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An essay by Dr. Nick Mulé

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For Immediate Release
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The Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario (ACBO) and the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association (OCSTA) recently released a memo in response to the ongoing controversy regarding student requests to set up and operate Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs) within Ontario’s publicly funded Catholic secondary school system.   Unfortunately, the framework and initiative being developed fails to address the requests of queer-identified and straight supportive students, provincial policy on the matter and protections in the Ontario Human Rights Code.

The ACBO and OCSTA are currently working in collaboration with the Institute for Catholic Education (ICE) on a nameless framework featuring an anti-bullying initiative that focuses on sexual orientation.  The emphasis is on enhancing existing resources on anti-bullying within Catholic School Boards, with a particular focus on sexual orientation, yet guided by the Catholic faith.

Although details of this plan are yet to be released, this stated emphasis is problematic on numerous fronts.  First and foremost, despite ACBO and OCSTA’s claim that this initiative will address the current needs of students, it is in fact a drastic curtailing of the actual needs of students requesting GSAs.  GSAs provide supportive environments in which students gather to address not only bullying and safety concerns, but also to develop welcoming environments, raise public awareness by participating in national LGBTQ-positive campaigns and local initiatives, networking and linking to community resources and training for youth leadership – all of which is focused both on sexual orientation and gender identity.  The ACBO and OCSTA framework is narrowly restricted to anti-bullying and sexual orientation.   This framework prohibits any discussion of diversity in relationships and lifestyle and completely omits the needs of students dealing with issues of gender identity and gender expression.

If ACBO and OCSTA are positing this initiative as a compromise, it fails to measure up to provincial policy on the subject that explicitly states, “Boards must also help school staff to give support to students who wish to participate in gay-straight alliances and in other student-led activities that promote understanding and development of healthy relationships” (PPM 145). Yet, despite this, the provincial Ministry of Education has neither indicated whether they will implement their policy nor publicly endorse the ACBO-OCSTA initiative.  In an accompanying message to their memo, ACBO and OCSTA state, “Catholic schools are known as places that embrace inclusivity, equity and the acceptance of all people”, yet this is clearly contradicted by the Pastoral Guidelines to Assist Students of Same-Sex Orientation, a document the Institute for Catholic Education was involved in the production of, in which same-sex attractions and desires are discouraged, seen as unnatural and denigrated. We see the position taken on same-sex attractions in the pastoral guidelines as an active disavowal of the humanity and dignity of an equity-seeking group in Canada, especially in a Charter era in Canada. We maintain that compelling Catholic educators to follow such guidelines represents a grievous contravention of the Ontario Human Rights Code, particularly given that the Catholic school system is publicly funded in this province.

As well, in an April 27^th interview with the Toronto Star, Nancy Kirby, President of the OCSTA asserts that GSAs will continue to be banned because they are “associated with activist groups, and the purpose of our clubs will be to provide support, not activism”. We challenge this not only because any work that is done to demystify stereotypes and eliminate discrimination/oppression is a form of activism but also, there is a clear inequity being  exposed here in what types of activism are considered acceptable versus unacceptable by Catholic school boards. Every year, Catholic schools pack busloads of students and head to Ottawa for the Canada National March for Life- an anti-abortion rights rally. If this type of activism which seeks to limit the reproductive choices of women is acceptable, we question how activism that seeks to improve the learning environments for all students is considered ‘bad’ activism? Queer Ontario views this not only as an affront to the rights of youth to assemble and voice their agency but also, a systemic condoning of activism that suits the church while leveraging discriminatory activism where the church’s needs are not suited.

Therefore, it is Queer Ontario’s position that the ACBO and OCSTA anti-bullying related sexual orientation initiative will not adequately provide all that can be provided by the establishment of GSAs, that it does not meet the standards of provincial policy, and that in combination with the Pastoral Guidelines contravenes the Ontario Human Rights Code.  Most importantly, this initiative fails to address the actual needs of LGBTQ-identified and straight supporting students to have the GSAs they requested and for these reasons, Queer Ontario feels this initiative is a failed attempt at addressing an important issue.

Queer Ontario is a provincially based network of individuals who are members of the gender and sexually diverse populations and their allies committed to liberationist and sex positive principles that focus on questioning, challenging and seeking reform to social norms and laws that regulate queer people. Queer Ontario engages in public education, political action, promoting access and diversity and coalition building.

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Requests meeting with Pride Toronto in light of its current questionable mechanisms
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QUEER ONTARIO has just released its Pride Toronto Evaluation Report featuring 94 recommendations designed to clean up and democratize Pride Toronto’s governance and planning processes, as promised in our boycott of the Community Advisory Panel back in August of 2010. Based on the feedback Queer Ontario received from an internal qualitative survey we conducted in January – a copy of which has been appended to the report –  these recommendations address a number of critical concerns that were brought forward by our respondents: from the organization’s failure to live up to its terms of reference and its inability to protect the needs and interests of its constituent communities; to the micromanagerial and censorial way in which it has been organizing the Pride Festival.

Indeed, there is a need and urgency for the Queer Ontario Report given that it provides a number of counter-points to the recommendations set out in the report produced by the Community Advisory Panel (CAP). For while we commend many of the recommendations put forward by the CAP in its report – a number of which were congruent with ours – we also feel it houses some rather troubling ones that compromise the expressive freedoms of Toronto’s LGBTQ communities. These include:

1. The Anti-Discrimination Policy (Recommendation 115)
While fine in principle, the requirement to have Pride marchers and parade participants sign Pride Toronto’s anti-discrimination policy needs to be interrogated on two fronts. On the one hand, as an attempt by Pride Toronto to curtail unfavourable political, sexual, or artistic expression, especially since its anti-discrimination policy differs so widely from that of the City of Toronto. And secondly, as a measure of how much Pride Toronto is trying to appease its ‘allies’ – individuals and groups that should in theory be 100% accepting, understanding, and supportive of the Pride Festival and everything it stands for.

2. The CAP Implementation / Policy Advisory Committee (Recommendation 26)
While we welcome the formation of a Policy Advisory Committee, which will help Pride Toronto develop new policies to become a more efficient and responsive organization, we question how effective this Committee will be if its mandate is also to properly implement all the CAP’s recommendations. Indeed, we can only hope the Committee members have the acuity to apprehend problematic recommendations given that no public process was put in place to nominate, debate, or elect its members – just like Community Advisory Panel in September of 2010, and the Dispute Resolution Panel in April of 2011.

3. The Dispute Resolution Process (Recommendation 129-131)
Lastly: we cannot help but notice that the principles of the Ethics Committee that was formed and later rescinded by Pride Toronto in 2010 are being revived in the Dispute Resolution Process. Although instead of making the review process one that is administered by Pride Toronto, before the Parade, and mandatory for all participants, the Dispute Resolution Process now transfers the regulatory powers onto a body of legal experts, after the parade, and only once a community group has filed a complaint against another. So much for ‘building community’.

Of course, were the Pride Toronto Board more personally engaged with its constituent communities and more knowledgeable about who does or does not comprise Toronto’s ‘LGBTQ community’ (and why), such a Resolution Process would not be necessary in the first place. Pride Toronto’s ability to confidently and articulately defend a group’s participation in the Parade would suffice in these trying cases.

Since these three mechanisms represent a threat to the freedom of speech and the freedom of expression Toronto’s LGBTQ communities have fought so long to secure – a history that Pride Toronto should be conscious of given its commitment to ‘build upon’ and ‘celebrate’ the history of Toronto’s LGBTQ communities – we are calling on Pride Toronto to halt its ‘wholesale’ implementation of the CAP recommendations and to continue its dialogue with Toronto’s LGBTQ communities. Not only to receive more systematic feedback on the CAP Report and the consultation process that begot it, but to also receive and consider other recommendations which were not included in the CAP Report – be it because of the unconsultative way in which the Community Advisory Panel was struck; or the corporatist, political, or class biases of its members.

We call on Pride Toronto, then, to revisit its own mission statement which still remains committed to celebrating all of Toronto’s LGBTQ communities, regardless of their identities, politics, or expressions. After all, a mission to celebrate the diversity of Toronto’s LGBTQ community includes a commitment to unapologetically encourage the display of all kinds of LGBTQ expression – from the fun and the frivolous to the ‘political’, the ‘controversial,’ the ‘shocking.’ Especially if one of Pride Toronto’s values is to celebrate its constituent communities with “provocative, racy, and outrageous events.”

Indeed, it is time for Pride Toronto to reverse the resentful and community-phobic approach it has been using to guide the organization over the last five years, and to begin a more responsive, and respectful, era of Pride-community relations.

The public is welcome to provide feedback and commentary on the Queer Ontario Report via the Queer Ontario website, and are encouraged to share their own concerns and recommendations with the Pride Toronto Board, directly.

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Queer Ontario is a provincially based network of individuals who are members of the gender and sexually diverse populations and their allies committed to liberationist and sex positive principles that focus on questioning, challenging and seeking reform to social norms and laws that regulate queer people. Queer Ontario engages in public education, political action, promoting access and diversity and coalition building.

Interviews:
Nick Mulé
Chairperson,
Queer Ontario
416.926.9135
nickm@look.ca
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