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Bill 67: A Closer Look

Ontario's Bill 67 will profoundly affect education from K to University

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A CRT poster in a Canadian Home Depot employee locker room, titled “Unpacking Privilege,” pitted those whose ‘wokeness’ gives them Enlightened Privilege over those born with a certain skin colour, or belonging to a specific religion that celebrates Christmas, or being “able bodied,” etc. (Image: Anthony Dayton Substack)

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Continuing from the previous discussion of Bill 67, the Racial Equity in the Education System Act, the whole purpose is to invoke Critical Race Theory as the guiding and organizing principle of Ontario’s education system; this will fundamentally affect the education of every Ontario student, from K to post secondary studies, and in turn, the type of society they will create.

In short, all of Ontario’s public school children will be educated – indoctrinated – in a Marxist framework which divides society into power struggles. For Marx it was a class issue. For proponents of CRT, it is racism, along with class, with Whites and “the privileged” in the role of the bad guys, and just about everyone else as the good guys.

In fact, CRT is here already. Two brief examples bear witness.

In 2019, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, announcing consultations for setting up an anti-racism strategy, said that “systemic racism” wasn’t part of his vocabulary. Shortly afterwards, however, it was. The Canadian Press reported that the Minister received pressure to walk that statement back, which he did in the Commons, referring to the “systemic racism” and oppression and discrimination preventing various peoples from full participation in society.

Recently (March 2022) a poster was discovered pinned to a bulletin board in a Canadian Home Depot employee locker room. Titled “Unpacking Privilege,” the poster detailed six types of privilege, which, in CRT speak, has become a very dirty word. They were: White; male, Christian, cisgender, class, able-bodied and heterosexual.  If you are a combination of these privileges, then perhaps you have multiple sins. The second page, however, zeroes in on White Privilege, suggesting that you (?) could have a conversation with ‘them,’ and how to deal with people who are defensive about it.

The flyer doesn’t say who “we” are, the ones who must be our teachers, but whomever they are, they are arrogant and paternalistic: they are the ones who know, and they must be the teachers converting those of us who are not yet sufficiently enlightened, or to use the modern parlance, “woke.” If ever there was an example of elitism…

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Many people responded angrily, threatening to shop elsewhere, although apparently some did voice approval. The takeaway, regardless of your view, is that this is an extremely divisive movement, pitting those whose ‘wokeness’ gives them Enlightened Privilege over those who are negatively privileged for having been born with a certain skin colour of the pinkish variety, or belonging to a specific religion that celebrates Christmas, or being “able bodied,” or attracted to one’s opposite sex, and finally, being both born and living as male or female.  

The focus of Bill 67, however, is all about White privilege: so educational cleansing must begin with White people being taught that they are privileged and, by virtue of their whiteness, inherently racist.

Because White teachers, consciously or subconsciously, bring their racism into the classroom, it follows that it affects how they teach and relate to non-Whites, and so it must be purged from them. To that end, Bill 67 establishes training for new teachers to rid them of their racism. Successful completion of courses to help eradicate or purge their racism and privilege will be required of all aspiring teachers in order for them to be granted a teaching certificate.

Similarly, all teachers, (and supposedly administrators) currently holding degrees and teaching certificates will take special anti-racist courses as part of their professional development: essentially, this is forced indoctrination into government sanctioned correct thinking, as per Bill 67.

Think of this as Proof of Vaccination status. For two years, teachers, as all public sector workers, have been required to show proof of inoculation against Covid 19 in order to teach. With Bill 67, in order to maintain their licenses as educators, teachers must be inoculated against the racial virus.

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Will teachers who are Black, People of Color, or Asian, be forced to take these courses? Or will they be exempt because, as members of an oppressed class, they have a ‘natural immunity’ to racism? Based on certain wording of the act, it’s likely that even they will be required to take the anti-racist vaccine:   

Despite anything in a regulation made under this Act, a performance appraisal of a teacher shall include competencies related to a teacher’s anti-racism awareness and the teacher’s efforts to promote racial equity.

The wording doesn’t stipulate exceptions. Seems somewhat illogical, though, to have Black teachers take courses meant to purge Whites of racism. Maybe this will be refined when the regulations are written, but meanwhile, it seems to demonstrate the illogical overreach of this legislation.

In addition to showing competencies in their subject matter and their teaching techniques, teachers will now have to show that they are competently aware of anti-racism and have made competent efforts promoting racial equity. (Remember that equity involves outcomes, not equality.) What those competency standards will look like will be determined by the regulations developed after the act is passed, and by the people eventually hired and designated to set up and enforce them. Too late by then.

Will Ontario students be asked to turn in their teachers if they are not woke enough or vocal enough with their support for CRT? (Image: maciverinstitute.com)

Another section of Bill 67 governs colleges and universities. It’s a little dry, but worth the minute to read it:

(7)  Every college or university described in subsection (2) shall collect from its students, faculty, staff, and other persons, and provide to the Minister, such data and other information relating to the following as may be requested by the Minister, in the manner and form directed by the Minister:

1. The number of times supports, services, complaints, resolutions, and accommodation  relating to racism are requested, made, and obtained by students enrolled at or faculty or staff of the college or university, and information about the supports, services, complaints, resolutions and accommodation.

2. Any anti-racism initiatives and programs established by the college or university to promote awareness of the supports and services available to students, faculty, and staff.

3. The number of incidents and complaints of racism reported by students, faculty and staff and information about such incidents and complaints, including how the incidents and complaints were addressed or resolved.

4. The implementation and effectiveness of the policy.

 Imagine the number of administrative positions required to organize and collect all this data, as well as the distraction from students’ studies and faculty research to ensure these services and programs are in place, and then the time and workforce required to create and submit the report – to be submitted to the Ministry every three years. Worse, the same scope of information and data is to be provided to the Board of Governors each and every year. This is going to be a very expensive make-work project.      

Why all the heavy, burdensome administration?

Because Bill 67 is not about achieving fairness; it is about total control of the education system, putting it into the hands of a few with agendas who will then be set up as infallible and unreachable, and clearly removing education from parental input. It is a top down oligarchy. 

Bill 67 contains about 6 pages of required changes to the Education Act of Ontario, to bring about its vision of “equity”. (Image: Unsplash)

Sound like exaggeration? Read this.

If the Minister learns, upon conducting an investigation or otherwise, that a member of the  Council does not have a proven commitment to racial equity in the post-secondary education  sector, the Minister shall require that member to take anti-racism training within the  following six months.

And how will the Minister learn of the sinner’s lack of proven commitment to racial equity? In other words, even on the Council itself, questioners of any aspect of the accepted orthodoxy will not be tolerated. They will be reported, subjected to an investigation forcing them to prove their loyalty and fealty to CRT; if they cannot convincingly show their “proven commitment,” then they will be re-educated.

Re-education: a long-time favourite of various Communist countries. No departure from group think is ever permitted. Who would dare speak up in a Star Chamber Ministry?

Who would likely be asked to serve on the various committees? This also isn’t stated in Bill 67, but when Ottawa set up its ‘Anti-Racism Secretariat’ in 2019, the invitations to apply were divided into separate sessions. In addition to stakeholder and all community member sessions, other sessions were specified to: racialized residents; racialized women and gender diverse persons; racialized youth; racialized persons with disabilities; racialized Francophones, and racialized 2SLGBTQQIA+ Community.

One aspect of these classifications seems unclear. As an example, “racialized persons with disabilities.” Does that mean that those with disabilities but who have not been racialized need not apply? Or is it that to be disabled is by definition to be racialized? If it is the second choice – that all of these groups are “racialized,” then using the word “racialized” in front of the groupings seems redundant, unless it is to continuously remind everyone else that the country is systemically racist.

It would have been easy enough set up all-call interview sessions, reaching out to the various communities to ensure there was representation from all of them, but this divisive application process conveys the mentality in current government, anti-racist thinking, segmenting Canadians into some sort of tribal identity groupings. It wouldn’t be surprising to find a similar culling process for the candidates to be selected for the various positions to be created by Bill 67’s regulations, once it gets underway.

The entirety of Bill 67 lacks the breadth and depth of democratic thinking, something Canada has seen too much of these last few years. Or as one Substack writer, Samuel Sey recently wrote in his SlowtoWrite blog, “Anti-racism is anti-Canadian.”

There are several initiatives “out there” to make yourself heard against Bill 67 should you be concerned about its adoption. Parents as First Educators is a good place to begin.

Anthony Dayton is former Ontario public schools and Seneca College educator, who developed several writing and English courses for TVO. He has been a features writer for ten years at The Mainstreet Unionville News, a blogger for a major syndicated news service and for a private media Company, and is a product and event photographer.

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We do news differently!

Our positioning as a Zionist News Media platform sets us apart from the rest. While other Canadian Jewish media are advocating increasingly biased progressive political and social agendas, TheJ.Ca is providing more and more readers with a welcome alternative and an ideological home.

We revealed the incursion of anti-Israel progressive elements such as IfNotNow into our communities. We have exposed the distorted hateful agenda of the “progressive” left political radicals who brought Linda Sarsour to our cities, and we were first to report on many disturbing incidents of Nazi-based hate towards Jews across Canada.

But we can’t do it alone. We need your HELP!

Our ability to thrive and grow in 2020 and beyond depends on the generosity of committed readers and supporters like you.

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