Skip to main content
new

Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak makes a campaign stop at a Tim Hortons in Blenheim on Oct. 3, 2011.DAVE CHIDLEY/The Canadian Press

A prominent gender researcher has levelled charges of discrimination against the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party over a controversial flyer circulated in GTA communities that she decries as hate speech.

The flyers use a series of quotes from news articles in an effort to suggest they relate to controversial portions of the Liberals' scrapped plan to revamp the Ontario education curriculum by introducing the topic of same-sex marriage to Grade 3 students and a mention of anal intercourse in Grade 7.

Critics have denounced the pamphlet – which was also circulated in Punjabi – as homophobic, because it raises the spectre of educators teaching small children how to cross dress and suggests children would be rewarded for learning about different sexual lifestyles through the use of a kissing booth.

"As researchers, teachers and activists dedicated to the study of gender and sexuality, we are deeply concerned by these materials," said Susan Fast, director of the graduate program in gender studies and feminist research at Hamilton's McMaster University.

"We are concerned that this is a form of hate speech against those whose are not heterosexual, or normatively gendered, and that the public circulation of these documents is profoundly discriminatory."

Brampton West candidate Ben Shenouda circulated the flyer over the weekend, but wouldn't comment when asked repeatedly at a party rally to explain the advertisement. Conservative Leader Tim Hudak stands by the flyer, deflecting any criticisms of its content for the second day by saying the focus should be upon the Liberals' agenda on sexual education for children.

Tuesday, when Mr. Hudak was asked if he backed the flyer, he responded with a terse "of course."

He then shifted the message back to the Liberal Party, suggesting that Leader Dalton McGuinty would teach sex ed to Grade 1 students and not tell parents what was going on in the school system.

"The only person who has any explaining to do is Dalton McGuinty," he said.

Mr. McGuinty shelved the new curriculum last April after a Christian group led by evangelist Charles McVety expressed outrage. The sex-ed curriculum being taught in schools is the one that has been in place since 1998, when the previous Tory government introduced it, and remains unchanged. Any changes would come with consultation, the Liberals said in a release.

Ms. Fast said her complaint wasn't about free speech, adding it isn't disrespectful to attack someone's position if it is simply incorrect.

"It is precisely the failure of our communities to adequately educate people on issues of gender and sexuality and to fully embrace difference that lead to the kind of misinformed and hateful ideas espoused in these documents.," she said. "They should never have been published or circulated."

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, meanwhile, took aim at the "negative, nasty" leaflet, vowing to avoid such tactics.

"I'm not surprised that people are reacting negatively to it," she said in Toronto before departing for Northern Ontario. "It's sandbox politics."

With a report from Adrian Morrow

Interact with The Globe