Waterloo Region Parents Express Discontent with Public Schools

A summary of the 1MillionMarch4Kids demonstrations in Kitchener

Within the span of a month, people in the Waterloo Region participated in two demonstrations in support of parental involvement in child education. These events at Kitchener City Hall followed several examples of citizens being shut out, shut down, ignored, censored, or even publicly denounced by school boards.

Reasons for demonstrating varied but generally focused on the school boards’ lack of transparency and even contempt for parents, especially regarding gender and sexuality teachings. Some parents view this as a misallocation of limited resources that would be better spent towards achieving student mastery in math, reading, composition, science, civics, history, and other subjects important to many parents.

The first event on September 20^th was very well attended by both demonstrators and their opponents. Although numbers are hard to judge, the former were clearly in the majority. Another striking difference was seen demographically; the demonstrators were of many ages, ethnicities, and political and religious beliefs. Interestingly, recent immigrants were disproportionately represented among parents being shocked at what is being taught in schools, suggesting that more established Canadians have become numb to the increasing politicization of our education system. Overall, the atmosphere was family festive and even included helium balloons for the kids.

In contrast, the counter-protestors appeared to represent a uniform 2SLGBTQIA+ political viewpoint, and skewed young, white, and female. This was all the more striking in light of the prejudicial condemnations of the demonstrations by public sector unions and school boards in the days prior. Unions even went so far as to coordinate acts of intimidation by counter protesters such as photographing license plates.

The September 20^th event included speeches by 2022 school board trustee candidate Cristina Bairos Fernandes, professor David Haskell, as well as father David Todor who was featured on the national news that same evening.

Following the speeches the protestors made their way to Victoria Park, where a ‘Book Tent’ became the focal point of activity. The tent was used to keep children out as parents perused some of the books available to their children in school libraries. As documented by Fernandes, this was eye-opening to parents who were skeptical that concerning content existed in schools. Other parents were dismayed and some driven to tears when shown the content, even if they already knew about such sexualized material inside our children's books.

The October 21^st event was more sparsely attended but still probably outnumbered the counter protesters, although the latter had a more powerful sound system. Several speeches were made including by professor Geoff Horsman and therapist Jennifer Clarke. Although there was no march to Victoria Park on October 21st, the ‘Book Tent’ was set up for viewing throughout the duration of the event.