Dear Editor,
Last week Alberta’s Honourable Education Minister David Eggen was outspoken in calling for Albertan schools to be protected from the “infiltration of hateful and inaccurate propaganda.”
His statements were issued in the wake of a video recording of a young woman delivering a third-party presentation at École Secondaire Notre Dame High School in Red Deer on behalf of the Red Deer and Area Pro-Life group. What was her offense? Posing a connection between abortion and the Holocaust.
Convinced that no connection exists, Minister Eggen was swift to cry foul and declare that he has a “big problem” with the pro-life group making a school presentation and he did not stop short of also reprimanding the Red Deer Catholic Regional School District for their failure to filter out this terrible toxin. He denounced the presentation for being “inappropriate and misleading, using incorrect information” and, for good measure, also being “outrageous” and “frightening.”
It begs the question: why? Regrettably the minister has never offered an answer. Is it not true that abortion, like the Holocaust, has led to the loss of countless lives due to the denial of personhood? But rather than even try to appear impartial, the minister judged this respectful pro-life presentation to be outside the bounds of what “belongs” in the schools of this province, and he has insinuated that he will decide which views are permissible by stating that if similar presentations are happening across the province, he “want[s] to hear about it immediately.”
Though I have serious concerns should the minister assume the task of censorship as it will likely lead to flagrant governmental overreach and the erosion of freedom of speech, what I can wholeheartedly support is an inquiry into what students of Alberta’s schools are being exposed to. Perhaps the minister himself could begin by disclosing the names of the 300-400 experts behind the most sweeping radical reforms to the educational curriculum ever undertaken in this province; information which, to this point, he has persistently withheld from the public in spite of Freedom of Information requests.
Evidently, the minister is concerned about inaccurate views being forced upon students. In a twist of irony, that puts him in the company of the many concerned parents who are wondering why they and their children are being forced to accept the radical gender ideology and social innovations the minister and his consultants are aggressively promoting.
Calvin Vanderlinde Barrhead, AB
