slogans against sex education and the “ideology” of gender identity. In front of them, counter-demonstrators defending LGBTQ+ rights.
These scenes were repeated from one end of the country to the other. Christian Michalik watched her with sadness, but not much surprise. This summer, his school board was targeted by a small group of protesters who view public schools as a place of indoctrination.
They stand in front of our schools, hand out leaflets and want to talk to parents, explains the general director of the Louis Riel school department. These are baseless accusations that we are pedophiles and that there is pornography in our schools.
There is a perception that we hide what is happening in our classrooms from parents, when in fact the opposite is true.
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Christian Michalik denounces the growing “distrust” of teachers and public schools.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Hugo Levesque
Christian Michalik sees this as an organized but extremely marginal movement. The people who want to enforce these speeches […] “It is not parents who have children in our schools,” he states.
But in recent months, the vocabulary of parental rights has left Facebook groups and entered the public sphere. It has even become one of the main election slogans of Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives, featured on park benches, buses and billboards.
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The Manitoba Conservatives are proud to be “the only party fighting for parents’ rights in schools.”
Photo: Radio-Canada / Hugo Levesque
Not a side issue, say conservatives
“People talk to us about it all the time at the doors,” asserts Progressive Conservative Réjeanne Caron. The candidate notes that the issue of parental rights resonates with a broad range of voters: parents, but also grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, she explains.
Parents want to know what’s going on with their children.
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Réjeanne Caron runs in the Fort Rouge Equestrian Championships in Winnipeg. She has been a police officer for about 30 years.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Hugo Levesque
If re-elected, his party has promised to change the Manitoba Public Schools Act. The Progressive Conservatives specifically say they want to better inform parents about bullying situations, but their leader remains vague when it comes to issues of gender identity or sexual education.
Réjeanne Caron also remains evasive on these questions. The candidate is content to repeat that her party listens to parents and that the law needs to be updated to better reflect our times.
The Manitoba Test
“I think that several conservative political forces in the country are paying close attention to what is currently happening in Manitoba,” notes political scientist Félix Mathieu.
He affirms that the issue of parental rights could convince various groups of voters: undecided people from the suburbs, cultural communities or sympathizers of the freedom convoy.
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In Winnipeg, protesters and counter-protesters insulted each other outside the legislative assembly.
Photo: Radio-Canada
The professor at the University of Winnipeg observes that it is becoming a kind of rallying point to bring people together who respond to the development of social movements in the Canadian political scene.
For the Progressive Conservatives, it proved to be a pretty important weapon to make gains.
Manitoba’s Conservatives aren’t the first to flirt with the parent movement. Saskatchewan and New Brunswick recently adopted policies that require schools to notify parents of changes to their child’s gender identity.
After Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, Manitoba could be the next province to legislate parental rights regarding gender identity and sex education. The Progressive Conservative Party has made this its main focus ahead of next Tuesday’s election. Groups see it as a homophobic platform and are concerned about growing polarization on the issue. Yasmine Mehdi’s report
A dangerous strategy, warn LGBTQ+ groups
According to the development director of the Rainbow Resource Center in Winnipeg, the so-called parents’ movement is primarily a homophobic movement that seeks to restrict the rights of their community.
I thought these debates had been over for years, but we [voit] “Let it start again,” laments Evan Maydaniuk.
[Le mouvement parental] gives people permission to display their homophobia more openly.
The young Manitoban recalls that organized religious groups work within this movement, which originated in the United States. It’s the same language as in Florida, where there are no anti-gay laws, he said.
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In Winnipeg, as elsewhere in the country, there were numerous counter-protesters in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Tyson Koschik
Evan is disappointed to see that parental rights have become a campaign issue: a distraction, he believes. Christian Michalik agrees and wishes the parties would instead discuss other issues affecting Manitoba students (e.g. full-day kindergarten).
Instead, we give credibility to hate speech and accusations that are unfounded, laments the director of the Winnipeg School Division.