Canada’s Ontario province has passed a law empowering government to take children from parents who oppose the “gender identity” or “gender expression” of their child. The Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act of 2017 (Bill 89), which passed June 1 by a vote of 63 to 23 in Ontario’s legislature, requires courts, social workers, and adoption services to consider “race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, citizenship, family diversity, disability, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” when making decisions concerning a child’s welfare. That would include removing children from homes where parents oppose a child’s embrace of homosexuality or “gender” choice.
Michael Coteau, Ontario’s Minister of Child and Family Services, who introduced the bill, said that he considered it “a form of abuse, when a child identifies one way and a caregiver is saying no, you need to do this differently. If it’s abuse, and if it’s within the definition, a child can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops.”
Irwin Elman, Ontario’s provincial advocate for children and youth, added approvingly that the new law “represents a paradigm shift for the province with its commitment to the participation of children and youth in every decision that affects them, the creation of a child-centered system of service, and commitment to anti-racism and children’s rights.”
Bill 89 replaces the previous Child and Family Services Act, or Bill 28, which stipulated that a parent has the right to direct a child’s “education and religious upbringing.” The new law deletes faith considerations, requiring that parents direct a child “in accordance with the child’s or young person’s creed, community identity, and cultural identity.” The change means that a parent may not step in to challenge a child’s same-sex attraction, or his notion that he identifies with the opposite sex rather than the one with which he was born.
Opponents called the measure oppressive and a violation of religious liberties. “With the passage of Bill 89, we’ve entered an era of totalitarian power by the state, such as never witnessed before in Canada’s history,” said Jack Fonseca of Canada’s Campaign Life Coalition. “Make no mistake, Bill 89 is a grave threat to Christians and all people of faith who have children, or who hope to grow their family through adoption.”
Fonseca warned that the new law gives government bureaucrats “a type of police power to bust down your door, and seize your biological children if you are known to oppose LGBT ideology and the fraudulent theory of ‘gender identity’, if for instance, some claim is made that your child may be same-sex attracted or confused about their ‘gender.’”
Tanya Granic Allen of Canada’s Parents As First Educators said that “disappointed as I am with this result, I am not surprised,” adding that Ontario’s social liberals “have for years been pursuing their anti-parent and anti-family agenda and Bill 89 is the latest installment.”
Fonseca also targeted Christian leaders, particularly Canada’s Catholic bishops, for not stepping up to challenge the measure. “Why has the most powerful spiritual body in this province, the Catholic hierarchy, not lifted a finger nor raised a voice to oppose this tyranny against Christian families, and those from other faiths?” he challenged. “The lack of spiritual leadership is killing us. Every single time that Liberals, either federally or provincially, roll out the LGBT juggernaut to take away our rights, or to demonize us as bigots, we hear nothing but silence from the Church. This has to stop.”
